I don't remember, just that a lot of the interlibrary come from Derby or Litchfield. I don't know when the van wyck started to become the van wycke, but I hear people saying that all the time. Since Rob revived this conversation, the connection is the Grateful Dead concert. Scully's implication was that there were no heads in the Port Chester audience, just drunken teens from Connecticut (because the legal age was only 18 in NY but 21 in CT until 1972.) Supposing the anecdote of a regional LSD mecca less than 10 miles from the Capitol were true, certainly the operator and clientele would be attracted to a series of Grateful Dead shows, even if it was in a town usually known more for drinking? (It's also a 30 minute train ride from Manhattan, and not to mention why on earth would the kids go to a concert to drink, PC had a dozen bars in 3 blocks even in the 1990s and 2000s, supposedly it was double that in the late 60s and 70s...)My first concert was the GD in 94, and then I saw Phish a couple of times, and then Pearl Jam, the difference in the audience between the hippie bands and Pearl Jam was pretty stark, maybe that wasn't the case yet in the 70s or maybe it's another case of Scully just writing it up how he remembered it. It is an article in The New Yorker after all. There were a handful in 83, IIRC 9-10-83 was another, though 4-20 came the closest. He's Gone is also in F in the songbook. I think there are a couple of others that are off like that too. (I used to have that book in the room here, but it seems to have gone missing...) I had a friend growing up who was a fantastic rhythm guitarist. He wanted to learn that tune, and his guitar teacher said 'OK, i'll give you a list of all the chords that are in it, starting from the tonic, and you figure it out yourself. ' Months later, I showed it to him, he wasn't at a point where he could hear the key was off and transpose it. 10 years ago or so I was in my first band as a guitarist (as opposed to bass) and the band leader wanted to play Brown Eyed Women, but they had learned it in F, and switching from E to F on guitar is like going from driving an MG to driving a Pinto.
Whoops, sorry, when the Archive link went wonky I forgot to put the date in. 9/14/82, Charlottesville, VA
OK, I get it now. I had missed the implication of "only" drunken teens from CT being at the shows... I don't recall Scully saying that but it's been a long time since I've read that book. He might well have, in which case, obviously, he was wrong. For the reasons you state and for the immense amount of anecdotal evidence out there that Deadheads took the train to shows there.
Got my November Grateful Dead Bulletin and Dave is through messing around with you people! From the first paragraph (emphasis mine):
what was the place you played in PC in the 90s. I was in some bands in the late 90s and early 2000s and we played the Beat, Willow St, etc.
Willow Street. I only played there a couple of times. The first time, there was a "Spin Doctors" graffiti in the dressing room and I was like, "Yass, the big time!" (this was 1993 and they had just blown up).
Meanwhile, finally resuming 5-8-80. 10 days might be my longest GD hiatus since whenever, though I did listen to some of the studio albums in the interim, so I guess that doesn't count. Bobfest to end Set 1, with Lazy Lightning>Supplication, Ramble on Rose, Sailor>Saint to finish. Count me as one of those people who wishes they'd kept Lost Sailor instead of St. of Circumstance. Set 2 starts out with a massive Uncle John's Band. This song was on the shelf for a good stretch of the late 70s, it's a welcome place to get some weirdness in, and now it's on to Estimated Prophet. In general I think the Tiger was a step down from the 78 Wolf, but in these late 79/early 80 shows Garcia is showing off some very compelling tones.
One of the owners of Willow St in the 90s had gone to high school with my parents. He worked for my dad's fathers company when he was in school, and dated my mom's sister for a couple of years. When I was in high school, the guitarist of the band I was in got us booked there as the opener of triple bill with a regional jam band, and when he heard about it my dad faxed over a list of 'rock band' demands, full of inside jokes from his years of knowing the owner. I'm sure he addressed it to his friend, but he wasn't there the day we played, so when we got there to load in, it was like 'who's the bass player? we got your list of demands etc.' They knew it was a joke, but it was totally mortifying to me as a teenager playing his first show at a venue that size.
Just got my November dead Bulletin. Hornswoggled that the powers that be at Deadcorp think taking Help>Slip>Frank, reversing it, cutting out the middle, and best part, then stamping the remaining two pieces on the opposite sides of a piece of vinyl is a useful contribution to society..
OK, this second set from 5-8-80 is pretty boss, drums was outstanding. They've switched over to the late 78-early 80s ollin arageed-esque segment of drums now, but still a very compelling first half of set 2. I'm not going to bother looking it up, but I'm fairly certain @US Blues mentioned the pre-drums when I said was starting this show last week.
The sound is great and I agree that with the multi-tracks, Phil is nicely loud and clear. I also have to say that when I posted about 6/16/91, I had only listened up through Drums. The post-Drums is easily the best part of this shows, despite having a pretty standard setlist compared to the pre-Drums. The jam after Black Peter into Throwing Stones doesn't quite become a Dark Star jam, but foreshadows the next show's approach quite a bit. A good version of Miracle, and an excellent Black Peter. I know that's one of the more divisive of the Garcia ballad slot tunes, but I really like Black Peter and am always glad to hear it. Well, maybe not two shows in a row like at Worcester in '88, but otherwise it was and is always welcome to these ears.
From memory (having never listened to it on tape), the Deer Creek version that tour was better, as were a couple that I've heard often on tape, Sandstone 6/24/91 and Greensboro 4/1/91 (which is probably the best of '91). It wasn't a terrible version but middling at best for '91, which makes it very meh compared to Brent and Keith era China Cat->Riders, IMHO. The biggest factor for me is Garcia being too tentative, both in tone and approach, but the other two issues I have with that version are (as I mentioned) Vince's annoying Spill the Wine riff and - not mentioned earlier - some tempo confusion/sloppiness at various points in the transition. As I said before, the post-Space this show is really good, though.
I was at Willow Street once or twice circa '93. I definitely saw God Street Wine there, maybe one other show.
I saw a few shows there, but the only one I remember well was the Zen Tricksters, with Rob Barraco but without @davmar77. Barraco was definitely the star, they did Viola Lee Blues that was really cool. I went once with a date to see String Cheese Incident, but we didn't have tickets and bailed when we saw the line outside.
I first played with jeff mattson in 1976 through some mutual friends. we did a bunch of jam sessions. no formal band but it got to the point that if jeff wasn't going to be there I would make an excuse why I couldn't either. he was head and shoulders above all of the other players. several months later he called to see if I was interested in joining a band he was forming with his brother. I accepted and we played as wild oats for a while but a couple of us wanted to do more than just dead stuff so that eventually broke up although I did the occasional gig with them. not long after jeff was invited to join the volunteers which morphed into the zen tricksters after they fired their drummer. that's when I came in along with another guy who ended up take the full time position after a while. I used to show up and sit in on a regular basis. this is a partial video from their 25 th anniversary in 2004. you can see me on percussion at about the half hour mark then on drums following.
There’s a couple of certain 50th anniversaries coming up next year... perhaps what they have got back there from September 70 would make for some very nice bonus disc material!
I have been doing the same thing MY ENTIRE LIFE....day in, day out, 24 hours per diem...365 days a week: not listening to the Dark Star from 1972-09-10. "But how can this be, Bzfgt?" (you say), "For you are the Dark Star King!" But friends, it is true. But today I did something different... 1972-09-10 Top GSET here, really ripping; 09-28 is coming, this seems to be a good patch for this song. Excellent BTW. And, a top Bird Song, these are getting really good....here there is a pretty long jam after last vocals, there is a cut in there but I think (hope) it’s probably just a second or two, otherwise it’s even longer than it seems (and a drag!). In any case this one clocks in at 14 minutes which may be the longest one yet, although I do not have evidence for this and could be wrong. This night features a really great PiTB. This is probably the best He’s Gone they‘ve played to this point in their career, truly excellent. It is a question how it stacks up to subsequent versions, but at this point I am making the claim it beats all prior ones. Nice little jam at the end, 5 minutes in duration! I do not believe this has happened before. No, I do not. So Bird Song and He's Gone from this show are required listening for fans of those songs, or of 1972 GD in general, or anyone who is not a damn fool; unless you have something better to do, of course. But I thought I had something better to do (see the beginning of this post) and boy, was I wrong. Are you really going to take that chance? But for the grace of God, there go I... Anyway this is an incredible Dark Star. Reportedly David Crosby is sitting in, although with great effort I was only able to hear a third guitar at a couple points, and most of the non-Garcia guitar stuff that really contributes seems to be Weir. Little Nemo at the Archive makes the opposite argument, but I think s/he is lost in Dreamland: "Before you assume it's Weir, hear this: a) the playing is not as interesting or eccentric or original or varied as Weir usually is, and I've listened to a lot of him, b) there's only one rhythm guitar audible, and c) Crosby plays only rhythm, not lead, on the other songs that follow. So, I wonder. Contrary to below opinions, I think this DS is not very interesting by late '72 standards." Contrary to Little Nemo's opinion, it sounds exactly like Weir to me, although if I am wrong I suppose that would be embarrassing, after such a statement...and, as I've already indicated, I find it all plenty interesting. This Dark Star consists of very structured jamming in various phases prior to the verse, and the man we (correctly) call "Jerry Garcia" is really focused and intense throughout. After the verse there is a space that eventually starts to congeal and speed up into jamming that is vaguely Me and My Uncle-y but still with weirdo tonalities. It goes into a short drum thing before coming back and doing another minute and a half of weirdo jamming before we get a pretty energetic Jack Straw; Sing Me Back Home from this show is probably one of the best. So, I would say that, overall, this is one hell of a Grateful Dead concert.
LIA digs the He's Gone: "On 9/9 the ending jam, already starting to get longer, leads into Truckin’. The same happens on 9/10 but He’s Gone jumps up to 14 minutes in length – the vocal coda is still only a couple minutes, but Garcia now stretches out the final jam for five stunning minutes. His playing takes on a Roy Buchanan tinge, combining a stinging tone, lyrical sweetness, volume swells, pinched high notes, and piercing melodies." Grateful Dead Guide: He's Gone And, I should add that Ramble on Rose is a top version.
Within a week the Dead performed Atlanta; Lakewood, Florida (both DiP V29); Pembroke, Florida (DiP V3) and Richmond, Va (DaP V1). Think about that one. Lakewood is so energetic, there is edge here, reminds me of DiP 33 when they played with The Who in '76; there was that edge and rightly so. Pembroke is almost perfect, but in the Dead way, which is the 'perfect' way; I don't know about you guys, but I love the The Mosque show, a lot. All played in one foogin' week. Time to get outta Big Sky Country, National Steels, and hit the Dead trail, since I've talked my way right into the that wonderful Dead portal right on into Lakewood Fla '77... giddy up, disc 4.
