Bob Weir and RatDog return for their third appearance at the historic Smith Opera House in Geneva, N.Y. for one show Tuesday, October 28th. One of Weir’s best-loved songs is ” The Music Never Stopped”. It holds true, even in the 21st century. As a matter of fact, as the century goes along it’s even truer.It’s beleived to be a first for the Smith-a live concert recording. The RatDog show will be recroded live and released next month nationwide as a 3-CD set.A simple laptop computer with not-so-simple software is the key. Dennis Leonard, The Dead’s audio mixer, who is nicknamed “Wizard,” sits in a tiny room or even in the back of the band’s bus, mastering the recorded tracks and storing them in digital files. He can “burn” a CD from his computer or collect the digitalized tracks and send them off to Chicago for duplication. It’s that easy. “They’re much better than the free downloads from the Internet,” Leonard told ABC News when the Dead played Colorado this summer. “Online MP3 files are compressed and don’t provide nearly the range as a CD.” Bob Weir and his former Grateful Dead band members, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bill Kreutzmann just finished a cross-country, summer tour that included a sold-out show at the Darien Lakes Performing Arts Center. Since then Weir took RatDog to England for three festival shows and now RatDog’s Fall Tour stops again at the Smith Opera House.RatDog includes drummer, Jay Lane, one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s best, a member of the Freaky Executives and the Uptones. He introduced to RatDog the incredibly gifted jazz/blues/rock pianist, Jeff Chimenti. Guitarist Mark Karan came to Weir’s notice in the summer of 1998 when he played together in The Other Ones.Another Bay Area standout, saxophonist Kenny Brooks, is a New England Conservatory of Music graduate and a long-time member of the Charlie Hunter Quartet. Rounding out the group is bassist Robin Sylvester. The London native has played with Bob Dylan, The Beach Boys and Ry Cooder.Tickets for RatDog are $30 and on sale now at the Smith Opera House or and all Ticketmaster locations. Call 315.781.LIVE for more information www.ratdoglive.com
