10/9/89.... I had been going to shows since the early 80’s( first was Garcia in 81) and to put into context, the ride had been getting bigger and bigger. We watched the scene degrade a bit but the spirit still seemed to be growing. We watched Garcia bounce back from the coma, toured w Dylan, and had just had a glorious run of Garcia east coast shows. I only got a ticket for 10/16 as the jgb tickets ate up my funds. Then they announce these stealthy Hampton gigs. Fortunately my brother was living in Lynchburg and had access to a Ticketmaster( or was it ticketron?) that was carrying tix and, more importantly, had money . I’ve never been so broke going to a show in my life and had to hitch a ride from N.Y. I don’t even know how I managed to eat. Didn’t matter tho While the recordings tell most of the story, it does little to convey the nuttiness that was going down on the floor. I did make it back in time to catch my ride down to jersey for weirs birthday a week later
One of you cats was rambling on about the 2/13/70 "Dark Star" so I gave it a listen on the way to the farmer's market today (it's honey crisp apple season). It was so good I took the car through a car wash which is trippy enough (whoa! am I moving?) w/o a "Dark Star," but when I emerged I was in a whole new reality remarkably similar to my previous reality. Almost identical. Cool "St. Stephen" hint before they veer into "That's It for the Other One" Boy, 1970s "Dark Stars" are really darn good. There's a listenability (like a fine pilsner) that cannot be denied with plenty of rhythm and just enough astral plane (especially when you are in a car wash). Thinking I might graft some 1970s "Dark Stars" to E'72 shows. Maybe a "Dark Star>Althea" thing to make '72 even better than reality.
Cue up next nights Dark Star. It's on the Long Strange Trip soundtrack and it sounds way better than the night before(newer/better transfer/mastering). If it is better played or not I'll leave it up to you.
i''ll look when I get home. mine has a disc in every spot there is a place for a disc. I thought it was just 3 discs total
Nicely done catching the first two Stars on that tour! I hitchhiked to Philly from Massachusetts in hopes of catching one in Philly on that tour. I still remember where I was when I heard they played Dark Star in Hampton. Forever jealous of my friends who were there.
Been listening to a lot of '80's shows the last week and a half (thoughts later, if I dare), and I've noticed that some of the SBD's are incredibly dry, almost like the life was sucked out of them. Best going with AUD's and matrix recordings on these?
Totally. I'm guessing 1986 and earlier? Cuz most of the boards from that era are horrendously dry and thin
I def felt lucky at the time, generally I was pretty good at missing the big ones by one night. “You should’ve seen last night, they were on fire!” My luck changed for a while after that, esp when it came to horn players
I just punched myself in the side of the head. I've done this every October 9th since 1989. Just one good punch to the side of the head to jar the memory of my mess up back in 1989 - I knew about the Warlocks shows and didn't go and that still stings a bit. My girlfriend and I had just gotten home to Colorado after the Shoreline shows and there was a note for us from one of our housemates to call our friends on the east coast because the Grateful Dead are playing as The Warlocks in Hampton, 2 shows. The note said they could get us tickets and to call them at a number on the 7th. We had gotten home on the 4th and would have had to leave Colorado the next morning to get to Hampton on time. We both had the money and time to go and decided we would skip it. We were tired and burned out from a long summer. A costly mistake, because had we gone we could have done the whole tour and that was a tour worth doing. Oh well. Can't win them all. We did go the Jerry Band show on Halloween though to try to make up for missing Hampton. Of all the shows I missed this one haunts the most. I think I will crank up the second set later.
Now listening to 10/7/80[Warfield SF]on TIGDH on SiriusXM's Grateful Dead channel via the webstream now playing Iko Iko.
Had to share this one with folks who can appreciate it: Yesterday, I had a couple of moments to pop into my local record store and, as usual, I headed over to the GD section to see if there were any recently acquired used CDs added to the rack. Much to my amazement and joy, there were minty copies of Dave's Picks Volumes One, Two, and Three sitting there!! And get this - they were priced at $14.99 each. I could NOT believe my luck - I have a few of the later Dave's Picks, but I never in my wildest dreams would have imagined that I'd own these at such a low price. Even crazier (and, alas, very frustrating) - When I brought them up to the register, the worker said that the guy who sold them had a whole pile of Dave's Picks sets that he was looking to sell, but the store wouldn't buy most of them because they couldn't find listings for them in their computer system. That could have been the score of a century... Anyway, listening to the Truckin>Mind Left Body>Spanish>Wharf Rat jam from Vol 2 right now and my mind is officially blown. What a great week this is turning out to be.
I've been going through listening to the Dick's Picks in order and as expected some shows really blow me away and some I don't seem to connect with. Today was DP 14 from Boston 1973. I gotta say, of the 14 so far, this is definitely a top 3 for me. I go into these shows as blind as possible, I do no research into them and just have them ripped into folders that say "14" so when I start listening, I'm not even sure what year I am listening to, to try and avoid any year based bias. This one was a little hard to figure because there was no Donna. I thought early on it was probably 1974, but with no Donna, I briefly wondered if it was a few years earlier, but with the absence of Pigpen and the setlist it became obvious it was either '73 or '74. I love the jazziness of shows from those years and usually these shows instantly speak to me, but these ones were even beyond that. I was so wrapped up in this from from the first notes of Morning Dew...to the last notes of Morning Dew Obviously this show is an embarrassment of riches, culling the best moments from two shows. Its not really fair to compare Dicks Picks to Daves because not only did Dick have the top shows still available, he also just creamed those shows, giving us the best of multiple nights on one release to really stack a release, where Dave takes the complete show (with maybe a few bonus tracks) approach. The setlist of this release is just ridiculous, its one highlight after another, and the playing is so good, and Keith is nice and audible, it really makes for stunning listen. From what I've heard of 1973, it very well might be my favourite year of the Dead. I definitely need to seek out more from this fall tour. Listening to these shows in release order as opposed to chronological order has been very enjoyable because you are constantly confronted with the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) differences between the different eras of the Dead. And of course, listening to so much live Dead isn't wearing me out on the band, its just wetting my appetite for more.
I said recently (and reiterate now) that minute-for-minute, this could well be the best single-disc album of GD music ever released. You should have asked them if they knew how to get in touch with the guy! Place an ad in Craigslist, "Looking to buy Dave's Picks CDs."
I've actually listened to this second-set jam a couple of times now since I wrote this and... whew... it's a good'un. The "Spanish Jam" is better than I remember, almost certainly the best version of the year.
Wow, what a score! Almost as good as my score last week when I found the notorious lost Wonka Golden Ticket.
Zion Godchaux. He found the houseboat tapes in his grandparent's boat, they had the box of reels that Keith had given them to store.
Wow, some interesting and compelling posts above. Glad for all who scored and for the rest of you, may the four winds blow you safely home. So anyway, I've been thinking about this for a good week or more (really five years or more, but I'll spare you the history). Most all y'all know that I tend to listen to ~73-second segments of this fine band and for some reason that works for me. Some might be longer or shorter than that, but I thought I'd share my personal top 10 moments (what does that mean?) as I currently see them. Moments are short segments of uncertain duration, but not longer than 2 minutes. That's my take on this. These are only from official releases, so no, you won't find that lovely little jam that Jerry and Phil did out of Dark Star on 2/15/73, nor will you find the post-verse jam from the 9/19/70 Dark Star (which is more like an encyclopedia than a moment). So here we go, in chronological order: 4/29/71 - Fillmore East: GDTRFB out of the Alligator jam @ 1:46-2:23 - Jerry is ebullient; 3/28/72 - NYAoM: China--> Rider is great, but I'm focused on Rider @ 0:32-0:54, but do yourself a favor and put on 'phones and listen to the whole Ralph na--> der; 4/24/72 - Dusseldorf: Part II of Dark Star @ 1:13-1:30; 9/7/73 - Nassau Coliseum: Eyes @ 10:31-10:58 - the Slipknot! jam to beat even Slipknot! (but not the one I'll post below!); 3/23/74 - Cow Palace: Weather Report Suite @ 12:54-13:20. Jerry and Phil go 10 rounds in 26 seconds; 6/16/74 - Des Moines Fairgrounds: Chi--> der - this is the insane one; the one that I can't stop listening to @ 7:40-8:12 (but don't stop there); 2/26/77 - Swing Auditorium - Playin' @ 8:21-9:00 (but don't stop there); 2/26/77 - Swing Auditorium - Slipknot! @ 5:11-5:40 (the best one by a wide margin - hoo haa!); 12/29/77 - Winterland: Playin' @ 10:31-11:13 (Wheel jam, which is simply beautiful); and 1/22/78 - McArthur Court - St Stephen @ 5:50-6:49. Honorable mention, but these stretch the rules (the second one doesn't, but work with me): 4/26/72 - Frankfurt: Lovelight @ 1:50-3:54 - Jerry absolutely rips it up; and 5/3/72 - Paris: Good Lovin' @ 2:10-3:39 hot, rubbery groove. This post took me some two hours to write, so either like it or lump it.
