It’s a balmy Sunday afternoon at McNears Beach Park in sunny San Rafael, California, here in Marin County on 21 July. Music fans are gathering for Sunday Daydream Vol. 3, the third in a series of one-day festival-style events that began last year, featuring trailblazing bassist and psychedelic rock icon Phil Lesh. Produced by sons Grahame and Brian Lesh, the Sunday Daydream events recall the heady vibes music fans enjoyed for ten special years at the Terrapin Crossroads club the Lesh family ran here in town from 2012 to 2021.
Terrapin Crossroads became known as a musical mecca and local clubhouse of sorts, with Phil Lesh & Friends throwing down countless barnburner shows on three different stages in a variety of settings, from “The Grate Room” to the beach park in the backyard to the bar in the restaurant. There were free bar shows every night, featuring a wide array of local talent that frequently seemed like it had to be the best bar band in America on any given night. The combination of music value with the social place to be and the solid cuisine made Terrapin Crossroads one of the most unique and special venues in rock history.
Then, even when local buzz indicated that Phil and wife Jill were ready to sell the venue and retire in early 2020 as Lesh was coming up on his 80th birthday, it still seemed like Terrapin Crossroads could go on indefinitely as rumor also suggested a well-known concert promoter was ready to buy and keep the venue going. But then the damn Covid-19 pandemic occurred, causing venue owners and concert promoters across the country to lose their shirts as the music business came to a screeching halt. The promoter had to back out, and another suitable buyer couldn’t be found, even after Terrapin re-opened for full backyard concerts in 2021.
Terrapin Crossroads tragically closed down in November of 2021 and now lives on in the memory of those who were there, a special time and place in music history that has come to mirror a line in one of Lesh’s signature songs, “Box of Rain” — “Such a long, long time to be gone, And a short time to be there.” But Lesh simply returned to playing classic local venues like the Warfield Theater and Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. He’s often said that “Terrapin Nation” is a state of mind that lives on with the fans who helped create the scene, and so it seems the idea was hatched with his family to recreate the spirit of Terrapin Crossroads with these Sunday Daydream shows at nearby McNears Beach Park.
The beach park is set directly adjacent to the San Francisco Bay, providing balmy breezes that make the setting feel like a genuine paradise. Phil Lesh & Friends are set to headline the event with another all-star lineup at 4.00pm, featuring a 50-year flashback theme billed to honor the Dead’s 1974 show on the same date at the Hollywood Bowl. The headliner set is preceded by a mid-afternoon set from Stu Allen & Mars Hotel, another Grateful Dead-oriented band featuring Allen on lead guitar and vocals. Allen played numerous shows with Lesh in the Grate Room that were often billed as “Thunder and Lightning”. He also led countless free shows in the bar, where his “STUesday” night shows frequently packed the place.
Allen will typically pull together whatever local musicians he can find for the Mars Hotel’s rotating lineup, and he’s got some Terrapin Crossroads regulars in the lineup here, including ace keyboardist Holly Bowling, whose phenomenal piano magic turns everything she touches into sonic gold. The lineup also includes bassist Brian Rashap, guitarist Alex Jordan, vocalist Elliott Peck, and drummer Jerry Saracini. The Mars Hotel utilizes the classic “China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider” combo to open their set in high energy style, and there’s really nothing else quite like a big “China Cat” groove on a breezy summer day. The set closes in climactic fashion with a powerful “Terrapin Station”, as the group honors the epic song with the rare extended outro parts from the original 1977 studio recording.
The only flaw in the setting is the long beer lines, as two tables from Fieldwork Brewing out of Berkeley attempt to keep up with the heavy demand of this thirsty audience. The suds are worth the wait, though, with Fieldwork being one of the premiere craft beer purveyors in all of California. Their classic Pulp hazy IPA is ever popular, along with their St. Thomas OG West Coast IPA. Then there’s the Hills and Valley Pilsner for a lighter brew or the delicious VanillaBerry sour ale, which proves to be the most tasty and refreshing beverage on a sunny afternoon like this one.
“Welcome back, Terrapin Nation,” the elder Lesh says emphatically when he and his band hit the stage just after 4.00pm, winning a big cheer. Still crushing it like a man half his age after 84 circles around the sun, Lesh may soon qualify as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. While largely retired from touring at this juncture, the sonic wizard has still been tearing it up here in the Bay Area with a handful of rocking shows over the past nine months at the Fillmore and the Warfield.
Lesh is joined here by son Grahame on guitar, as is usually the case in recent years, along with two more Terrapin favorites in guitarists Stanley Jordan and Dan “Lebo” Leibowitz. Longtime drummer John Molo is on board as well, along with standard Terrapin Family Band keyboardist Jason Crosby. It’s a hero’s homecoming as the good vibes flow with a “Jack Straw” opener that always hits the spot on sunny afternoons. Angelic harpist Mikaela Davis was supposed to be in the band today, too, except that her flight from the East Coast has been canceled in the fallout from the CrowdStrike/Microsoft computer glitch that made headlines earlier in the week (damn you CrowdStrike!)
Perennial fan favorite “Scarlet Begonias” elevates the set, conjuring an instant summer dance party as Elliott Peck joins the stage again to harmonize with Grahame Lesh on the Garcia/Hunter classic. The duo also lead their own band, Midnight North, so it’s no wonder they sound so good together here. Nifty solos from Jordan and Lebowitz help power some feel-good jamming as the group starts to stretch out.
Stu Allen joins the ensemble on guitar and vocals for “Sugaree”, with Lebowitz moving over to pedal steel guitar. The song has a uniquely laid-back groove that fits the Sunday vibe so well. The group builds it up to a big peak with Allen and Grahame Lesh ripping off some dazzling lead guitar runs in an almost Allman-esque style. Allen stays on, and “Playing in the Band” leads to the biggest jam of the day with some genuine tone-science flair as the guitarists weave crisscrossing melodies across some dynamic low-end exploration from Lesh’s bass.
The groove goes deep as Phil Lesh & Friends rock it out before giving way to the bluesy alcoholic’s saga of “Wharf Rat”, where Phil drops some more bass bombs during the solo section as the guitarists play melodies that seem to sprinkle like sonic rain. The group cranks up the bluesy vibe for a rousing rendition of “Truckin’”, with the “long strange trip” now leading right here to this beautiful afternoon. Jordan adds some of his dazzling tapping technique on a solo to elevate the sound higher while Phil pushes the energetic groove behind him.
“You can leap and change direction with an angular approach, doing glissandos and having a wider melodic ambitus,” Jordan recently told Relix when asked if there was something about his technique that’s particularly well-suited to Grateful Dead music. “It’s like how airplanes move along predictable paths—they bank, and they maintain a smooth motion, whereas UFOs can go zip, zip. So I started to play my melodies more like a UFO.”
Jordan’s comparison of his style with the agility of UFOs hits the mark, with PopMatters previously describing his playing as akin to “anti-gravity” guitar when he was jamming even deeper with Lesh at the Fillmore last December. He also performs his solo version of “Over the Rainbow”, which feels fitting in this sublime setting at McNears Beach Park. A “Playin in the Band” reprise gets the set rocking again toward a big finish, capped off with a hot take on the ever-infectious “Sugar Magnolia” to bring the show to a rollicking conclusion.
There’s some extra pep in the step as Grahame Lesh sings out the vocals while the group rocks out, adding some extra emphasis on the song’s “sunshine daydream” outro section. It’s a fitting way to close out the day since the whole event has felt kind of like being over the rainbow in a sunshine daydream.
