As it approaches its eighth year, Gasparilla Music Festival is starting to feel a little like a longstanding Tampa tradition. Think about it: Some kid consummated after a late-night, year-one post-GMF party at The Hub is probably the only child in the kindergarten class that’s taken a liking to Tito’s and soda.
Next weekend, a few special elements of Tampa’s live music past will converge when Uncle John’s Band — a Grateful Dead tribute act founded in 1989 — takes on music from the first edition of Dick’s Picks. The series, named for the Dead’s devoted vault-keeper Dick Latvala, ended up featuring three dozen installments, which covered 23 years of live Grateful Dead recordings. And its first volume is made up of highlights from the Dead’s December 19, 1973 gig at Curtis Hixon Hall.
The venue, which could hold upwards of 8,000 people, was home to sports events (its first outing in 1965 was a boxing match), but it quickly became known for hosting concerts by Jimi Hendrix (who played twice in 1968), Janis Joplin (who was arrested by Tampa Police when she opened for B.B. King in 1969), Derek and The Dominos (1970, when Eric Clapton and Duane Allman appeared onstage together), David Bowie (1974) and even Elvis (1976). Curtis Hixon Hall was demolished in 1993; these days, the Tampa Museum of Art and Glazer Children’s Museum sit on the site.
Uncle John’s Band rhythm guitarist Rich Whiteley said that festival organizers had the idea to pay tribute to Dick’s Picks Vol. 1, but weren’t married to it. He added that Uncle John’s Band doesn’t normally doesn’t do tribute setlists, but will when the occasion is right.
“This one we kind of jumped at since it’s a favorite anyway. It’ll be a lot of fun,” Whiteley, who was three years old when Vol. 1 was recorded, told CL. “It’s an excuse to learn a couple songs that we don’t normally do.”
Kevin Caldwell, a board member at GMF, said that organizers wanted good, danceable vibes for Saturday, and that the festival had been trying to get Uncle John’s Band on the bill for a while. Caldwell (born 10 years after the Dead recorded the Curtis Hixon Hall show) admitted that there was a question as to what Uncle John’s Band would play, and was happy that everyone landed on the Dick’s Picks session recorded on the same grounds that’ll host up to 20,000 music fans on March 9-10.
“GMF loves the rich music history of Tampa,” Caldwell said. “This was a cool way to honor that as well as have an amazing live act perform at our festival.”
Whiteley grew up in Wilmington, Delaware and got into the Dead in early 1984, when he was 15 years old. The young Deadhead collected bootlegs, but never went on tour with the band. He also got to catch about five shows a year thanks to his bi-coastal family situation. His first Dead show was at The Spectrum in Philadelphia, but he didn’t catch the band in the Bay area until 1988 when Jerry Garcia & Co. played St. Petersburg’s since-demolished Bayfront Center (where the Dalí museum is now). He caught the Dead in Orlando two years later, but his last hometown experience with the beloved rock group happened in 1995 at the Big Sombrero (the old Tampa Stadium, which was demolished in 1999 after the construction of Raymond James Stadium).
Curmudgeonly Deadhead purists that were initially displeased about the Curtis Hixon Hall concert being condensed and resequenced for Dick’s Picks should probably stay away from Uncle John’s Band's set, however, since there’s no way that the group would be able to stage a note-for-note recreation of the album in the time that’s been allotted.
“We’re working on that,” Whiteley said, adding that there won’t be any sacrilegious changes, like casting someone to sing for Donna Jean Godchaux on “Playing In The Band” (the longtime Dead singer was on maternity leave at the time). The Blind Willie Johnson blues classic “Nobody’s Fault but Mine” will get play though, and the band has been polishing its chops around a Vol. 1 highlight, “Weather Report Suite.”
“Our lead guitar player, Alan Gilman, has a ton of gear and likes to make sure his Jerry rig is set for the time period he’s playing on any given night. I’m sure he’ll get really close to that 1973 Jerry sound,” Whiteley — who’ll also get close to Bob Weir’s setup from the concert — said.
Gilman told CL that his setup includes a modified Fender 135W Ultralinear, Shakedown Amp with GD50 heads (a replica of Garcia's amp heads) modified by Alembic which will go into a McIntosh 2300 amp powering three-way Hard Trucker cabinet loaded with JBL E-120s. There's also a Moriarty Wolf guitar with David Allen Voodoo Blues single-coil pickups. A Wilson Wah pedal that replicates Garcia's Colorsound MXR Script Phase 100 and MXR Distortion Plus round out the effects.
"The guy that built my amps was able to get inside Garcia's equipment of that era," Gilman said.
“I think Bob Weir was playing a Gibson 335 semi-hollowbody, so I’ll try to approximate that sound," Whiteley added, "and we’ll all try to approximate the feel of the tunes to that era as well.”
In the meantime, plan on looking for the tye-dyed T-shirts at the Kiley Gardens on Saturday, and keep your fingers crossed for more odes to Tampa music history in the years to come.
“There seems to be a lot of buzz around it,” Caldwell, said. “I hope we can find other ways to do things like this in the future.”
Gasparilla Music Festival. March 9-10, Gates at 11 a.m. $30 & up. Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park and Kiley Gardens, downtown Tampa. gasparillamusic.com.
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This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 7, 2019.