20 April 2007: Tea Leaf Green

20 April 2007
Tea Leaf Green
The Fillmore
1805 Geary Boulevard (@ Fillmore) [Map]
Drinks Consumed: 3 or 4 Maker's on the rocks, 1 or 2 beers
Review at The Owl Mag


As most people under the age of 35 know by now, April 20th has been co-opted by marijuana lovers around the globe as "Four-twenty," a day to celebrate weed in its various forms. It's clearly no accident that jam band scene darlings Tea Leaf Green scheduled a show at the historic Fillmore to coincide with International Weed Day. What did this mean? Exactly what you'd imagine: A sold out crowd of dredded twenty- and thirty-somethings turning the Fillmore into a giant clambake. Well okay, not everyone had dreds, but everyone was at least a little stoned, even those who didn't have a joint or a hand blown glass pipe pass through their fingers.


So the band. First, Tea Leaf Green's lighting director, Alan Sezak, has a brilliant way of lighting the stage that makes him seem as much a part of the show as any of the guys with instruments on stage. He responds to even slight changes in the music, sensing when it's appropriate to dim down to blues and greens and when it's okay to turn bright yellows and whites on the audience to blind them. At one point, during some particularly jammy moment, he turned all the lights green as puffs of smoke rose into the air, making the stage look like it was covered in a green cloud. It was the perfect lighting moment for a jam band on 4/20.


While the crowd at an indie rock shows might look as if they're trying to have the least amount of fun, the kids at jam band shows seem to be in a competition to look like they're having the most fun. Both of these situations are pretty weird but the jam fans look like they're having fun. I may not be a fan of the jam band sound but the guys in Tea Leaf Green are very good at playing their instruments, and they have an impressively loyal following that runs the gamut from cute young girls to old men with crutches, all of them bopping and dancing with unabashed glee. Judging by the fervor with which they danced, it was a great show.