Peakguy
As usual with the 3 shows at the Gorge on Labor Day, the Friday night show is a kind of "warm up." This year was no exception with some quieter songs on the set list. Robert Randolph and the Family Band opened up with a pretty high energy set (do they have any other kind), and then Robert came back with the DMB for a smokin' version of Stand Up. I had to wonder what it must be like for him to play with the DMB as backup with 20,000 people dancing around in front of him. The crowd was kind of late arriving, so some folks missed this opening set; their loss. It was kind of windy this evening, but that just kept everyone cooled off. The stage set this year is great, and on Friday night they introduced it in 3 sections. First, of course, all the lights were on overhead. Then a few songs into the set the screens came on, and then a couple songs later the side light bars started up. Very cool effect. Unless one has been to the Gorge, it is hard to describe how great this venue is for an outside band like DMB. They did a few new songs like Eh Hee, which is great and rocks more with the full band than it sounds on the new video. They did a song that was new to me called Dreaming Tree and another called A Dream so Real that I did not recognize, but that does not mean it is a new song.