Greg from Chestertown

I have been in said basement. After reading these posts, there’s nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.

Check out 3/29/87 for a nice wheel coming out of space. Bobby broke a string, ran backstage for a moment with his guitar. Jerry had to stretch it out.

This one sent me down a rabbit hole. The deadbase of my mind has some pages missing and apparently I don’t have all my ticket stubs. A search of Spectrum set lists has me at the show the night after the Dead performing this show originally. My one and only Crazy Fingers.

That’s right, the simple fact that they were back and pulling it off makes it an important year. Also, it’s the beginning of a stretch with Bobby getting into a lot of Dylan tunes.

What about the drummers? Yea, Lisa and Eaton for me but that’s ok. I always said that John K. Needs to hook up with Bobby and Phil. I don’t know if it’s because he’s that good or simply because he’s an exact replication of Jerry, save for a couple of blips in his playing. I wasn’t the least bit surprised when he left. I followed him and caught Further whenever they came around, Still kept up Dark Star shows. Further ran its course. There’s a level of fun with Jeff onstage that I don’t remember feeling with John K. It’s a vibe and it is important. It’s everything.

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.

I feel my white whale, master’s Bouquet, got lost in the great Covid abyss that consumed the Hamilton acoustic shows that were about to unfold in DC when the shit hit the fan.

Ravens owner has a zero tolerance policy. Remember the video of their running back in the elevator showing his girlfriend his imitation of Mike Tyson?

It looks like there’s a few missed extra points of Justin Tuckers that went unaccounted for a while back. Gonna have to add a handful to the total.

Gotta be near last time played for Cosmic Charlie. I think. My dog ate my Deadbase.

That whole show is a Sugar Mags sandwich.

My resolution is to catch as many shows as I need.

9/13/93, Dark Star clocks in at 5:32. On the ride home, my buddy was like They played Dark Star !!! I was like, no, they didn’t.

Yet another stellar performance by the band. It’s just so much fun. Started the night right up front but had to head for space when Estimated started. I spun right up with that tune, twirled until the end. Aaahh, all better. They had a camel on stage that had its own microphone. Everyone was chill, Ollin Agreed was cool, got me right in the mood. Loser, miracle, Stagger Lee was a nice run. Jack straw got killed by Dark Star. Estimated on was just amazing. I can’t say enough good things about these guys and girl. Thank you

I was just a kid, but the talk at the time was of the generation gap. I can remember the Ed Sullivan Show, watching it with my parents and my older siblings. Hippiedom was going mainstream. The Airplane was more mainstream than the Grateful Dead. Even when I started in ‘80, you had to seek them out, they weren’t typical. There was everybody else, then there was Jerry and the boys. If you owned up to being into the Dead, the next question was about LSD and whether or not you had tripped before. So, if you’re Ed Sullivan and you’re trying to get the San Francisco sound to the entire country, I would imagine you would go with Grace Slick over scary, hairy Jerry.