With so many GPNorth and GPDead posts to choose from I have decided to roll up all of my comments into a little package right here.

For the third straight year Grand Point North was a total blast.  For me, Sunday night was very good, but Saturday Night was awesome. 

Highlights on Saturday are too numerous to mention.  Just about everything was spot on all night, and while the appearance of (the other) KC surprised no one two years ago, I'm guessing a lot of people were surprised this year.

On Sunday, I certainly enjoyed Warren on 2:22, but my highlight was my first time ever seeing Gumbo Moon.  I know it does not get played often.  I'm hoping someone can tell me when it was last played.

Enjoyed the Grand Point Weird presentation and really got a kick watching Grace's sister blowing glass.

Grand Point Dead was a joy on so many levels (not the least of which was that when staggering out of the Higher Ground, into the rain, at 2:00am, my hotel was less than 300 yards away).  I know that the Dead were not a major influence on Grace (she frequently sites Neil Young and Tom Petty in that role) and that Benny is the Dead Head of the Group.  I was told that they used to play under the name Dead Sessions (although in my own mind I have been calling them the Graceful Dead), and they still get together semi regularly and jam privately.

I was fortunate to snag one of the seats in back of the soundboard for the show.  A woman sat down next to me during Franklin's Tower and remarked that while she thought the band was doing a good job they were missing on Franklin's Tower, but by the end she decided that they included a little bit of weirdness and righted the song.  My response was that the band is what it is, and it is not what it is not.  Whatever deficiencies I might perceive in the presentation were more than made up for by my joy at the growing nexus between GPN, a band that I truly love, and the Grateful Dead, the band that has provided the soundtrack for the last 40 years of  my life.  If there is one thing that any of us who grew up loving the Dead can probably agree on it is that there is a world of difference between playing Grateful Dead songs and playing Grateful Dead music.  I felt that this group crossed that line.

If I had one small disappointment, it was that the two tunes the Nocturnals performed as a unit, FOTD and Casey Jones, were the two tunes already in their repertoire.  I had hoped they might work up something new.  I have given some thought to which GD songs would work, both for Grace and the band, and concluded that they could do truly amazing things with China Doll.

For NH Maple Syrup Man:  Enjoyed hanging with you on Sunday, and as I told you, the reason Donna was never on Key is that she couldn't hear the monitors.

On a final note, Josh Panda and the Hot Damned were, for me, the biggest revelation this weekend.  Josh sang Hard to Handle at GP Dead.  An excellent choice for him.