John A

What did they play?

Tuned in for all of set 2 on my big audio system and 65" TV. Needed a bigger TV. 😀 The sound was better than respectable, and the video quality was stellar. But moreover, the video production was sensational. Whoever directed that video feed was nailing it! Expense was not spared... That set list wasn't created casually. DSO clearly understood they were (a) at freaking Red Rocks, and (b) putting serious resources into a free stream. The list reads like a GD tour de force, and the performance was definitely up to snuff. I love how they slowed things way down and got nice and quiet for some of those second set transitions. Also of note - the show seemed to be gradually going backwards in time. Started with a decided '73 flair, moved into the early 70s at the start of set 2, then dipped deeper and deeper into the 60s as set 2 unfolded. Great stuff! The only thing missing was a Bid You Goodnight after Viola Lee, which I bet would have happened had they not run out of time.

Strangely I don;t recall the heat being oppressive at that '88 Buckeye show. I do recall the venue being really weird. The ground had a subtle slope causing one side of the stage to be higher up from the crowd than the other. And on one side there were fences that separated people's back yards. Someone was having a cookout. Talk about a free show in your back yard. Only show I saw there. I thought the Cassidy -> Deal set 1 closer was the highlight. Not sure I've listened to the show since.

Is it possible that 9-27 / 9-28-76 Rochester/Syracuse is the best consecutive 2-pack in different cities in Grateful Dead history? I mean, obviously there's stiff competition, and Barton Hall/Buffalo '77 immediately comes to mind, but still. Upstate NY was treated quite well at the end of September in '76! I'd be shocked if DSO didn't turbo charge the shit out of that Franklin's...

Recent CDC buffoonary: when they said mask are no longer needed outdoors when not in crowds, they cited a stat that "less than 10% of transmission occurs outdoors." Ok, so that's technically correct, but it's like saying "less than 10,000 people a year get bitten by sharks" when the actual number is 100. So yeah, that's true, the correct number is less than 10,000. As for Covid transmission, the best scientific estimate is about 0.1% occurs outdoors. Well sure, that's less than 10%, but please quote actual statistics! People are confused enough already.

We made great spaced omni Schoeps FOBs of Carson. Played the shit out of those Phil notes to open the Help on the Way. Fun times but hot as hell. Over 100 degrees I think.

Jerry belts out an "I'd rather be with you" in that Standing On The Moon at Irvine '89 that resonates to this day. As an interesting aside to that Irvine run, I spoke on a cell phone for the first time driving into the parking lot - in those days it was technically a "car phone". A friend had borrowed her aunt's car, and said aunt had given her permission to use the installed phone. I called a buddy back in Ithaca to give him a blow by blow of our entrance to the lot. Wild memory!

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/grateful-deads-wall-of-sound-lives-again-in-some-dudes-basement-11618161994 It's behind a paywall but if you have WSJ access it's a wild read. There's also more here: https://www.insidehook.com/daily_brief/music/grateful-dead-wall-sound-scale-model

Was at those '88 Byrne shows. Excellent run. The 4 song sequence to open 4/1 was a stunner! Jerry's vocal delivery on the Dew 3/30 is otherworldly.

Extremely rare China -> Rider to open the show, and hard to beat the jam section: Dark Star -> Truckin' -> Morning Dew Jerry must have been a bit feisty that evening, as he introduced Looks Like Rain: "Now here's a real pretty song that Bobby wrote." Ha!

I believe the BCT was the last truly small venue the Dead played (Spring '86). I'd have loved to seen the Fall '84 shows there (1st official taper section shows), which were some of the best of that year, not to mention the epic August '72 run. Here's some trivia, and it's a show I did attend: the first show ever billed as "Phil & Friends" was at the BCT. It was acoustic, with Jerry, Bobby, Phil (on a huge hollow body guitar), and Vince. 9-24-94. It was a benefit for the Berkeley High School music program. There was a very rare, for that era, Duprees Diamond Blues, that Jerry so thoroughly flubbed in a way that only he can. 😀

Sarah Fulcher! Poor woman got hung out to dry. Jerry and Merl never rehearsed with her and just told her to improvise and do her thing. She made it work! She brought Like A Road to Garcia. Big points right there. Jerry got under the hood of that one.

All you needed is to have The Maker follow that up and it wouldn't been a done deal on the Jesus freaks suspicion. Then follow that up with Loose Lucy to really confuse 'em. Congratulations, man! That is if bringing another redneck into the world is a congratulatory offense. 🤪 🥂

Good system with which to whittle away the time during the days of shelter at home. I hope my wife doesn't ask what happened to her white towels. 😀

21-22 from the floor in the NCAA Final. Check out this clip - the man worked the glass like Garcia works his fret board. My question is why did it take Memphis State until Walton was about 15-16 to abandon their zone defense❓ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAnC4cBXAuY

Meanwhile, 4 SEC games are now off for this weekend. And then there's that scene in Notre Dame on the field after they knocked off Clemson. Yowsa.

My daughter, shortly after going back to UC Berkeley this Fall (for 100% remote instruction), got COVID. Fortunately we told her that she wasn't coming home for weekends, as college campuses were fueling the hot spots in September. So we weren't exposed. She had very mild symptoms for just a couple days, except she lost her sense of taste/smell. She only started to get it back about 3 weeks later. What kind of illness barely touches you with any ill effects but takes out your olfactory completely for weeks? When you think about whatever neurological factors may be at play there, it should be fuel concern about what this virus is potentially doing to people. Much of which is still unknown.

Nuggets indeed. One of my favorites. In fact I once posted a write-up I did a few years back in this forum... http://www.dsoforums.net/forum/topic/19215-berkeley-community-theater-11-2-84

Jeff Silberman's 2nd row audience tape of that Worcester show is great. Competes nicely with the 30 Trips release!

The Estimated crushed the Dark Star in that MSG show with David Murray.

Oh yeah - we have a winner! That would have been awesome indeed. Much as I love Steely Dan, I can;t see The Dead touching any of it. Too slick foe their tastes. The beauty of it, though, is that it's slick in the best of ways.

Yeah, I got some first hand knowledge - we got busted FOB during the 1st set. ☹️ My buddy Rob took the official fall and was unceremoniously booted, and ever the former hockey player I found him roller blading around the parking lot post show. There was rare August Northern CA precipitation somewhere along the line, thus the pre-drums song sequence.

Do you remember Brent's jam on Big River 6-25 Blossom? If not relisten. Summer '85 gets off to a sizzling start with the Frost and Greeks. All 3 Greeks have their own special stuff going on. Alpine is OK. Jerry's guitar is completely absent for the set 2 opener Keep On Growing in Alpine night 2. And launching into Mississippi first note there he is! Next 4 one stop cities are all solid, with special mention to the energy at Blossom. How 'bout that Comes A Time > Bird Song > Deal in Hershey? (In fairness to the uneven nature of it the period that Rude alluded to), there is little jamming in that Come a Time > Bird Song) Then 2 really solid nights at Merriweather and somewhat of a forgettable night in Pittsburgh. Wait until you get to that fall tour, especially Halloween and beyond...

You haven't heard Behind Blue Eyes until you get hold of a good original pressing of Who's Next and throw it on a nice vinyl rig. Some stunning shit is possible, and don't make 'em like they used to. Which makes me wonder out loud relative to this forum - Chuck, did you save your LPs from back in the day (and take good care of them)? There could be a potential gold mine of stuff there!

Bobby joined Paul Simon for The Boxer at Outside Lands in SF in 2019. Sadly it was forgettable.