Join us at this fantastic venue. Portland is always a great town to play in and we can't wait to get back there!

Imagine my surprise when I check email one last time on Friday Dec 30 before leaving the office for the last time in 2005 when I find something from my friend Ryan asking me if PMW can rally for a last minute gig. No way, not at this hour...but wait, the gig is at the Bill Graham Civic and it's supporting John Mayer Trio and Phil Lesh and Friends? Hell yeah we can rally.

Scramble scramble to find my phone, shit, out of juice. where's the house phone, got it, dialing, dialing...Tony, tell me you don't have plans tomorrow - well no - ok here's the deal... - hell yeah, wait are you serious? - yeah - shit!

4 hours on the phone and I've managed to track down everyone but Chris, who turns out is MIA in the hinterlands of Montana. shit! ok, fiddle players, fiddle players...call michelle - leave message, call annie - already booked, call alisa - in wisconsin. damn, we'll swing it without fiddle.

With Eli just flown in from San Diego and Josh en route from Tahoe, I head down to the Civic via BART.  Michelle calls, she's in, Sweet - we'll have fiddle! The tribe gathers at the Civic and everything looks good.

But wait, Josh is stuck in traffic east of Fairfield cause I-80 is flooded...he sits in traffic for over an hour before putting the Explorer into 4WD and headed into the back hills of Napa. Meanwhile, PMW takes the stage and plays a 1.5 hour set between the doors opening and John Mayer Trio taking the stage.

John Mayer Trio was simply sick: we discovered newfound respect for the man and his flaming guitar work. Highlight for me was him busting from a funkn jam into Kanye West's Gold Digger for a bit that bridged into an incendiary blues tune. Sitting there in the balcony, I thought, "I'd really like to see this guy dueling with Prince".

My phone vibrates and I get the stinkeye from some hippies - but it's Josh, he's made it finally, he's on the loading dock out back. I crawl over some stoned deadheads who can't seem to figure out John Mayer, stumble down the stairs and make my way thru the green humidity out onto the concourse. Josh is ready to rock, but his super-hero mojo is a bit sapped after spending 9 hours on the road from Tahoe. Luckily, we have just the trick ready - Rhinestone Vanilla Elvis.

John Mayer Trio ends his set at 9:30 and they give us the cue to fire up again.  This time PMW takes the stage with hero power drawn from the many faces of Elvis and share a bit of Wabi Sabi with the crowd. In the Japanese culture, Wabi Sabi isncludes the appreciation of imperfection, works in progress. High on the platform shoes of Elvis, Eli (gold Lame' Elvis) makes the strategic error of trying to get the crowd of Deadheads to join us for a Queen 'we will rock you' chant which falls completely flat...these are Deadheads who want to dance - what was Elvis thinking? 

So the boys stumble a bit to start this set, take a song to right themselves and then take off in the right direction with a couple of dead covers and then a strong staple of originals including favorites Lake County Lady and Beer Goggle Blues.  I'm not sure if it was the lack of short term memory and green giggle fog in the room or the fact that Deadheads are forgiving creatures, but they were rockin with PMW in no time. The boys took it all the way to Whiskey Creek then at 10:30 Phil took the stage to spark up some swirling tasty jamminess.

To be honest, I'm not sure what happened after that.  After a couple of Phil's tunes and the sweet sounds of Barry Sless and Joan Armstrong, I snuck off to find Karen and get us paid.  But there was something crackling on her radio about a wheelchair and a catering truck that sounded like trouble, so I held off and caught a couple more Phil tunes and wondered if those deadheads learned to spin from the Sufi whirling dervishes. 

Later, with the check finally in hand, Natalie and I snuck out the back, caught the BART and made it home to turn the light off just before midnight.

Special thanks go out to Glen, Karen, Michael, Ryan and Dawn for working with us on this one and to Michelle for throwing down some sweet fiddle.