The Madness Continues

So as of my last entry I had my men's league team entering the Finals in our tournament, plus I had 1 ABB show down and a few more to go.

Well, for starters, the team won the championship! It was another battle, we were down 12 points at halftime, but fought back, got the game to OT and then pulled away in OT for a comfortable win. I have been in the league for 5 years, and the first 4 years we either lost in the semis to the eventual champion or we lost in the finals, so we finally got over the proverbial hump and it feels great!

My run with ABB at the Beacon continued as well. In all, they did 15 shows and I was lucky enough to catch 5 of them. Highlights for me:

• Clapton - come on, Clapton with ABB doing Derek and the Dominoes stuff plus a few ABB tunes too? Really does not get any better or surreal. Trucks and Clapton playing together on Why Does Love Have So Sad and Layla was just unreal.
• Bruce Hornsby - Huge fan of his music, and he really added a nice dimension to the second set on the 21st when he sat in. The also had the Juke Horns at the show too, great mix. Derek also really tore up this show, one day I'll be an old fart saying "I saw Derek back in the day..."
  
• The 27th was Southern Rock night - Kid Rock came out for Soulshine and then the Marshall Tucker Band drummer came up and they all did "Can't You See" which was pretty cool. The second set started off with the intro to Freebird. The show also had some pretty rockin versions of the New Instrumental, Les Bres and No One Left To Run With Anymore.
• 28th - Last night of the run. The second set started off as a bad Grateful Dead cover band - you know I like the Dead, but Weir should stay out of the public eye, he looks and sounds awful. Lesh was playing the band leader role too much - man, its not your band, its Gregg's, back down, calm down! Sugaree didn't do it for me, I Know You Rider was a bit better and then they had Chuck Leavell come out for Franklin's Tower and that had some pop to it. In all, good show, but for the last night at the Beacon, half the 2nd set did not have to be uninspired versions of Dead tunes, it just did not click. Also, all other musicians that guested did their own stuff plus ABB stuff, why didn't Bobby and Phil do any ABB material??