DEAD AGAIN

By STEVE HOCHMAN

June 6, 1998 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

SAN FRANCISCO — It was a little nervy of the Other Ones, the band anchored by surviving members of the Grateful Dead and devoted to that group’s music, to take the stage for their debut at the cozy, downtown Warfield Theatre on Thursday, flanked by banners reading “Don’t Buy Old Growth.”

The banners referred to the logging of ancient trees, an issue of the Rainforest Action Network, for whom this show was a benefit.

But in rock ‘n’ roll terms, old growth is exactly what the Other Ones are selling. Previewing the band’s summer headlining slot on the third edition of the Dead spinoff Furthur Festival, they were giving Deadheads their treasured repertoire for the first time since the Dead came to an end with the death of guitarist-guru Jerry Garcia in 1995.

And with Dead singer-guitarist Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh and drummer Mickey Hart, along with keyboardist Bruce Hornsby (who became an auxiliary member of the band in the early ‘90s) and four new supporting players, this ensemble makes no bones about it.

“It’s a continuation of the Grateful Dead,” said Hart, antsy as he rat-a-tatted his drum sticks on a sofa backstage before the show. “Part of the Grateful Dead is up there and we’re playing Grateful Dead music, music we invented as the Dead.”

He paused his percussion and leaned forward.

“It’s not the Grateful Dead,” he said. “But the love is there, and the magic.”

There was certainly no lack of love among the fans as they assembled for the event. While the scene surrounding the show wasn’t as colorful a tie-dye village as sprouted up around Dead shows in the old days at bigger venues, there was a palpable sense of anticipation among the rabid, hungry Deadheads here in the band’s hometown.

But there was also a sense of trepidation. Expectations expressed by many of the fans on hand, both longtime Deadheads and young, relative newcomers, were decidedly mixed.

A number had seen two recent benefits billed as Phil Lesh & Friends, which involved several of these musicians and some of the Dead’s songs, and were underwhelmed, as they had been by appearances of Weir’s side-group Ratdog, playing some Dead tunes, on the two previous Furthur treks.

“It wasn’t much,” said Mark Katz, a 26-year-old fan from Santa Cruz. “It seemed like maybe they were holding something back.”

It felt that way too, at first, on Thursday, as the show got off to a creaky start. That the void left by Garcia is, of course, huge, was a fact acknowledged by how many musicians are being used to compensate. Not only does Hornsby take Garcia’s vocals, by and large, but two new guitarists (L.A.-based Mark Karan and Steve Kimock, who plays in the Dead-related Bay Area band Zero) and saxophonist Dave Ellis have been employed to pick up the instrumental end.

Karan and Kimock--the latter hired just a week before the show--were understandably tentative at first. Weir, Lesh, Hart and Hornsby, too, looked a little uncertain as the band started out somewhat subdued with “Jack Straw” and “Sugaree,” two early-’70s numbers that originally featured Garcia. Only second drummer John Molo, borrowed from Hornsby’s band to fill the slot of Dead co-founder Bill Kreutzman (who declined to join this venture), seemed comfortable.

But several songs later, in the traditional folk-blues “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad,” the new guitarists asserted themselves and the group as a whole started to gel as a solid, energetic unit, feeding off the swelling enthusiasm and increasingly vigorous dancing of the crowd. In the show’s second half, during the extended jams that were the Dead’s trademark, Hornsby and Ellis displayed their jazz chops, sparring with each other as the music slipped through such Dead classics as “Playing in the Band” and “St. Stephen” in a way that gave the music a distinctive foundation.

Still, the new personalities in the mix are mere details in the bigger picture. All in all, it’s not too different than before, which is fine by the fans.

“I don’t think we want anything different,” said Rob Levitsky, 42, a 20-year veteran Deadhead prowling the lobby at intermission, garbed in a lights-adorned fur smock. “They’d shied away from anyone playing like Jerry [after he died], and now they’ve brought in guys who can sound something like him. They had to. I think they felt the pull of the fans.”

After the show, Weir talked of plans for after Furthur, which starts in Atlanta on June 25 and comes to Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on July 22. On his agenda are touring and recording a debut album with Ratdog, and moving ahead with work on a stage musical about baseball legend Satchel Paige.

But for now, he was elated with the test run of the Other Ones, which he readily admitted having had doubts about.

Hugging Ellis, Weir gave the saxophonist a relieved look and stated, confidently, “I have no fear of this working out.”