im new to the forum and it may have come up already but interested in whats everyones opinion about the jam band scene

grateful dead obviously the best thing to ever grace this planet

phish the worst thing to ever visit this planet

string cheese incident i could care less about them not bad but just not my style i guess

moe. whatever accept for there BOC cover i dont care much for them

widespread panic awesome

allman bros awesome

furhur awesome

cant think of any other bands but if you dont add them to the list

Love every band you listed except for moe. and Widespread Panic, just started checking those guys out. But seriously I listen to every other of those bands pretty much daily.

ive tried to get into phish several times but i just think they suck. stash is a good song but they just dont jam. and there style is no good to me. they dont have any long jams. honestly i think its blasphamous for a deadhead to even go to a phish show but to each there own.

danieldeadhead wrote:

Really? I don't listen to Phish much anymore and haven't seen them in years, but the super long jams is what I remember most about them. They would start playing a song and go into some crazy 20 minute jam and you would forget what they were playing. I'm not familiar with anything they've written since '94, so when I hear them now everything sounds the same.

Nope not a phish fan at all!

If it wasn't for the Grateful Dead the jam band scene wouldn't be what it is today! They are number one and number one in my music choices too!

When I was in college a few years back I hosted a radio show on the college radio station. I did it for about two years. Every Monday night I'd get to program four hours of music for listeners. I played mostly jam bands, bluegrass, jazz, blues, older classics, funk, anything basically in the jam band scene lol. I liked a lot of it back then. I was into Keller, Umphreys, Moe, Cheese, and lots more. I kinda had to be into it if I wanted to do the best show I could and get the latest and greatest information out there. But that fourth and final hour was always dedicated to the Grateful Dead. Nothing but dead! I had to pay tribute to a band that had influenced the major of the music played on my show...I called my show The EmVibe.

I had since graduated and don't do my show anymore. When I stopped doing my show I kinda focused all my energies on the dead and not the other bands. It was just the time when Furthur came out end of 2009. Now I'm just loving Furthur and it makes me love the dead community so much more. It's really just all about the dead. Yea there are tons of other great artist out there I'll see when they come to town but I don't want to waste my time keeping up with them unless Bobby of Phil make an appearance with them Also there is still so much for me to learn about the dead. I'm almost 25 and never got to experience them. So to me I kinda see the Grateful Dead's music as a category of music in itself. Cuz when you take the Grateful outta it you have all the other side acts during, after, and now. It's crazy so much out there!!! And so thankful it's out there to enjoy today!

I love Furthur/Grateful Dead AND Phish, and have seen them both once. Like I said they're pretty much even in my book so no bias;

Dead community is much better; lots of nicer, relaxed (mostly older than me) people, I guess you could say hippies, and Phish's crowd I noticed had MANY more people around my age (teenager/twenties), seemed like a lotta college kids and middle-aged tweekers (very hard drug use was much more apparent at Phish; like nitrous, EVERYWHERE). Also it was obvious that some people were just there for the drugs, but Dead community's absolute love in the Dead unite them.

Just a little note on the current crowds that I noticed over the summer.

in the early '90s a couple of my road buddies started pushin' Phish and tellin' me how great they were. i finally went to see Phish at the Warfield in 1993 and thought it was a fun show, but never went back to see 'em. even though Phish didn't do much for me, i really enjoy Trey Anastasio Band. i love the horns, the backing vocals and the rhythm section.

i like phish but its not the same at all. i like most of the jam bands on the scene today but nothing is like the dead. phish is fun to listen to and fun to see if they are close, but the dead's music is the best by far. there is something about it. as soon as another band can bring tears to my eyes with their playing or lyrics i'll put them in the same category as the dead but until then no one else is near as moving or as good as the grateful dead, p & f, rd, other ones, the dead, or furthur, or even dso for that matter

I love seeing John butler trio.

the "newer" bands that i'm most excited about these days are Yonder Mountain String Band, Cornmeal, Infamous Stringdusters, Stanton Moore Trio and Galactic (to name a few). like the GD they embrace the traditional roots of Americana along with funk and rock, but take it to the next level by liberally breaking the rules. the result is amazingly good to my ear holes!!!