Hot Tuna and Jefferson Airplane Reunion
1988 03 04
The Old Fillmore
San Francisco CA
This is Hot Tuna live at The Fillmore, San Francisco, CA, USA, on the 4th March 1988. Hot Tuna are an American blues rock band formed originally by bassist Jack Casady and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen as a spin off of Jefferson Airplane. They are renowned for playing acoustic and electric versions of original and traditional blues songs.
There is a strong likelihood that this concert that bought Paul Kantner and Grace Slick back on the stage together helped the Jefferson Airplane reunion tour and record in 1989 to come about.
Paul Kantner opens this show with an interesting observation: "Ah, the late show here. It used to be the young kids would always come to the late show to get home in time for curfew and the old folks would stay for the late show. Now all the old folks come to the early show and the young kids stay late..." The year was 1988, and for the San Francisco music scene, it seemed everything that goes around, comes around again.
The legendary Fillmore Auditorium was back in business, and playing on stage was the famed acoustic duo of Kaukonen and bassist Jack Casady, better known as acoustic Hot Tuna. The duo, which formed in 1970 as a side project featuring two of the six members of the Jefferson Airplane, eventually added Airplane drummer Johnny Barbata and violinist Papa John Creach to become Electric Hot Tuna. But on this night, it was billed as back to the original two man, acoustic lineup for an evening of old time blues and country blues standards. Paul Kantner had other ideas!
