I’m not a huge Dead cover band kind of follower or listener
either. I preferred the real deal, and I admit from the late 1970s until Jerry’s
passing in 1995, it was a minor obsession. Well maybe a major obsession, I saw
40-plus shows all over the U.S. and nearly a dozen Jerry Garcia Band shows
through those years.
So I'm kind of jaded when it comes to bands attempting to mimick the Grateful Dead, and my expectations were nil when I chauffeured my friends
over to Pisgah. Now, if you’ve never been to Pisgah Brewing, it can be a tough
place to find. The brewery is housed in an old furniture factory on the western edge
of Black Mountain. It takes a few turns and unexpected twists to get there, and
you can easily miss the turn just past a small Free Will Baptist church and
into a parking lot that can be described in one word … industrial.
The old guard shack still sits at the edge of the property,
decrepit and shiny with crystals of broken glass. I’ve known the guys who run
Pisgah for a few years now, and they have upgraded the place considerably. They
expanded their brew house by knocking down walls and replacing the aging dairy
equipment they used for brewing vats to much larger stainless steel tanks and
kettles. I was there when they first started construction on the tasting room—where
the bands now play. The large bay doors in the tasting room now open to a graveled courtyard,
fire pit and Quonset hut game room. Simply put, it is a very funky place.
The guys who run Pisgah are all Deadhead types, so it
surprises me none that they knew about this band Hyryder from Indianapolis.
These guys were good, and their music is what set me to time traveling a bit.
Often nostalgia can be a double-edged sword, and reminiscing can leave you at
loss pining for things that once were.
I didn’t experience that though, this was much different.
The band played the music that I was so familiar with, but it sounded and felt
different. It was alive and in the present, and I think that’s no easy task
when you cover an iconic band like the Grateful Dead. I think the music woke me
up a bit and to start thinking about how to embrace the past and make it work
for us in the present and the future.