John A

Son of a bitch that set list is off the charts. Would be hard to craft a list to hand to Jerry that would be any more satisfying than that. Palm Sunday trivia: It was played twice, on 3-18 and 3-19-78, both times on Palm Sunday. That's because the 3-18 encore started after midnight!

I think what we have here is just an unfortunate choice of vocabulary on your part, Steph, as "junkie music" does feel like it has an unnecessarily bad connotation. That said, I think I know exactly what you refer to. Although I prefer to call it "narcotic tinged". When I think of that reference I'm usually thinking specifically of circa '79 through '82 JGB, where Jerry might play sets with as few as 4 or 5 songs that would all stretch to 15+ minutes. Much of this music is undoubtedly informed by his heroin use at that time. Bottom line: at the end of the day, anyway you slice it the passion shown on these forums is both wonderful and infectious.

Speaking of Lucky Old Sun, check out Jerry's final "wash all my troubles away" vocal explosion from that 9-1-89 version. Goose-fucking-bumps.

I think Rude's equation has imbalanced parenthesis. But more importantly lacks the critical logarithm of Garcia's essence coefficient.

I had an unfortunately mistimed vacation to Santa Fe, so I'm not at the Warfield this weekend. But a report at set break indicated it's an elective, the set closing with Here Comes Sunshine > China > Rider. The jam in HCS was said to be the first set highlight. Of course it's an elective, because those are my favorites. I hope the crowds are good for these Warfield shows. Easily the biggest venue they've booked in the Bay Area.

That's 3 decades of The Dead plus some JGB seasoned in. Very cool. Only thing missing is a So Many Roads or a Days Between for a 4 decade festival.

Has DSO ever played Baby What You Want before?

That was a bizarre tour. California Central Valley in mid January. No other year featured such a thing.

Wow, Tea, that 1-12-79 is an interesting listen. I was unfamiliar as well with this show. For a '79 show without a soundboard source, this Jim Wise FOB with Sony mics holds its own nicely. And yes, the evening is all about the Dancin' and the NFA, both of which are stunning. Unfortunately during the final GDTRFB jam Bobby is way too loud in the mix, and he kills what would perhaps have been a huge Jerry scrub. The set list here could make one look the other way but that would be a mistake.

The China Rider bust-out. Hard to believe The Dead hadn't played it since '74, or that it wouldn't join the rotation again until '79.

Umm, by the very definition of their existence, Dark Star Orchestra engages in "interpretation and creativity of an intermediary". No matter whether they're playing some horrific '94 set list*, the set list from your favorite show, or an elective. *fortunately they do not do this

Are you asking about the relative merits of Joe Noel's matrix source? It's a perfectly fine listen, but Tom Darian's B&K recording is the stuff of legend. A rare tape where I think mixing in the soundboard can only hurt it. In fact, Tom's recordings of the entire run are jaw dropping. The union security guy tending to that FOB section at The Garden was a Head, and he was getting greased with cassette dubes of each night the subsequent evening. In return, not only did Tom have carte blance to put his stand nice and high on the aisle seat (the center line was the aisle), but the usher was actually making folks near the mics pipe down. Amazing, and to my knowledge unprecedented. So the bottom line is these B&K audience tapes (or somewhat interchangeably Rick Katzeff's Schoeps tapes which were made at the same seat) should be the go to for this run.

I had a session with the Schoeps 12-12-90 tonight. Dark Star>Terrapin, lights out concert level. Complete immersion. Really intense stuff. When Jerry drops into Dark Star from Iko it's game on.

Don't listen to the Sennheiser shotguns of 12-12-90! An FOB Schoeps spaced omni recording has been seeded to eTree recently. Phenomenal sound.

Help Slip Franklin's Estimated Dark Star is ho-hum?

Ha! Perhaps my post coupled with the newly unveiled Day Tripper? Although something tells me DSO mustered a little more than 3 minutes of the Playin' post reprise.