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Green Apple Music Festival featuring RatDog & Stephen Marley |
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Written by Richard B. Simon
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Wednesday, 25 April 2007 |
Speedway Meadow, Golden Gate Park
April 22, 2007
San Francisco, CA
It was Earth Day in San Francisco, and the earth obliged, cutting a
clear-eyed blue sky with only a whisper of fog off the nearby Pacific
Ocean. Bob Marley tunes cut with hip-hop funk, Grateful Dead tunes with
reggae mixed in, Sammy Hagar growling for the green cause—so the West
Coast edition of the (disclaimer alert!) Relix-co-sponsored Green Apple Fest peaked, back where it all began, with a free show in Golden Gate Park.
Speedway Meadow sits in sort of an elongated, bottle-shaped bowl, surrounded by cypress and eucalyptus trees. At the bottom of the bottle sat the stage, which featured RatDog, Stephen Marley, the Greyboy Allstars, Jonah Smith and Martin Sexton. At the pinch in the neck, tourheads sold wire-wrapped rocks, glass pipes and T-shirts with Grateful Dead-punned corporate logos. A couple of guys picked banjo and guitar. In the neck of the bottle, the ecofest provided a smattering of tents, booths mostly from eco-minded non-profits such as Rock the Earth, the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, Earth Island Institute, and Species Alliance. The San Francisco Green Party was registering voters (and slinging “Impeach Bush” buttons). The Sierra Club booth focused on green mutual funds. The Global Cooling Collective offered information on carbon offsets—essentially small, one-way investments in clean energy sources, calculated to compensate for one’s ordinary burning of fossil fuels. The Presidio School of Management touted its new Sustainable MBA program. At least one Merry Prankster was seen lurking in the Rex Foundation tent.
The booths were not nearly as crowded as the rock concert, but in the aisles, people were actually talking about environmental issues (“If you carbon-filter your water, man, it takes all the chlorine out—it’s just like drinking piss!”).
Some of the groups were part of the “Sustainable Living Road Show,” which is becoming a festival circuit staple, and the affiliated Clean Fuel Caravan. One local business, the San Francisco-based People’s Fuel Cooperative, displayed glass jars filled with different types of fuel, including biodiesel, which is made from soybeans and is actually what the diesel engine was invented to burn (as opposed to dinosaur bones). It smells like canola oil. And, said pierced proprietor Trevitt Schulz, “It’s not toxic in any way.”
The food scene was off-key—the typical rock-show-in-the-park Italian sausages and meat kabobs, with some vegetarian fare and grilled salmon (in a year when West Coast salmon fisheries are crashing.) Next year, the organizers should tap San Francisco’s booming local organic food scene to ensure sustainable eats, and eco-friendly utensils. Some of the plastic cups backstage did not appear to be biodegradable, but a spokesman said that the utensils and other plastic ware were.
Oh, yeah. There was a rock show, too. This intrepid reporter rolled into the park just in time to watch the stage being set up for Stephen Marley, son of the late reggae legend Bob Marley.
Young Marley’s dreads are long and skinny. He played a Les Paul and wore a denim outfit that recalled his old man’s late ‘70s stage getup. His singing voice sounds just like his Dad’s, too—and he smartly set his own tunes amid covers of Bob’s best-loved roots classics. That didn’t detract from his own material—rather, it gave the classics new context, and rooted his fresh stuff in the family tradition.
The nine-piece band opened with “Chant Down Babylon.” A tall dread stood stage right, and waved a green, gold, and red Lion of Judah Rasta flag throughout the set. “Chase Dem” was a call to arms against corrupt politicians. “Burnin’ and Lootin’” dug deep down for the roots groove. “Mind Control,” the title track from Marley’s brand-new disc, had a hard-hitting beat. “Hey Baby” (which features Mos Def on the album) was a slow jam.
The covers hit hard and fast with updated arrangements. “Buffalo Soldier” bounced tight as two backup singers, dressed in sky blue batik T-shirts, harmonized. Also tight.
A radio clip of a cop calling for backup in arresting two Rastas for marijuana possession led into “Iron Bars,” an inmate’s funked-out rage: “Let me out, let me out
I'm a angry lion.”
The band hit a dub beat, and Marley toasted; the band crashed into chaos, then picked the groove up again as he called for his brother, Damian, a.k.a. “Jr. Gong”. The two swapped rub-a-dub stylings, at one point quoting Olivia Newton John’s “Let’s Get Physical.”
Bob’s “Could This Be Love” got the hard funk treatment, too, with Stephen exhorting the crowd to jump. A tough task in laid-back San Francisco, but many jumped.
During the long set change, a jubilant Peter Shapiro, the festival’s redheaded promoter, informed the crowd that the turnout in New York had forced the closing of part of Central Park. (On a break later in the day, Shapiro reported the turnout in New York at 15,000.)
Then came Ratdog, with a home-court set that picked up on the reggae and carried it into Grateful Dead Land. Bob Weir and company opened with an easy-rolling jam into “Jack Straw,” and dropped it into a reggae groove. An outdoor-sunshine-spacey “Cassidy,” with saxophonist Kenny Brooks blowing like the wind, also became reggae by the end. They followed with “Book of Rules,” a tune by the early Jamaican reggae band the Heptones, and a favorite of Weir’s, and their own calypso-chorused “Money for Gasoline.” “Spin the wheel!” Weir sang, “Like Ezekiel!” answered the band.
“And now a little something for the kids,” said Weir. “Today’s a very special day, because today’s the day the Red Rocker turns green.” On came Sammy Hagar in a black T-shirt, golden locks and a goatee, and the band chugged into a deep-pocket “Loose Lucy.” Hagar had sung the tune with “The Dead” back in 2003. On Earth Day, he just screamed, belting out the raunchy lyrics with balls: “Thank your lucky stars I ain’t your type/ don’t shake the tree when the fruit ain’t ripe!”
Someone’s black Lab ran across the stage and back around behind the amps as Hagar got the crowd to sing the “yeah”s. The band cut into “Eyes of the World” and Hagar split. But during a big “Eyes” jam, rapper Radioactive appeared. Weir and Karan left the stage to the rest of band—which is, after all, culled from the ranks of the Bay Area Acid Jazz All-Stars—while Radioactive freestyled:
“RatDog, Frisco, the Bay! My name is Radioactive! Hear what I say!”
After the Beatles’ “Dear Prudence,” a textbook “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider” and “Samson and Delilah,” which started with Weir singing over just the dark intro drums, RatDog put down the instruments for an a cappella version of “Attics of My Life” (likely based on a rarely heard mix from Mickey Hart’s 5.1 surround sound update of American Beauty.)
The harmonies were a bit loose, but mostly on. And pretty bold.
A half-step later, Weir reminded the crowd to be bold, too.
“Go do something green,” he said.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 27 April 2007 )
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August 2 0 0 8
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