John A

Strangely truncated 2nd set, although I'm sure with a big Lovelight. And NRPS (with Garcia) played to open.

No Help On The Way->Slipknot! from '77 through '83 and again from '85 through '89 cements those numbers.

This was an incredibly well played show, so I guess it's not surprising that Mr. Eaton would make an exception for it.

Somewhat out of place for the latter Brent era but not the early or mid 80s. And technically, yes, Blow Away debuted about 2 years after Day Job was retired. But how many even fairly serious Deadheads are under the hood of such minutia? And if we're getting pedantic, Masterpiece didn't debut until a year after Day Job went away.

Until the encore, that's about as actual-Dead-show-like-late-style-elective that you'll find. The only clear giveaway is the mix of the Brent tune with a couple post Brent era tunes.

Pro tip: get a tarp that's not blue, so you'll be able to find your space again later.

Saw a band at Sweetwater in Mill Valley called Jerry's Middle Finger. Somewhat of a low rent cover band in the style of JGB, but the price was right at $15. They're from LA, and "the Jerry" is a guy named Garrett Deloian. What was cool is he had been loaned the Stephen Cripe guitar that was being build for Garcia in the summer of '95. Jerry died before the guitar was finished. Recall that Cripe had made 2 guitars for Jerry already; Bolt, which Garcia received as a gift and played the final 2 years of his life, and Top Hat, which he apparently liked but never played on stage. This final guitar was called Tribute. Looked totally cool up close. Here's some more info and a picture I snapped. https://www.cripeguitars.com/tribute.html

Good read - thanks for the link. There are 69 comments thus far, 68 of which are quite positive. Then there's this moron: "The only thing more mind-numbing than listening to the Grateful Dead is listening to someone trying to convince you that they were great. Today I’m embarrassed to be a Times reader." I did get a kick out of this comment, in reaction to the scathing Lou Reed quote in the article: "Lou Reed was a legend in his own mind. When you look at the history of rock-and-roll, is he really much more than maybe a 3-hit wonder?" Ha!

Original show has breathtaking series of quick fire Garcia notes in Other One.

I think we'll need to file that in the "massive omissions" folder.

Well now that you mention it the organ jam in Minglewood was decidedly "un-'77". I don't know how strict that stuff is, but it's probably foolish to assume less than very strict!

Filler was Brokedown. Perfect choice. I think the band was on another level vs Friday. On paper, my preference is for the elective that takes turns exactly like Friday. But shows aren't played on paper. Saturday night had an extra notch. Clear and crushing highlights include, but are not necessarily limited to, Shakedown (completely nuts), I Know You Rider, Terrapin, Truckin', and Black Peter. Friend of the Devil was beautiful. Fun show. It was good to run into sml. I hadn't seen him posting so I wasn't assuming he was on tour. No such worries; it's just that his laptop died. ☹️

Show got kicking out the gate with the Jack Straw -> Mississippi and didn't let up. My highlights were Like A Road (nicely dedicated by Eaton to Gloria Jones), Mr Fantasy (just before the final jam Skip went crazy; he hit a couple big bombs then proceeded to essentially do a duet, constant bombs in tow, with Rob B while Rob B was simultaneously working the big jam with Jeff...making Rob B a busy man!), and Morning Dew, which saw a very respectful SF crowd. Through Jack-A-Roe I was sure we were square in 1977. Then Tom Thumb's announced the elective, and soon enough things had turned 80s with some perfectly placed JGB tidbits. Very nice.

Crew - I don't think there's a good audience on Met Dome '86. My source is a Sony stereo mic, which otherwise went away by the late 70s as far as an audience taper's tool. Otherwise it's just shotguns. Maybe shotguns are better for such shit venue sound, but I can't listen to shotguns for more than a few minutes. Even worse, the only board that circulates is a partial show. Not that one should really want to relive Summer '86 with Dylan / Petty frankly. And especially not Minnesota. The "Jerry is dying Part 1" tour.

Yes! I had that too. I want to say it was called "The Rose" and it's 8-28-81. Such a beautiful Wheel jam into Never Trust A Woman/Good Time Blues. Hot Shakedown too.

That's actually a curious one. Per the Grateful Dead Song Finder, David Gans says Brent gave this song the title "Good Time Blues." But both "Dozin' At The Knick" and "Nightfall of Diamonds" list it as "Never Trust A Woman." But these were both released after Brent had died. And of further note, the record in the Library of Congress from the copyright application lists "Application Title: Gonna See Some Good Times" Looks like this is one where neither title is a wrong answer.

That is one hell of bizarre 2 encore sequence, Saturday Night and Miracle. I wonder what precipitated that.

Well, I didn't leave but I will second your friend's sentiment. This was indeed the worst sound, by a long shot, that I ever experienced at a Dead show. I recall the only exciting moment being the mid set Iko. I was even with the soundboard about 1/2 up the lower section, so not great not not exactly horrible seats. There's an FOB Schoeps tape that sounds at least somewhat passable, so the sound was apparently better in the sweet spot. But still. Horrific venue and a totally flat show. Santana opened, and this was the only show I ever saw where the opening act outshone The Boys.

Back to Sugaree. I finally got to the 5-22-77 the other night - it had been many years. This version is all about the jam before the the 3rd verse. It's epic, with lulls and peaks aplenty. There is then no jam before the final verse, just a brief, quiet instrumental. This is how Jerry often approached the song in later years, when the big jam was followed by a very soft interlude before the ":meet you at the jubilee" verse. Another thing 5-22 has going on is the transitions from the jams to the first lines in the following verse are stunningly smooth. 5-19-77, on the other hand, has a jam before the 3rd verse that, if you didn't know better, could suffice as the main jam. Then before the 4th verse all Garcia/Lesh driven hell breaks loose. It was pointed out to me that 3-18-77 is a player, so I listened to that as well (and why not - what a great show that is!). It has a wonderful playfulness to it, but it isn't up to the level of the May versions. Sadaka, a little bit above, brought up 5-5-77, and Found brought up 5-28-77. Again, all these May versions are smoking, but I suggest you re-familiarize yourselves with the Fox.

Oddly, the Estimated Eyes switcheroo isn't as rare as one might imagine. The Dead did it 14 times, mostly in '90 and '91. Although the most famous occurrence is probably Colgate 11-4-77. This 3 set beast looks awesome! I saw the final 6 New Year's Dead shows. The 3 set ritual slowly devolved. Proper 3rd sets in '86 and '87, then a 3 song encore in '88, then down to double encores in '89 and '90, and finally just Knockin' encore in '91. At that point, with Uncle Bobo having just passed away, the writing was on the wall. NYE Grateful Dead was no longer. Great that DSO carries the torch with such gusto.

I found the power outage show - it was 5-23-12. Just a random Wednesday in Marin. 😆 The other highlight was Peggy-O. Phil's voice, sans amplification, was so soft, fragile, and delicate. And given the utter silence in the room, it worked beyond any preconceived notions I may have harbored. Here's the list with a photo that gives a decent general idea of what it looked like. They brought out some heavy candle artillery. http://www.deadheadland.com/2012/05/24/setlist-phil-lesh-john-kadlecik-jon-graboff-terrapin-crossroads-bar-wed-may-23-2012-accoustic-set-by-candlelight/

I think, at least as it comes across on tape, the most insane audience reaction to a bust out was that Box in Hampton '86. Honorable mention to Dark Star Hampton '89 and Stephen both MSG and Hartford '83. Rude - as for why Visions was unflubbed while most other songs were mistake laden, Jerry would have been using the teleprompter early and often for Visions, but likely not at all for the songs he should theoretically have known cold. The best Visions I've seen was done by JK at Terrapin Crossroads. Perhaps this was 8 or so years ago. Phil was doing a free bar set with JK and a few other musicians, and a transformer blew in the neighborhood shortly before the set was to start. When it became clear the power wasn't going to come back on anytime soon, they announced that they were scrambling to come up with acoustic instruments and that there would still be music played. Apparently there had to actually be a run to Phil's house to procure them. So the set was played to candlelight, the audience was fully respectful (what choice did they have? There was no vocal PA), and JK just nailed the most haunting Visions one could imagine. Just wow.

I consider 12-16-92 the best show post "medical malfunction 2" as BillK puts it. Just gold from start to finish. Check out Row Jimmy. Casey Jones was the cherry on top. Recommended source? My FOB Schoeps recording. 😊 https://archive.org/details/gd1992-12-16.140956.FOB.Schoeps.Ammons.Noel.t-flac.1648

While '93 was generally tough, December '93 is exceedingly so. But to your question, it was the ambience. The Grateful Dead were on stage. Anything seemed possible. (And as of Dec '93 I generally believed that, although that belief would erode rapidly.)

Not pathetic at all. For a taper at a Dead show, one of the treats was listening to the evening's work in the hotel room during after show partying.