SIMPLE TWIST OF TIME

SIMPLE TWIST OF TIME
Midnight, Saturday night, the show begins, according to the clock on stage. Our ticket says 9 o’clock. The paper said 8:30 and we arrive at 8 o’clock as the doors open. We just come from dinner and on the way watch barefoot dancers, moving their hands in the air as they dip and rise to the West African hand beat of djembe drums. It’s a fascinating dance, and watching their rhythms in motion makes you want to emulate what they’re doing, and they’re dripping in sweat. We’re in Arcata, California for a show with the Mickey Hart Band at the renovated Arcata Theatre. This former movie theatre has been transformed into an ideal space for dancing and sound, with high ceilings, places to mingle and socialize, and room to dance in this well designed venue.
Alex shares that he’s seen Mickey Hart at the Giants game in August and he relates a story of a softball game between the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane at a park in Fairfax in the sixties. I ask him if he saw Kelly Slater surf in San Francisco last month and he answers no, just the waves. He was out riding the surf. “November 6th, April 12th, that was the last time I seen waves like this”, Alex says. Certain events, like a concert, or a maverick wave, help us to remember a specific time.  
The only clock, Mickey is following, is on stage and it is set slightly in the future. The music begins with light and stars and when “Scarlet Begonias” is ignited it gets everyone into their dancing shoes.
Seasons transpose time, and winter begins early as the tour starts after Thanksgiving, but the increasing erratic weather patterns suggest that winter will be late this year. Winter in the northern hemisphere is summer in the south. The hours and temperatures are different all over the planet. Music has many elements and a simple twist of time is set in transcendental motion, much like the song they ended the first set with, “Time Never Ends”, much like love that’s real, does not fade away.
“Brokedown Palace” is different from any version I’ve heard, real folksy. Mickey has an incredible band backing him, soulful, intuitive, inspirational, with Crystal Monee Hall on vocals, and acoustic guitar on this song, Tim Hockenberry on a variety of backing instruments and vocals, guitarist, bass, keyboard and two percussionists add to the circular sound. Mickey pounding the tablets, and playing the i-beam, a long piece of aluminum with a dozen piano strings, reaches for a different resonance, and uses the computer to transpose sound, transform minds, and look further into space via sound, and immortality in the music. As the siren of Venus dances nearby, Mickey rises and closes with “Fire On The Mountain”, in the spirit of Jerry Garcia it’s like a little back kick, set to music, with an extra heart beat. In motion, there is unity and harmony, much like the circle of people that formed after the show. Regardless of the day’s events, or one’s mood, there is only a positive vibration here.