I went to Oahu for vacation. When Eric and I were leaving Duke's (his favorite), I spied a poster from the corner of my eye that looked like the Steely Dan logo. Upon inspection the poster said
Steely Dead... and was promoting two shows that same night! I literally jumped up and down and immediately bought tickets to the late performance.
I wasn't exactly sure what to expect and I will admit the show was a little odd. Basically the band rotated between Dead and Dan pretty consistently and then would meld up the songs to close out each little vignette. This was cool because I honestly never would have put the two bands together. I also loved that the set was made up heavily of deep tracks.
I guess the most surprising to me was the crowd. Everyone had on their tie-dye, so cool. It was clear these folks were Dead Heads, also cool. I just didn't expect the nonstop dancing like what happens at an actual Dead / Dead and Co. show. Like, we were in the Blue Note jazz club with assigned seating but no matter! Dancing everywhere! And all that dancing meant thirsty folks, so the patrons were just going to the waiter stand and helping themselves to glasses, ice and water. I've never seen that before.
Some of the songs we got included "Bodhisattva" (SD), "Loser" (Jerry Garcia) and "Showbiz Kids" (SD). Steely Dead is coming to Columbus, Ohio next month and I might try to convince Eric to see them again, just to see if I can get a set with the Dan's "Caves of Altamira" in it. Steely Dead do that song from my beloved The Royal Scam album but it wasn't on offer for me in paradise last weekend.
As a side note, The Blue Note Hawaii is a super cute club, right on the Waikiki strip (Moana Surfrider area). We spent most of our holiday away from the madness but always like to add a couple "city" days to our Oahu trips. I would recommend the Blue Note. That said, the show certainly wasn't free or even cheap. But that's Hawaii for you.
Tuesday, March 11, 2025 at 12:43PM 