That 10/1/77 Portland show was one of the first store bought cd bootlegs I obtained in the early 2000s. Of course I paid too much for it. The title of the cd is "Eat Lard Fudge" iirc. Edit- it's actually the 10/2/77 Portland show I have on bootleg cd. I jumped the gun a day early with my post.
Love that room. Happy you got to see that performance. Hopefully a recording will surface, would love to hear some of the highlights you mentioned.
I think Avalon Ballroom was the show Dick played for Phil Lesh when he got a meeting set up somehow in the 80's, leading to the GD hiring him.
IWT. Having seen only one Dead show since Summer '92, I wound up getting tickets to four of 1994's Garden run. My recollection was that 9-28 was OK (I later discovered that this was the first concert that both my wife and I attended, about two years before we met), 10-1 was hot, 10-2 was abysmal, and 10-3 was hot. In retrospect, neither 10-1 nor 10-3 has really grabbed me on tape. What seemed great in the context of 1994 Dead was mostly only "good" on tape. Maybe it's just the sour memories of how much Jerry had declined by that point that keeps me from enjoying these shows but there's no question in my mind that the damage had been done by this point.
Must be incredibly weird for him, to be up there playing a guitar that he first saw Jerry with, from a distance in the Wigan mud, 50 years ago...
Yet it was while standing in said mud, watching and listening to Jerry play Alligator, that Declan MacManus made the firm decision that he would dedicate his life to music. Every time that Wheel turn 'round...
The board tapes from Fall 94 sound fantastic… you certainly have to choose your spots but the highlights from this tour are more than “just good” to my ears.
I always like recommending 10/5/94 Spectrum. The entire 2nd set is high quality beginning to “Quinn”end. This is about as great as 94 gets.
I also find that with so much GD and Garcia available it's hard for anything 92-95 to get to the top of the list, even if there were some good times. The main exception for me is "Playing" from 5/26/93.
There were a lot of people (too many IMHO) holding up phones to record video, so some clips from that show (the early show) or the late show should start popping up on YouTube soon. [Edit: and some of it is already linked on this thread…]
Amazing show! That entire second set is off the charts great. My favorite of fall '72 outside of 9/17.
I can't believe this really happened. Sounds like something I would have hallucinated in college. My favorite artist playing my favorite artist. Whoa. I was on a Nick Lowe Elvis Costello kick last night on the hi-fi. Great Scar>Fire. One of the first shows/tapes I over-listened to.
Don’t normally cite anything past 1991 as a peak performance, but the Scarlet Fire on 10/14/94 is still otherworldly. Some intense Garcia toward the end there.