Blues for Allah: Double Drummer Deal Night Two Recap

photos: William Morgan, Thom Bloom, Michael Chojonowski, Dave Martin

Help On The Way!  A big crowd of appreciative fans rolled away the dew with us in the second of our two-night stand at Otus Supply.  We were joined once again by Justin Lee from Dead at the Winery and Jake Wolf from Colorado's Sages and Spirits.  Part of the reason Jake decided to wheel to the storm and fly to Detroit was the promise to play the last few songs in the Dead catalog he'd never done - and we did them all!  Blues for Allah and King Solomon's Marbles were both checked off Jake's bucket list as part of our performance of the jazziest album in the Dead's catalog Saturday night.  

The evening started with a funky Stranger, and kicked into the album with the classic tryptich Help>Slip>Frank.  After a quick breath, we launched into King Solomon's Marbles at the speed of (not-so-lazy) lightning, showing off the percussive thunder only possible with two master skinsmen playing off each other.  Crowd favorites The Music Never Stopped and Crazy Fingers followed, respectively funky and reggae-tinted.  Dave grabbed his acoustic guitar for a solo rendition of Sage and Spirit, and our sound man Chris Hines turned up the vocal reverb for the psychedelic modalism of the titular Blues for Allah.  We capped the set with a rockin' One More Saturday Night, and a reminder that the evening was far from over. 

Having accomplished a musical goal we'd set over 2 months ago, we slid into a crazy fun second set - Scarlet > Fire > Dark Star > Playin' > Drums > Space > Unbroken Chain > Wharf Rat > Around and Around!  How about that? We called an audible and encored with Shakedown>Playin' Repise, ending at about 12:45 Sunday morning.  If you check out the song times, every song in that second set (if you count Drums>Space as one and add Playin' and it's reprise) was over 10 minutes.  We can say with certainty that everyone who came for a great show that night got their wish! 

We've published really great sounding audience recordings of both Friday and Saturday's shows to our Archive.org page (or in the player below).  Check them out to relive the show or to see what you missed - and if you did miss it, don't make that mistake again!  We got a great video of the show, and rumor has it that Jake took the board tapes back to Colorado to mix down with Dark Star Orchestra's Rob Eaton.  Make sure you're subscribed to our YouTube channel so you don't miss them!

Shout outs: Chris Hines: sound, Michael Chojnowski, lights and merch sales, Jody Bauman: live painting, Thom Bloom: Otus Supply Owner and Raconteur, Danann Griggs: Otus Artist Relations Manager, and Corey Faulkner: the tenderest of tenders.

Listen on Archive.org

2-5-2022 Otus Supply, Ferndale, MI

Set I: Feel Like A Stranger, Help On The Way>Slipknot!>Franklin's Tower, King Solomon's Marbles*, The Music Never Stopped, Crazy Fingers>Sage and Spirit*, Blues for Allah*, One More Saturday Night
Set II: Scarlet Begonias>Fire On The Mountain>Dark Star>Playin' In The Band>Drums>Space>Unbroken Chain>Wharf Rat>Around and Around
Encore: Shakedow Street>Playin In The Band Reprise
*First Time Played
With guests Jake Wolf on drums and Justin Lee on keyboards