Grateful Dead General Thread

[Druggist 303]

10 hours ago, Hate said:

Bird Song...any era...any venue.  Is there a better song that has ever been written?  The music is outstanding and the words sublime.  With Keith playing the grand piano or Brent the organ, it never fails to get me going.  Slow or fast it just doesn't matter.  It's a brilliant song. 

Fixed it for me. (The slow or fast part might not apply, but the sentiment stands)

[Hate 20247]

Kind of funny...

[Guest Lobo]

I like that.  Though the hand-scrubbing for the duration of dark-star versus "golden road" is a wash. 

thank you, I'll be here all week.  Phil opens on Thursday. 

[Hate 20247]

Moses come riding up on a Quasar! His spurs were jingling the door was ajar!  his buckle was silver his manner was bold!  I asked him to come on in out of the cold!

 

Greatest Story Ever Told is such a weird and fun song.

 

Last thing we need is a left handed monkey wrench!

[Hate 20247]

Well,  I don't know where the rest of you are but I'm listening to the greatest goddamn band the world has ever seen.  If the world is truly going to end with this coronavirus, I'm going out listening to the Grateful Dead with a great big smile on my face.

[Druggist 303]

I’ve been listening to some great Dead lately.  In anticipation of the RSD vinyl, checked out 5/9/77, one of the Giants Stadium 89 shows,   Dick’s picks 35 (summer 71).   All are fantastic.   
 

Hope the older members of the band can keep themselves safe, especially Phil seeing as he is an organ recipient.  I imagine his birthday shows will be cancelled.  I was looking forward to seeing who is surprise band would be.

[Hate 20247]

That 5/9/77 show has what may be the only time ever ever played the same song in back to back to shows, at least after their catalog expanded in the late 60’s early 70’s. They played Brown Eyed Women at the legendary Cornell show the night before.

It’s a great show though.

[Hate 20247]

I’m not usually a huge China Doll fan. I really have to be in the right mood to hear it, but the 6/24/73 version is terrific. It’s the one released on the PNW box set and it’s really really good. Donna is terrific adding very subtle backup vocals.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Hate

[Hate 20247]

I'm all over the place tonight. I'm currently jamming a Dead & Co "eyes" because a friend of mine was asking for some Dead & Co recs earlier.  He had sent me a link earlier to a Bob & the Wolf Brothers video of Bird Song with a harp player.  I can't imagine any other band where a harp would actually fit in perfectly but it did with Bird Song.  FF to the 12 minute mark to see the harp player.

 

[Hate 20247]

I'm not sure other music fans will weather this "storm" as well us Deadheads.  I've got 30 years of shows to work through so I will be just fine!  Test me test me test me, why don't you arrest me?!!!

[Guest Lobo]

above Wolf Bros. video reminded me if you've never heard Weir's version of Wabash Cannoball, get a remastered version (which this is not, but I ain't tech savvy) of it and enjoy:

It basically combines two of my favorite things:  The Grateful Dead & The University of Texas.  That this song is not played more in Austin is a crime, IMHO.  

[Hate 20247]

I'm listening to my second show from 26 years ago tonight.  It's not bad for a 94 show.  It would be the night before I got to meet the poster that would be known as The Druggist.

https://archive.org/details/gd94-03-16.sbd.ladner.7778.sbeok.shnf

[Hate 20247]

@Druggist where you at? I'm up late drinking whiskey and listening to our St Patty's show! 

[Druggist 303]

Nice.  I’ll have to listen to than today.   The kids are getting restless and I just started a new course on the Masters degree I have been slowly working on.  The Dead made some pretty good study music.  Hopefully all of the studying will keep my mind off everything else!

i listened to the 9/11/73 Dark Star yesterday and it did not disappoint.

[Druggist 303]

21 hours ago, Hate said:

@Druggist where you at? I'm up late drinking whiskey and listening to our St Patty's show! 

I listened to it front to back today, which I hadn’t done in a while.  So thankful I (We) got to see such a solid show.  The whole thing is well played and the setlist is a great one for my taste.   Makes me wonder what other late era shows I am missing out on.  

[Hate 20247]

Check out my other show.  6/13/93 from Buffalo. 

https://archive.org/details/gd93-06-13.schoeps.ladner.8584.sbeok.shnf

 

You get Loser and Deal in the first set.  LL Rain with Bobby on acoustic for the first time ever, a great Lazy River Road, and The Other One fading into a haunting Days Between.  I know I'm biased, but it's a solid show from 93. 

[Druggist 303]

12 hours ago, Hate said:

Check out my other show.  6/13/93 from Buffalo. 

https://archive.org/details/gd93-06-13.schoeps.ladner.8584.sbeok.shnf

 

You get Loser and Deal in the first set.  LL Rain with Bobby on acoustic for the first time ever, a great Lazy River Road, and The Other One fading into a haunting Days Between.  I know I'm biased, but it's a solid show from 93. 

I just started it.  The Touch sounds pretty good!  You might check out 5-16-93 in Vegas.  It was my brother’s first show and his experience is what got me into all of this.  The Althea-Masterpiece-Row Jimmy-Cassidy sequence is excellent.  It is my favorite Masterpiece and I’ve listened to a lot since I love their interpretation.  The Elvis Space is pretty trippy too.

[Hate 20247]

I will check it out today.  If you dig masterpiece, check out the 7/4/89.  Jerry's voice was still pretty strong. 

The Trucking Up to Buffalo DVD/stream shows Bob pointing up at the sky kind of dramatically when the "pack of wild geese" line comes up and Jerry looks to see what he's pointing at. It's pretty funny. 

[Sleepygrad 1040]

Been in a huge Brokedown Palace kick lately....it’s one of my all time favorites

[Hate 20247]

6 hours ago, Druggist said:

I just started it.  The Touch sounds pretty good!  You might check out 5-16-93 in Vegas.  It was my brother’s first show and his experience is what got me into all of this.  The Althea-Masterpiece-Row Jimmy-Cassidy sequence is excellent.  It is my favorite Masterpiece and I’ve listened to a lot since I love their interpretation.  The Elvis Space is pretty trippy too.

So I've listened to a couple of songs from this show so far (Masterpiece and Wharf Rat) and they've been damn good. The setlist is pretty goddamn good. That may be the best all around setlist I've ever seen.  There isn't one song on there I don't like or that I'm "meh" about.  I have a good friend that was at that show and he said that when they started playing LL Rain it actually started raining and then stopped after the song.  He said he was also tripping his balls off so he could be talking out of his ass, but it seems plausible.  I will listen to the whole show later this evening with some whiskey, but I would have killed to hear that setlist 4 years earlier with Brent.  I could have died a happy man immediately after the show. 

[Hate 20247]

HOLEEE SHIT...this may be the Holy Grail of shows post Brent.  I can't believe I've never listened to it before.  This show is pretty goddam good for any era let alone post Brent.  This is going to be in the circulation for my go to shows.  Dave Lemiux needs to release this one.  It's a great show. 

[stc 1500]

 

[Guest Lobo]

Hey, I was at that show with "Hate" 

I assume that's a generic photo for the video series, because I swear that show was at the Erwin Center.  

[Hate 20247]

Yes we were. And yes it was at the Erwin Center. That was a great night.

[Guest Lobo]

Once the lights went down and the show started, it was awesome.  I remember it took us 45 minutes to take what is usually a 10-minute ride  from my house to the FEC.  And then that line to get in was just brutal, probably another 30 minutes because the staff just wasn't ready to deal with a bunch of middle-aged folks reliving their glory days or something.  I remember you got out of line for some reason so I held our spots and some guy down the line and whispered "doses."  Out of curiousness, I asked him, 'really?'  And he laughed and said, "Nah man, just wanted it to feel like the old days."  That was a great setlist though and I even enjoyed Dark Star sober, I look forward to watching it tomorrow night.  

[Hate 20247]

I had to take a leak and the line for the port o potties was ridiculously long. 

[Guest Lobo]

18 minutes ago, Hate said:

I had to take a leak and the line for the port o potties was ridiculously long. 

Sure you did man.  You gave some homeless guy a handy for three hits of his vape pen.  You were incredibly efficient though, gone for maybe 3-4 minutes tops.  

[Hate 20247]

Anyone else going to check out the show tonight?

[Guest Lobo]

I plan to once the kids are asleep, or as soon as Kruetzmann wakes up during 'Jack Straw'.  Got to the stopping point and buffered it all up in HD (that's what she said).  Ready to watch it in full later tonight.  

Edited March 22, 2020 by Lobo

[Druggist 303]

That was a good show at the Erwin Center.  I was on call for work and luckily got no calls during the show.  I was sober, too.  I was so pumped when they broke into St Stephen. The Sugaree and Dark Star>Other One were awesome too.

Hate, I listened to your and my brother’s first shows over the last couple days.  Both are great and I need to check out more late stuff. I love Phil’s playing on both.  I have really gotten into Broken Arrow lately and that was a good version.   I’ve been mostly listening to 72-74 so long that it is nice to branch out a bit.    
 

we are letting our kids stay up tonight so I am missing the webcast.  Oh well.

[Hate 20247]

It was good to see that show again.  I had forgotten so much of it over the last couple of years.  That show really got me back into the GD.  I had gone through a few years of not really listening to them much.  I listened to sports talk a lot when I was in my car and the played with the kid when I got home from work, which didn't really leave me much listening time.  Well, the last couple of years I pretty much stopped listening to sports radio and I listen to a lot of shows after my son goes to bed (on school nights).  That show sparked something in me and I've gone down several rabbit holes that I didn't when I was younger and first getting into the GD.  I got into them in 92 and I didn't have a tape trading source.  It wasn't quite as easy as it is now.  I listened to my cd's, a few tapes a friend had, and the Grateful Dead hour on KGSR on Saturday nights at midnight (might have been 11).  I got burned out on all of my CD's by the time I moved to Houston and couldn't find the GD hour here (and had a newborn child which made staying up late impossible anyway).  Going to that show in Austin changed all of that and I couldn't be happier.  I absolutely love this band and I'm glad I got on the bus. 

[Hate 20247]

I'm listening to the 7/13/89 show from RFK tonight.  It's a very solid show.  Nothing Earth shattering even if it does have the first Bruce Hornsby collaboration (I think) when he plays the accordion on Tennessee Jed and Memphis Blues (a song I always skip as I really don't like it).  The He's Gone may be my favorite outside of Europe 72 as its the only other one I've heard that's played with any pace.  It seems like they always slowed that song down for some reason, but I love it when it's played a little quicker.  The LL Rain is pretty good (one of my favorite songs).  I haven't made it to the last few songs of the second set.  If there is anything worth noting....

[Druggist 303]

Paste magazine has 11/24/78 up for streaming right now along with a 1970 Allman’s show and some other food stuff.  They plan to rotate shows.

[Druggist 303]

https://www.pastemagazine.com
they have already changed the show.

6/19/76 Is up from when I was 1 day old!

[Hate 20247]

It's a great night to listen to the greatest band that ever was...the Grateful Dead!  I'm all over the place tonight, but this is the most perfect band ever to get us through the apocalypse.  I might just start listening to show chronologically from archive.net to see how many I can burn through during this WFH bullshit ( i get it but I don't like it). 

[Hate 20247]

And you bet your ass I'm listening to Terrapin Station with the crescent moon and bright Venus we have tonight. 

[Hate 20247]

Thirty years ago tonight was one of the best shows from the 88-90 era.  It is widely known as the "Branford" show, as it was the first of what would come to be many collaborations between the Grateful Dead and jazz great Brandford Marsalis.  The Eyes of the World would make it onto the Without a Net disc and change my life somewhere around fall of 1992.  Here is a link to the whole show.  It also features the first Dark Star in a while.

The finest musician to fall into the Dead’s orbit at this time did so at a Dead concert. … At first the band was cautious and “auditioned” Marsalis by asking him to sit in on “Bird Song,” late in the first set. Never did a musician prove his brilliance faster, and about one verse in, (lead guitarist Jerry) Garcia and Marsalis were trading licks like they were old friends…They flew off the planet to a “Dark Star,” skated along the heavens with “Eyes Of The World,” and generally played one of the finest shows with a visiting musician the Dead ever managed. Since the Dead actually listened and reacted to their guests, an outsider almost always held them back. But Branford was exactly there with them and pushed them straight to their strength – highly innovative improvisation…Marsalis would be a welcome guest a number of times over the next years. In addition to his towering gifts as a player, he brought to the shows a sweetness of disposition that made even the grumpiest drummer smile when told that Branford was coming. (Dennis McNally, What A Long Strange Trip It’s Been: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead, p. 581–82)

We brought Branford up for a now-legendary version of “Bird Song” during the first set, and it was so good, that we invited him out for the entire second set. Branford played with us four more times over the next four years, usually for the entire show. Those were good nights. Branford became a friend of ours and he said something about us that I’ll never forget: he said we all had big ears. Coming from a monster jazz guy like that, it was a monster compliment. We may have helped introduce improvisation to rock ‘n’ roll, but the jazz cats had been jamming since before Chuck Berry even picked up his first electric guitar. Having Branford validate us like that really meant something to me. He told us that we showed him what’s possible within rock ‘n’ roll and that playing with us was one of the greatest thrills of his life. That, in turn, was one of the greatest thrills of mine. (Bill Kreutzmann, Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreams and Drugs with the Grateful Dead, p. 293)

And here is a link to the Rolling Stone interview with Brandford about that night.  It's a long read, so I won't long cat the thread.

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/branford-marsalis-on-his-unlikely-collaboration-with-the-grateful-dead-233484/

Edited March 29, 2020 by Hate

[Hate 20247]

I’ve been On an 88-90 kick later and tonight it’s 6/21/89 from Mountain View, California!

 

[Hate 20247]

It's a good night to sit on the porch with a whiskey and listen to this:

Or if you prefer a little faster version without Donna:

 

That's the Without a Net version from 3/28/90, but the vocals are different.  I think I read somewhere that Bobby wasn't happy with the vocals or something was wrong with them so he re-recorded them.  The music the same but it is sung slightly differently on the CD. 

[Druggist 303]

Hey everyone.  Just threw on 3/29/90 while I work on stuff for a masters degree I am pursuing.  Such a great show.

Haven’t been on this thread in a bit because I have been really busy with work (I am a pharmacist for nursing homes, so we are busy as ever and extra stressed).

I’ve also been on a bit of a Trey/Phish kick.  If anyone is a fan of them, I highly recommend the new quarantine batch of songs he has been putting out through IG/FB/etc.  it is hitting me in the right way right now.  Also, the Ghosts of the Forest studio and live albums plus the new Phish Album are my favorite stuff they’ve released since the first hiatus.  Between Me and My Mind is a really good documentary about Trey from around level when he was recording GotF.   I know this isn’t Dead, but they are Dead related and the Phish thread is an abortion.

if interested, the first set of 7/25/97 from Starplex in Dallas is easily the best set of music I’ve ever seen in person (2nd set was a letdown).  The Bathtub Gin is a top 3 version and I think way better than the Rupp or Went Gins that everyone talks about as the best.

  
I promise my next visit will be GD content.

[Hate 20247]

While I do like Phish, I've never really gotten into them.  I tried back in the day, especially after Jerry died.  When I need a little "pick me up", I listen to Bouncing Round the Room.

[Druggist 303]

5 hours ago, Hate said:

While I do like Phish, I've never really gotten into them.  I tried back in the day, especially after Jerry died.  When I need a little "pick me up", I listen to Bouncing Round the Room.

I totally get not being into Phish.  I think they took more work for me than the Dead did since their early stuff lacks the emotional component they is so strong in the Dead’s music.  I happened to meet a couple guys from the NE in Jester when I was a freshman and I traded them copies of my few Dead tapes for their few Phish tapes.  Those tapes along with the A Live One release got me started, as did seeing them on a few of their best tours (Fall 95 and the next 4 summers).

i am just finishing up the Branford show.  The pre Branford stuff in the first set is great and I forgot just how good the Estimated is.  I forget about it with the two songs it is sandwiched between.  What a 3 song run.

Also, I rarely listen to a whole show and it was great to hear the post-space portion again.  The encore is perfect with Branford’s accents thrown in.  Great recommendation!

[Hate 20247]

[Hate 20247]

I don't know if any if you have seen these before, but this is an "internet" guitar teacher who has only recently started getting into the Grateful Dead.  He has a bunch of videos where he breaks down some songs musically, but also provided comments along the way about the style and sound.  I find it interesting to watch even though I am not a musician and know nothing about what he speaks.  I just find it enjoyable to watch people get it the way that I got it when it clicked for me.  Y'all may not like it though.  The link below is going directly to his page because he had issues with it loading to youtube.  The rest of his videos are there and can be found by searching "guitar teacher reacts".  He does a bunch of other bands that I assume a lot of you like as in Widespread Panic and Phish. In the video I linked, he breaks down Loser from 7/7/89 JFK Stadium in Philly.  This was released on the Crimson, White and Indigo cd. 

 

https://www.guitargate.com/loser

[Napoleon 8822]

The only show I ever saw of theirs. Summer Grateful, Some Are Dead tour. (Saw the Saturday night show and their 3rd keyboardist died the following Thursday.)

JULY 21st, 1990 @ WORLD MUSIC THEATER (Tinley Park, IL... suburban Chicago)

1. Set 1:
2. Touch of Grey
   (>)
   Play Video
3. Greatest Story Ever Told
   (Bob Weir song)
   Play Video
4. Jack-A-Roe
   ([traditional] cover)
   Play Video
5. Walkin' Blues
   (Son House cover)
   Play Video
6. Friend of the Devil
    
   Play Video
7. Just a Little Light
    
   Play Video
8. Queen Jane Approximately
   (Bob Dylan cover)
   Play Video
9. Bird Song
   (Jerry Garcia song)
   Play Video
10. Set 2:
11. Scarlet Begonias
    (>)
    Play Video
12. Fire on the Mountain
     
    Play Video
13. Playing in the Band
    (Bob Weir song) (>)
    Play Video
14. He's Gone
    (> jam >)
    Play Video
15. Drums
    (>)
    Play Video
16. Space
    (>)
    Play Video
17. I Need a Miracle
    (>)
    Play Video
18. Crazy Fingers
    (> 'Playing in the Band' tease >)
    Play Video
19. Dear Mr. Fantasy
    (Traffic cover) (> 'Playing in the Band' reprise)
    Play Video
20. One More Saturday Night
    (Bob Weir song)
    Play Video
21. Encore:
22. Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn)
    (Bob Dylan cover)

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/grateful-dead/1990/world-music-theatre-tinley-park-il-13d60155.html

[Hate 20247]

Damn, you got to see Brent’s last show.

[Napoleon 8822]

3 hours ago, Hate said:

Damn, you got to see Brent’s last show.

I saw the first night of their last stop on the tour. 

They had "Chicago" shows on Sunday and Monday as well, but I was close.

The day of my show I went to the Cubs game in the early afternoon, saw Ryne Sandberg hit a home run, watched Harry Carey sing "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" and then we left and drove to the concert. It took 3 hours to go the last 3 miles on the highway to get to our exit, then we encountered all sorts of ne'er-do-wells trying to buy tickets, before I finally found us two tickets for $20 each that we bought through the fence from someone who had climbed the fence when the mounted police were not near the 20 foot fence for a couple of minutes (or less) and we got in after the first song or two.

My friends was the fan, I was only there because there wasn't enough room in a Chevy Blazer to go with another group driving up from Dallas, and his dad wouldn't let him drive by himself from Dallas to Chicago on the spur of the moment in their 10+ year-old diesel Mercedes station wagon. I was the "responsible" one, because I had only been kicked out of one prep school vs the 2 or 3 that my friend had been asked to leave. (Plus, I didn't do drugs and my friend didn't NOT do drugs.)

[Hate 20247]

For all of you Deadheads with nothing to do this Friday night...

 

https://jambands.com/news/2020/04/08/grateful-dead-announce-shakedown-stream-youtube-concert-series/#.Xo4Jvj0lcOQ.facebook

 

This is a new weekly concert series on YouTube. The first one is the July 4, 1989 show I always rave about here. It’s the Truckin up to Buffalo DVD. There will be a Q & A before the show as well. I know what I’m doing Friday night!

[Hate 20247]

Y'all need to be up listening to the Grateful Dead. 

[Hate 20247]

Perfect song for tonight!