Sampled 5 15 81 the other night. Out of pure stupid coincidence we just drove past the venue of the show itself! The SetList Program - Grateful Dead Setlists, Listener Experiences, and Statistics
I was there, and second the recommendation. The night before was also quite good, but 6/25 was even better. My first Comes a Time.
I prefer the 5/22 and 5/19 Sugarees and would agree that it is in the bottom half of the May/June shows, although that doesn't mean it still isn't pretty darn good.
The performance of said tunes? It's an ok show, some cool moments but more historical than great listen. That one and Dick's Picks 20 are my two least favorite of the Keith years in the Dick's Picks series.
The first Santa Clara show had some very good moments in the second set, which was the best setlist wise of the five shows IMHO.
Upon review of the dates, I have 5/28 firmly right around the middle of the period - I like it a lot better than 5/15 (which I think is one of the worst of the month) and have it roughly at the same level as 5/4, 5/19, 5/21, and 5/25 (I'd need to do some detailed listing to delineate among those shows). So somewhere between 8 and 12 out of the 23. FWIW, I think 5/7, 5/8, 5/9, 5/17, 5/22 are the five best of May and the last two Winterland shows are the others firmly ahead of that group.
May 77, I wanna play! My May faves are..... 5/7, 5/17, 5/22, 5/25, 5/28 Obviously the entire month is special but I always come back to the above. 5/7 could alternate with the 8th dependent on mood. The May 11 'Sugaree' is also a really good 'sleeper' IMO. I have always felt the month got better as it moved along culminating in the stellar final week.
Ditto here. Both of those Sandstone '91 shows were big fun and the 25th stands as one of the better of the year, IMO. Per Phil Lesh's interview prior to the "1991 themed" show at TXR couple years ago he mentioned there was an intervention for JG after the '91 Summer Tour that, like previous ones, didn't go particularly well - IIRC Phil didn't have much positive to say about the mediator/therapist person who was "in charge" and after an argument it was over. Even though the intervention was "a mess" per Phil, Jerry cancelled the July 1991 JGB Frost show and re-scheduled the Eel River JGB to August 10th and took some well needed time off. Garcia hit the stage with JGB on the Eel River on August 10th looking tan and rested and that show smoked. From there the Dead hit Cal Expo for 3 shows followed by Shoreline for 3 more and those 6 shows were pretty strong throughout and featured the band taking the rare step of obviously trying their best to avoid repeating songs over the entire 6 show run. "Playin' in the Band" was started night 1 Expo and the reprise came out of space night 1 Shoreline; "Dark Star" blew minds with a 1st set appearance 1st night Shoreline and was quoted in Space before the "Dew" second night; and other than those two they were scrambling to play non-repeats so by night (afternoon) 6 the first set closed with "Johnny B. Goode" and set 2 was a mix of what was left over songlist wise so set 2 opened with: Deal, Samson, 1/2 Step, Stranger-> d/s That Sandstone show on 6/24 had the first Supplication jam in a number of years as well, right around the 13 minute mark here:
Last time I jammed that one I remember some good things happening in the 'Eyes', good call, break that one out later! If 6/4 circulated in a SBD it would for sure slide into a top position with more folks. Great show.
I didn't know the reason for the Eel River show being rescheduled, but I was there and it did smoke (unusual setlist as well). I did that 6-show Cal Expo->Shoreline run as well. All shows were very good, especially 8/16 with the first set Dark Star (which sure blew my mind) and Scarlet->Victim->Fire (ditto).
As for May/June '77, I pretty much agree with rbbert across the board except that I'd rank 5/28 above 5/15 and maybe 5/25, but might rank 5/26 Baltimore above it. And it is pretty much in a tie with 5/5 New Haven.
Ha! I read the comment about scientific listening and the first thought that popped immediately into my head was: "Archtop does!"
Crap - I listened to 1/10/78 today (it was a toss up between 78 and 79) - though I really enjoyed the Franklin > Around combo - guess I will have to listen to 1/10/79 on 1/11. (I have always been a sucker for Around and Around - being a Stones fan for ages - I remember hearing their version when I was a kid and loving it. It was great when I got into the Dead and found out they performed it --- some of their versions are a bit much, though...)
And I am now reminded why I stopped participating in discussions of things I like with other people. Later all.
Oh man, sorry to see you go. I'm not sure what rubbed you the wrong way, I've always thought this was one of most laid back threads running around these parts. I'm hopeful you take a bit of a break and come back again.
Yeah like Guided said ------ It's hard discussing 77 and not 'having opinions, man' --- it's all good, scribbs.
That's exactly how it felt to me from 1992 on, at the 10 or 11 shows I saw anyway. In 1991 I still felt like the band was kicking my ass on a good night, but from 1992 on when they were good, it was sort of a "fingers crossed" feeling, if that makes sense...this is totally subjective and just about my own experience, of course.
