-Grateful Dead, “U.S. Blues”
I had no idea how much I needed Bertha’s Grateful Drag “get out the vote” get-down, this past Saturday at the Basement East in Nashville. It was a musical rally welcomed by the flowery fringe of one of the most progressive neighborhoods in this otherwise wildly & sadly right-wing red-state.
To add to my anxiety & apprehension about the imminent presidential election, on Saturday, a cloud of grief suddenly shrouded my profession. I work in higher education, & this past week, four different Tennessee universities had seen four specific tragedies of death by suicide, including in Cookeville where I live & work. I had been on campus launching my weekly episode of Teacher On The Radio, in too close physical proximity to the place & time of our tragedy, & at the time, I didn’t even know what was going down. At my alma mater MTSU earlier in the week, a trans & queer student leader Serenity Birdsong died by suicide in the university library.
Given all this & more, getting to Nashville was mental medicine & needed distraction. At times of such strange & surreal sadness, I recall how the grief of the poet Rumi fueled so much fierce love verse. Rumi’s grief at losing his dear friend also fed his need to spin, to twirl, to dervish dance for literally hours on end. I have always likened this story in my heart to the Deadhead spinning tradition. So even on a packed venue floor, so close to the stage, I could shimmy & shake & spin, shaking off the mental health worries with full-body self-care. I brought all my grief, so much anxiety, but also so much dogged hope & determination to this iteration of Bertha, whose Nashville-based benefits for queer organizations, & to defy legalistic drag bans, have blown-up into a movement & a moment, even taking Nashville’s sweet secret on the road, to festivals & venues around the world.
From the first note, just after 8pm, until the end of the second set, when we sadly left, but with full hearts, just before the encore, at around 11pm, it was a dazzling & delicious dance into the Grateful Dead multiverse. An added anticipation for me was the convergence of worlds I have known for a long time colliding. For tonight’s show, Cannon County’s EGGPLANT Faerie Players were joining Bertha for some second set performance art. We’ve always known that “getting on the bus” was also like “joining the circus,” & well this time, thanks to Tom Foolery & Maxzine Cuisine, the circus arts were in full force, especially in the drippy trippy parts of the second set, when the goofy smiles on melted faces were entertained by EGGPLANT’s signature juggling antics & more. The rural queer arts of the “gayborhood” of which Maxzine & Tom have participated in for decades are a little known part of Tennessee culture that defy the stereotypes about what life is really like in the backwoods & down the backroads of the hills & hollers here .
Not only did the second set include all those EGGPLANT shenanigans, but it also included “Box of Rain,” as a nod to the recently deceased & original Grateful Dead member Phil Lesh. All those good things & a simply smoking setlist overall, were not all, though, with the early-November-specific activist-themes of the night hitting hardest. First, there were the wonderful motivational speeches spiced throughout the show from various activists. Then, during a sizzling late-set “Man Smart, Woman Smarter,” it turned into a full blown election rally, with a first-female president on everyone’s mind. Keep in mind, all the Berthas’ costumes were mostly-fashioned on the election-year “U.S. Blues” theme, as the Dead always brought their own weird brand of merry-prankster hippy-patriotism, & nothing like Grateful Drag queens to represent this at the star-spangly best.
ow those that know me know, the last thing they expect of Sunfrog is any form of rah-rah patriotism, but the joyful enthusiasm of this event brought it & in an entirely different way. So the band had passed out little American flags & rainbow flags, & by the climax of the second set, we were all waving them as we danced together. It was downright healing & hopeful, killing if only momentarily, so much doubt & cynicism. We were one voice for the better, least-harmful path forward. So Sunfrog & everyone else were waving those flags & waving them high, me-oh-my!
I have been attending Grateful Dead shows, Dead tribute shows, & Dead spinoff shows, such as Dead & Company, for some 37 years. Now to be clear, I am not even close to the most devout Deadhead that I know, but I am a Deadhead. From all those many, many experiences, I must say that I think that Bertha/Grateful Drag are bringing the most joyful, most specifically countercultural, most energetic version of this musical canon that I have ever had the pleasure to experience. This was my third Bertha show, & they have all been this good. The colors & costumes are such a feast for the eyes, the music is magically faithful to the tradition, while taking it to new places, & the embrace of comedy & LGBTQ positivity & empowerment are all simply on-point & stunning. Comparisons are silly, but this is probably the most unchecked fun & pure joy I have ever had at a Dead or Dead-adjacent show.
Andrew/Sunfrog
4 November 2024
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