Hardpan

Into a smoking crater?

I gotta go with Bill Graham’s introduction into the Help>Slip>Frank from 8/13/75 as my all time favorite specific show opener. Gets me all charged up and it’s a killer version ⚡️⚡️

OK, hear me out. The first set of 2/26/77 as a story. Terrapin as an overview, Minglewood giving some backstory on the sailor. They Love Each Other as the relationship blooms. Estimated Prophet, the sailor develops some kind of messiah complex. The Lady has had enough of the sailor’s insane ramblings, leading into Sugaree, the break up. The sailor is feeling down and out after losing it all, gets into trouble, as described in Mama Tried. Deal, a cautionary tale, but at least they gave it a shot. Playin, a summary, with The Wheel sandwiched in between as a reminder that we may be at the mercy of fate, with the chance of redemption at every turn of the Wheel. A stretch, maybe?

The plot thickens! The only time (I think) Terrapin was played as an opener was its first live performance, on 2/26/77, and it was followed by Minglewood. Pretty cool, wonder if it holds any water or they were just playing songs. Taping was fun, made some dear friends, and it was a fun way to experience shows. Thanks back to you for all your taping!

Was listening to Minglewood this morning, and it dawned on me that it shares a couple things with Terrapin, namely, the lion’s den and implied love triangles in each song. I wonder if Hunter was inspired by this at all when creating the lyrics for Terrapin. The sailor could have been the guy from Minglewood, who, being raised in a lion’s den, held no qualms about entering the lion’s den in Terrapin to win the Lady’s favor. Maybe the Lady knew it, and chose the sailor this way with her action of tossing the fan, while letting the soldier down in a graceful manner. Morning thoughts, hope you all have a good day.

Happened to pick Dave’s Picks #35 tonight, 4/20/84: Stranger, Cold Rain opening sequence 😎

Oh yeahhh 🔥

Everyone has those shows that bring you back to your earliest days of discovering the Grateful Dead. You know every note and vocal inflection, maybe haven’t played them in years because you’ve listened to them so much. Been listening to some of mine lately, they’re like going home. Yesterday was 12/31/87, the Ticket To New Year’s video release, my first GD video I had on VHS and I played it a LOT. Great show. Today is 9/20/70, got on a blanks and postage offer on the rec.music.gdead newsgroup, another great one. What are some of yours?

I don’t think people really pay attention to them. I see at the bottom of the page, that it’s powered by invision community, probably a forum template that has features like this built in. From one Master Poster to another, I don’t think it’s anything to worry about 😛

I’m with you, Desert, Cold Rain and Stranger. Honorable mention for Jack Straw.

Snow-globed, a great description 😃

Wow, what a great second night last night at the Cap. What amazing generosity from Grateful Guitars and everyone involved to deliver such a beautiful guitar to Jeff. The back of the guitar is inlaid with an epic scene of two wooly mammoths locking tusks in battle. I thought it was so cool that the guitar was not only a replica guitar of the finest quality, similar to Rosebud, but not a direct replica, as it was outfitted with beautiful inlay artwork to be Jeff’s own. J.Mattson inlay at the end of the fretboard. The general buzz surrounding the second night was palpable, wondering what they would do to top night one, with the outside temperature dropping twenty degrees, and a sold out box office, it felt like a fall show. Tight crowd, and it got tighter as the night progressed. Had a good group of friends dancers and we shared the limited space. Box opener, followed by Johnny B Goode, which immediately launched us into orbit. China Rider had the mammoths doing battle, a thunderous sound. Music Never Stopped continued the high energy into To Lay Me Down, a nice breather and tenderly delivered. Jack Straw and Help Slip Deal kept the energy high to close out the set, giving us a welcome break. Setbreak found the area at the back of the theater we were occupying packed wall to wall with people, scrambling every which way for purchase. Second set Stranger opener, stuck around in tight quarters for better sound, and moved back to the relocation point during Cats. Kind of bounced around between locations. Found a good groove among friends during Scarlet Fire, post drums highlight for me was the Eleven. Overall, a great night, thanks to all ❤️

Great time last night at the Cap. First set highlights for me were the Cold Rain opener and Looks Like Rain. Second set was a killer throughout. Shakedown opener was called by Northeast, and it got the crowd moving. Just a great selection of songs for the second set. Sound was extraordinary in the theater, especially when I ventured up for a few songs. Skip kills me with his playing, he is just so good ⚡️Pretty packed house and a fun group of dancers. Left with sore feet, gotta gets me sea legs back. Ready to do it all over again tonight 😎

Today’s the day 😄

It’s gonna be fun 😁

Skip played rhythm guitar with Cosmic Jerry Band in NJ this past Sunday. DSO streamed it on their Facebook page. I tuned in for a little while, they sounded good, cool to see Skip on guitar.

DSO just announced a two night stand at the Cap in Port Chester, NY. Gonna do my best to make it there 😄

Great review, PG ⚡️⚡️

Looks like a great time, nice review TB, hope to see more of them from you. Rocks are brutal on the feet, glad you all persevered and hopefully find some clearer ground tonight, have fun!!

Thanks guys, a lot to read, but if I make a review, I like to write down as much as I can so I can remember as much as possible 😀 I couldn’t find it, I’m sure it was good though 😀

This show completely floored me, and at the time, I felt like I had never seen them play better. I think this one will stand out in my memory as one of my best shows. We took up residence once again behind the soundboard, and the space held a great family vibe, surrounded by friends and strangers with smiling faces, playing children, and lovely cooler weather in the low 70s, with the 90 degree heat and oppressive humidity broken, a golden midsummer evening was setting the stage for a perfect night of music. The band began with Corrina, and it has grown on me, seeing it often as one of the band’s go to elective songs. It acted as a prelude for what really got the show going, Morning Dew, and it was great to see the unfolding scene bathed in the beautiful golden light of sunset. Jack Straw picked up where the Dew left off, killer. I called Tom Thumb’s a song early, pretty easy call as they seem to like that one for electives, too. Minglewood ripped, with dancers responding eagerly. Dupree’s was fun, and I came to the realization that it reminds me of ducks. I spent most of the song quacking and even doing some duck wing moves to amuse myself. Let It Grow was another high energy romp, and I figured it would be the set closer, but the band launched into Deal. It felt pretty standard, until maybe the third instrumental go round at the end. Skip began to dig in with some killer lines that cut right thru the mix at the end of that go round, with Jeff immediately responding and taking the band into orbit. They went thru it several more times, with Jeff ripping it and Skip fanning the flames, leaving us spent and gasping for air. Second set began with Scarlet >Fire, a welcome treat, and one we’ve been missing for quite a while, with our last one coming at Red Rocks 2019, a gap of 25 shows, so it was a lot of fun. Keep on Growing has really grown on me, love it now. Drums was a welcome breather, and Iko came in with a nice medium tempo, with Jeff adding a verse I’ve never heard: “see that girl all dressed in green (iko iko…), she’s got a pistol where you can’t see…” “see that girl all dressed in red (iko iko…) bet your life she’ll kill you dead…” or something similar. Jake called the Sing Me Back Home during drums, a great call and highlight of the night. I moved to the side of the soundboard to watch the band deliver the song, and while I’ve choked up at shows, I’ve never been as overcome with emotion as I was during this song. It felt like one of those times when the band was playing just for me, a memory I will treasure. After this tender rendition, the band closed out the set by shaking the earth with One More Saturday Night. I once again resumed twirling, running around in circles, pounding the ground with my feet, and just generally setting my body up for feeling completely hobbled the next morning. It was a lot of fun 😃

This show was fun. Excitement running high seeing the early style stage setup, figured we were in for a treat, and we were right. The band came out swinging with Casey Jones and half of China Cat, stopping abruptly and telling us to all seek shelter. Uh oh 😳😳. The rain delay was enjoyably spent in a little pondside gazebo, and really didn’t really get too weird, considering. It rained hard and we had a nice lightning show. Upon returning to the sounds of the band getting tuned back up, we took up residence behind the soundboard. We had plenty of space, although people were all walking thru trying to find their spot and despite the general weirdness of the rain delay, we had fun. Back to the campsite (it was close) to fortify ourselves, and to our pleasure and surprise, it looked like many people decided to stay at their camp for set two, at least in our area. Second set came on like “normal”, the screwy rain delay headspace I think we all occupied was gone, and we proceeded to get it done, band and dancers. The entire second set was killer. Such a luxury to camp and not have to leave, we went back to camp, some snacks and drinks, milled around, 3am cold shower (evidently they shut off the hot water at night 🥶), got to sleep around 5, overall it was a splendid time 😃

Corrina > Morning Dew Jack Straw Dire Wolf Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues Minglewood Dupree's Diamond Blues Let It Grow > drums > Let It Grow > Deal Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain Keep On Growing > drums > space > Iko Iko > Sing Me Back Home > One More Saturday Night Encore: Rainy Day Women #12 & 35

I did a little detective work this morning after seeing that partial list posted, and the only show they ever played all those songs at was 2/4/79, so possibly that one. I saw a couple pics of the show last night, Jeff center stage with The Bean, Skip to the right with his Alembic, looks right for what DSO does for this era. Wake up Greg, enough rest!!

That sounds like the perfect venue, thanks for the info, see you there 😃