Greg from Chestertown

Nah, he’s singing along to NFA. ....you’re gonna know just how I feel...

Look at the little kid in front of the girl. Poor little fella will never unsee that.

Yup! I’ve never met you but I gathered that from the posts. I couldn’t resist. I was actually surprised that your close friends didn’t come up with that one. That was my first thought when that pic first appeared.

I remember, I think it was RFK stadium ‘95. The audience chant had three different epicenters. It was kinda funny. I guess the venue was too big. I think NFA was the epitome of fan participation.

‘There’s that tall guy again.’ I bet that’s what we look like to the band.

Right!? Gotta love a set list that reads into, into, into, into.....

You’re living the dream. Agreed on looks like rain, a bit mushy for a Grateful Dead concert but can’t live without Bobby letting loose with the vocals towards the end of the song and Jerry noodling away on his guitar. I don’t love the beginning but love the end.

Nice. I just read that Casey Jones was absent from the line up between ‘82 and ‘92 except for two times in ‘84. Nice choice for a recreation.

I love the long first sets of this era and the unfamiliar placement of songs within the set lists that later settled into different places within the shows. (Goodly English?)

Oh, one more thing that we learned about those acoustic shows. That was the first time in ten years and they said they would never play acoustic again. Time proved that to be true outside of a couple of shows. 82?

So, one week after my first Grateful Dead concert, I go back to college for my second year. My shroom mate has a friend who went to college in San Fran just so he could go to Dead shows. He calls my roommate to say Bill Graham bought the Warfield theatre so that the Dead could play there for two weeks straight. They’re playing acoustic sets, plus two electric sets to celebrate their fifteenth anniversary. With a few more phone calls over that time, we learn that every acoustic set is being closed with Ripple, and that they’re making a double acoustic and a double electric album from those shows. They asked everyone to not do too much hootin’ and hollerin’, as the shows were being recorded for the albums. We also learned that they were doing similar shows at Radio City. That got us cutting class and riding up to Radio City the Monday before Halloween. We ride into New York with his Buddy and try to scalp tickets. We get robbed by ‘scalpers’, and now we’re penniless outside of Radio City while our ride is inside the show. Pretty disappointed for about an hour when someone walks up to us wearing a ski mask and asks, ‘who wants to get snuck in?’ We tell him our hard luck story, and he says, ‘ stand right here, let me find three more people’. We end up walking right through the front doors of Radio City without a ticket. This guys neighbor was a ticket taker at the door. Once inside, we got free doses, red dragons two weeks old from Berkeley. Absolutely amazing night. Acoustic set was precious. Five and a half hour show. Life changing. That’s all, thanks for letting me share.

No, see,it’s like this, he’ll in a bucket was the encore but they ran out of time. That’s why you didn’t get a touch of grey filler. No time. Yea, see, it was an elective set list with an eighties theme but you couldn’t tell cuz they ran out of time.

I read that Jerry forgot the words to the third verse so Casey Jones is filled with his and Keith’s jamming until he could figure out which way was up.

Pretty work

I guess they’re showing us. When will we ever learn?

How sweet! Yea, I found a piece of a pipe (no pun intended) at the native site I discovered on the farm. It’s where a spring flows into the river. I’ve found some nice artifacts there, about 300 arrowheads. (They aren’t actually arrowheads, they’re knives or spear points.) be careful with the tobacco. I’ve read that it is a blend that is psychoactive. When natives tried to negotiate trade with white man, the different languages made it difficult so the natives just got them high. Hence, let’s smoke the peace pipe. Enjoy your birthday tomorrow. I’m enjoying mine today.

Thank you!, friend that I have never met. Ah, the beauty of the Dark Star universe.

Lmao! RFK, my wife turned to me at half time and said I ‘m ready when you are. I immediately said you’re not coming next time. Gee, that relationship ended too. Again, too cold.

That point makes a greater point. DSO puts a lot of effort in their set list choices. Recreation, original, preannounced, fillers, era, venue, geographic location, it doesn’t matter. You could go to every show they play in a year and there’s something special about every night. ....smile, smile, smile!

Kevin on bass. Nice!

That could work. GD set lists are predictable, DSO set lists are not.

Grateful Dead music is an experiment. Always has been. Improvisation. I think electives are an ingenious way for Dark Star Orchestra to keep the music moving forward. (Yea, I said it again) if they are not improvising, pioneering, then they are stagnating. I don’t think they are recreating the Grateful Dead experience so much as they are taking the concept that the Grateful Dead is rooted in and growing it, evolving it. Dark Star Orchestra are the only ones who do what they do. Oh by the way, cosmic Charlie, throwing stones, visions. Self explanatory. Wow. Is anyone keeping track, noticing if the band has taken songs out of the line up, maybe on purpose? Are there certain songs that are noticeably absent from the set lists? Curious. Should we be preparing for them bringing stuff off the shelf and reintroducing it, or have they been doing that all along and I just haven’t been doing my homework.

I was just kidding! Ah, the downside of giving advice. Now, you’re going to have to keep dyeing his hair, can’t let the white roots show. See what I started. I feel so bad.

I thought you would go all out and get some blue hair dye.

Remember, the last Grateful Dead tour was known as the tour from hell. Gate crashes, a porch collapsed killing or hurting a bunch of deadheads, etc. Phil had said in an interview, not sure when, that the last five years weren’t that much fun for him. Jerry was having more fun, I think, doing what he was with David Grisman. After Bruce Hornsby passed on joining the Grateful Dead full time, the only thing that kept me going was that somewhere in the show, even if it was just one song, Jerry would simply blow me away. That, and the fact that it was Obvious he was dying and then we wouldn’t be able to see him play. The Grateful Dead was running on fumes and inertia after Brent died. I’m not so sure they would have continued in their current form. They may have needed to evolve some more, maybe they had run their course. Maybe they would have gone their separate ways, doing their own thing with the music. Jerry told somebody in 1995, ‘I ‘m not going to make it through the year’. After the tour, he laid down and died. He gave the best he had to give. Everything in this world has a life span. A few years of mourning and uncertainty, the right group of people got together, and the time is right for the music to be born again and move forward again. Dark Star Orchestra picked up the torch and proceeded to learn and love and grow once more. They have the benefit of a bit of a road map, to be able to learn from the mistakes of the ones who went before them. They do have that indescribable intangible that makes them so special, just as the Grateful Dead was. This reincarnation of the music that is Dark Star Orchestra seems to be a healthier, more vibrant, longer lasting version. I intend to keep this oasis as part of my life’s style, for the long haul. Thank you, entire band, for your sacrifice, deadication, and commitment. You are, oh, so appreciated.