Just a shocking, volatile, incredible 10 minutes of carnage. The tuba guy hyperventilated through “Taps.” Captain Kirk shredded through what we all slowly realized (to our absolute delight) was “You Drop a Bomb on Me.” And as a finale, “Machine Gun,” Quest bashing the snare in bullet time while Kirk unleashed a vicious solo obliterating a fine Warren Hayes/some roadie effort not 15 minutes ago. Meanwhile, they kept violently breaking into other songs. Before each verse’s leering one-chord dirge finally broke, Quest and Kirk held the pause for 10 to 15 seconds, almost smirking at each other, before bashing through the four chords propping up the last two lines-”You ain’t worth the blood that runs in your veins,” etc. (Mistook him for old Roots pal Cody Chesnutt at first, but his voice is much wobblier.) Then the actual “Masters of War” melody started, the tuba largely inaudible, and by the time the soundman cranked it up Questlove was pounding on his kit so angrily it was inaudible again. The first two verses were mashed up with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” “And you turn and run farther/When the fast bullets fly” thus replacing “And the land of the free/And the home of the brave,” Captain Kirk bellowing faux-theatrically and quite impressively. And then, oh my God, “Masters of War,” performed by the Roots, consisting in this iteration of Questlove on drums, Captain Kirk on guitar and vocals (no Black Thought this eve), some dude on tuba, and the entire Thursday-night Lincoln Center crowd on jaws-dropped-to-floor percussion. (‘Cept Phil, of course.) A mild Starbucks tribute to- oh, let’s put it mildly-a not particularly Starbucks kinda dude. We’d been sleepwalking through the big-shot Bob Dylan tribute hoedown for roughly an hour and a half, clapping politely-to-semi-enthusiastically as Joan Osborne looked serene, Bob Mould looked dapper, Warren Haynes looked like a roadie, Lee Renaldo looked awkwardly triumphant, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah looked hopelessly out of place, Phil Lesh looked helpless.
Al Kooper (far right), shelter from the calm before the storm photo: Willie Davis/Veras
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