Leaderboard

I consider '87 the year the band was improving each and every tour, a phenomena that continued into the start of '88. It set the stage for the epic 3 year run which would follow. So while I may not think it's a great year onto itself, it's a damn important one.

I still have about 50 of my stubs. Used a collage of them to make a gif to print on my envelope used to score Dead50 tix from mail order. 2 are full tix…11/5/77 my third show. Crowd pushed through glass doors. 7/2/95 no show Deer Creek. First stub 5/4/77 my first show Last stub 7/9/95 no explanation needed. The stories this baggie of stubs could tell…..

Got a couple still lying around. There’s a few with birdsnest handwriting that end after 3 songs. Sometimes hurling through space, time, and dimension, is a bit distracting

Down year? Debatable. Spring tour didn’t sound that way to me. YMMV

1985-11-17 Ling Beach Arena Long Beach, CA Mississippi Half Step, Minglewood Blues, Stagger Lee, It's All Over Now-> Friend Of The Devil, Cassidy, Big Railroad Blues, Looks Like Rain-> Might As Well China Cat Sunflower-> I Know You Rider, Samson & Delilah-> He's Gone-> Spoonful-> Good Time Blues-> Drums-> The Wheel-> Throwing Stones-> Not Fade Away, E: It's All Over Now Baby Blue F: Walking the Dog

Keeping within the 85 territory!

I used to write the setlists on the back of the ticket stubs. Required a "tiny font" level of penmanship. 😲 After abut 35 shows I could have told you the setlist for every one. Then suddenly the memory bank overloaded and said ability went poof!

Smokeshow! I’ll bet they get more primal 2Nite! Stream was crystal clear

The magic of the park in Springfield is wonderful. It's my favorite place to see DSO. I do wish we could play there again.

Hyryder at The Mousetrap Indy February 7, 2025 #1 Tennessee Jed Big Iron El Paso Big Boss Man Hog For You Ballad of a Thin Man Doin That Rag Birdsong Pride of Cucamonga Slow Train King Solomons Marbles Chinatown Shuffle. #2 Aiko Aiko Picasso Moon Foolish Heart SHAKEDOWN STREET> Mindbender> Dark Star (v1)> Drums> Space> The Wheel> BLACK PETER. The Rub Cats Down Under Brown Eyed Women Promised Land.

Back in the GD days we had a coffee table with a glass top, all the ticket stubs went under the glass top giving it a unique look

Yes please, it seems Jubilee are the only shows we've been getting in this area and that weekend seldom works out for me. Used to be able to see 8-10 shows a year within a 3 hour radius.

I have All of my Grateful Dead ticket stubs in a frame. Got snuck into Radio City so, no ticket stub but I have a 8x10 hand written xerox flier from a guy selling glossy photos of the band on stage. My roommate wrote the set list on the back of that. Good thing, because my handwriting sucks. I tried keeping up a list during shows but am not so sure I ever pulled off a whole show’s list. I found it to be a distraction during the show, kept me from getting lost in the music. Of course, we’re talking about my brain. If I didn’t write it down at the beginning of the tune, it would get lost to eternity. Recalling set lists sometimes would take days. Younger heads need to understand, word of mouth was pretty much it for information about the Grateful Dead. Keeping track of set lists had to be done. People would be lined up using pay phones at set break to call their friends and tell them what was played. I remember running into a high school class mate in the spectrum lot eight years later. The first thing he said was, “they played ripple in Baltimore”. People who didn’t make it into the show would swarm the people leaving the show, “What they play?, what they play?”. “Any show stoppers?”. If you had a list from the previous night, there was a crowd around you in the lot. The discussion would be happening. I didn’t know they had brought back Attics until I saw it on a flier someone handed me after a show that had all the set lists from that tour. I learned about Good Lovin/ LaBamba/Good Lovin from Pierre Robert at Wmmr in Philly. He talked about the MSG show that Dark Star Orchestra just recreated. I had tickets for the upcoming Saturday night in Philly. I was pretty sure that if we got a good Lovin in Philly, we were going to get the La Bamba. Sure enough… It was history in the making, it turns out. List keepers and tapers are why we have what we have now. Once the technology advanced, the resources were already in place. Especially with Dark Star’s live shows but also with the internet, I have been taken back in time, to shows before I got started and also conquering new horizons with original set lists. I had probably only heard a hundred shows before the internet. I now seek out a new show every morning, listen to the whole thing while I go about my day. Within the last few years, the number of GD shows that I have heard has gone through the roof. It also helps that the cassette player in my truck finally wore out. Strangers stopping strangers…just to see what they played.