Bob Weir and RatDog | RatDog.Org

(July 11, 2006) — HOPEWELL — Michael Jordan was once cut from his high school basketball team.

That fine Merlot in your hand was once a handful of grapes reaching for the sun.

And Finger Lakes Performing Arts Center? It's renovated and unrecognizable, and now called the Constellation Brands-Marvin Sands Performing Arts Center.

After a Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra opening a few weeks ago, CMAC got its first baptism of rock Monday night: 3,500 people for four hours of jam bands, the String Cheese Incident and Bob Weir's RatDog.

The verdict: The once-modest venue on the hills overlooking Canandaigua Lake has used the last six months to transform itself into a first-class venue. Darien Lake Performing Arts Center will still get the majority of summer tours because of its connection to almighty Clear Channel. But Darien Lake has been rendered an architectural jalopy to CMAC's astonishing new look.

The breezy, soaring pavilion area now seats 5,000, just a little less than Darien, with space for more than another 10,000 on the lawn. Designed by Bob Healy, a Rochesterian with LaBella Associates, its vast roof line fits naturally into the hillside alongside Finger Lakes Community College. The sight lines are flawless.

"He was always here. He's a music fan," John Parkhurst of the Rochester Broadway Theater League, which operates the venue, said of Healy. "So there wasn't a lot of explaining to do."

So they've nailed it; You can tour the venue Wednesday beginning at 5:30 p.m., with a couple of local bands playing.

But enough of Architectural Digest. As the cliche goes, a torrential downpour an hour into the show failed to dampen the spirits of the crowd, although it did seem to extinguish the reefer. But in one of those inspired moments that litter the history of Deadheads, WCMF-FM (96.5) lunchtime deejay Dave Kane came out before RatDog took the stage and invited everyone on the rain-soaked lawn to come party in the pavilion.

RatDog's moody lightshow was joined by sheets of lightning and occasional bolts for two hours of music by the guitarist who was essentially the Grateful Dead's leader as Jerry Garcia tended to other business. RatDog delivered with a precision that hardly allowed for a breath between songs, such as the snarky version of the Beatles' "Come Together."

Sometimes there was no barrier between songs. In one of those inexplicable dichotomies of songwriting, Bob Dylan's "Silvio" shifted back and forth to "Tequila," along with the requisite bellows of "tequila" from the highly partying crowd.

Colorado's the String Cheese Incident, former ski bums turned groove-scene stars, were awarded the honor of first rock band to play the CMAC. From my excellent vantage point, most of the six band members, if not all, appeared to be shoeless. Thanks largely to the mandolin and violin of Michal Kang, the band is rooted in bluegrass. As was the Dead.

But the Dead, RatDog and the String Cheese Incident moved far beyond those roots early in their lives, although that basic ethos remains, alongside jazz ideas: spiraling guitar riffs and mucho instrumental noodling. The song structures sound like an expensive sedan shifting gears. This must be what the Grateful Dead sounds like to people who don't know that music.

The relaxed site fits, but the name CMAC seems too corporate, especially for such anti-establishment bands. Better ideas? "The Marv," suggested Kane.