John A

I played many hours of pick up basketball at Barton Hall growing up. Fond memories of the old barn. Cornell's campus truly is second to none. While I have a good excuse for missing the '77 show during 5th grade, I was 15 by the '81 show so the excuses get flimsier.

Of all the moments that qualify as a go-to for revisiting any given show, what lights me up about this one is the Brent jam in Big River. Goes to show you don't ever know...

Rude is sadly correct about Petaluma but he forgot to add the traffic issues. 😎 And yes, Shoreline is WAY too far, although the lone Dead Co show I saw was there. Kinda enjoyed it, if only for the spectacle. They did bust out Sing Me Back Home this year at Shoreline. My musical commute is typically no farther than the the corner of my living room to turn on the amplifiers. 😆 Word is that Mayer will be calling it quits after this tour. Whether the core 3 replace him and continue, or not, is up to them. Vicious unfounded gossip, or "you heard it here first"? We shall see...

The Mountain Winery in Saratoga is indeed a very sweet venue. Bit of a pain to get in and out of it, and the wine is pretty lame, but the concert spot is awesome.

I would have guessed no show opened with Tennessee Jed, but research uncovers that 6-29-76 Chicago also opened with it.

Good one, Hardpan! Not only that, but Far From Me opened 2nd sets on 8-8-82 Alpine and 9-24-82 Syracuse. Man, talk about thread drift.

Louie Louie opened the second set at a Frost '88 show as well as in Louisville '89 - that's technically Brent. A Little Light opened set 2 at the LA Forum Feb '89. Blow Away opened set 2 Spring '89 in Pittsburgh, and again Fall '89 in Charlotte. Pockey Way actually opened a surprising number of both 1st and 2nd sets from '87 through '90.

A few other good selections, in rambling fashion... speaking of '81 Shakedowns, there's 9-12-91 Greek and 8-28-81 Long Beach. And speaking of Brent in particular, how 'bout that Wheel -> Never Trust A Woman at that Long Beach show. Also 5-23-82 Greek (another Shakedown) is a barn burner. Casey Jones closing set 2 and a Satisfaction -> Brokedown encore. Who else wants to snuggle up with a Deadbase and give a Top 10 list a go? 🎵

This came up recently with a buddy and I realized that it's both an interesting exercise and something I'd never contemplated. And hell, people seemingly have top 10 lists for everything, so why not? Clearly the subjective nature of such an endeavor is bottomless. How much does one spread the shows out over Brent's entire tenure vs concentrating on peaks points? To what degree does a personal connection with a show override any objective measures? Does a particularly incendiary section of a show vault it onto the list at the expense of a wire to wire barnburner that lacks a famous moment? Do first sets need to even count? Such questions could go on an on. When I considered the concept, it seemed like there were a few shows that would probably appear on many lists and rightfully so. But also there were periods, or maybe more specifically runs in one venue, that had to somehow have representation, regardless of whether specific periods, say for example Spring Tour '90, could otherwise dominate the list. So as an opening salvo, with some hemming and hawing along the way, I'll offer the following... •10-27-79 Cape Cod - The pre-drums section alone gets it here. •10-14-80 Warfield - Certainly one of the October '80 epic 3 set shows from San Francisco / Radio City has to qualify. How could the list exclude this singular run? If you aren't familiar with the Music Never Stopped become so ASAP and you can thank me later. 😆 That, a chilling acoustic China Doll, a hot Scarlet -> Fire, a rare era Morning Dew, and a transfixing Brokedown Palace round out the evening's greatness. •5-6-81 Nassau - Five legendary words to introduce one of the best half hours of music in Brent's tenure: "This one's for Bobby Sands" •10-10-82 Frost - Tough to pick one from the great 10-9 and 10-10 duo, but I'm going with 10-10. Welcome to the Frost, folks, you're gonna like it here. •11-2-84 BCT - Now I'm admittedly veering into guilty pleasure territory, but frankly this show would make my top 5 list. So awesome that the reintroduction of Phil on vocals is a good thing. 😚 •6-14-85 Greek - Other than the anemic Cryptical bust out (on the other hand they busted out Cryptical, so there's that) these three "Twenty Years So Far" Greek shows were pure gold. But I gotta go with the 14th. The Boys overcame technical problems to play what were essentially two short first sets, and the Dew / Comes A Time / China Doll Jerry led second set speaks volumes. •Richmond '85 - The great Fall Tour '85 needs a representative on my list, and while I gravitate toward the Richmond pair choosing between 11-1 and 11-2 is a tall order. Hmmm... I'm punting. 🤔 •10-9-89 Hampton - When you bust out the first Dark Star in five years, along with the first Attics in 17 years, not to mention seasoning in a Death Don't Have No Mercy, all while playing a top notch show disguised as The Warlocks....well, enough said. •10-16-89 Brendan Byrne - At the risk of one too many Fall '89 shows on my list, happy 42nd birthday Bobby. 🎈And to think, a show on my list could actually open with Picasso Moon. 😂 •3-29-90 Nassau - I think it can be universally agreed upon that a list without an entry from perhaps the most fundamentally solid tour in the Brent era is unacceptable. There's frankly a lot of leeway here, but I'll go with the 3-29 Branford extravaganza. ⚡ And with that, I open the floor.

Love this spot in Portland. The stained glass contains the notes to Dark Star. https://blog.mcmenamins.com/stained-glass-part-ii/

Franklin's from 10-27-79 Cape Cod is so the fucking GOAT. End of discussion. 17 minutes of absolute bliss. (With apologies to the great Franklin's from '76 and '77 that were part of epic HSF suites.) And via the 30 Years Around the Sun release, we have premium sound for 10-27. In fact, I think this is an obvious entry for any "top 10 Brent era shows" list. Hmmm, maybe that could be an interesting post... I bet that list will be wildly subjective after a small handful of consensus shows. If there are even those.

Yep, and since '71 is the year for HTH, that's saying something.

Warriors looking very strong thus far. Overheard in game one from the play by play guy: "The splash brothers are having a Poole party." And Bobby had some choice seats a few rows off the court for game 2...

Anytime I see a reference to 11-2-84, my "guilty pleasure" greatest show, I can only smile. Smokestack sandwich was in the first set that night to boot!

I've considered 11-2-85 as a possible top 10 Brent era show, but then my head explodes at the concept that 11-1-85 might have been better. What a pair in Richmond, and what a great fall tour - save for Tampa Sun Dome 10-26-85 which was somewhat of a train wreck. God bless the good ol' Grateful Dead.

Mumblings of the pedantic Deadhead: China->Rider went into drums->space 3 times.... 6-24-80 Grand Rapids, 8-14-81 Seattle (which also featured Baby Blue introduced into the rotation as an encore, played for the first time since February '74), and 6-16-91 Giants Stadium. How 'bout that? I would have guessed the number of times that happened was zero.

6-25-82 was indeed a Palladium benefit show but not solo. Garcia & Kahn played one set. Maybe Kahn was set back in the shadows.

Apparently Jerry was so freaked out to be up there solo that he put out an emergency call to get Kahn out for the Beacon Theatre show the next week. And he would never play solo again. So yeah, a pretty special night indeed!

I recall at the time thinking how it was wild that Phil was 50 (first band member to hit the half century mark). And today he is 82 - amazing!

Good lord, Bill, that commute schedule is insane Deadication. And that's before including that you worked both days! Sadly, there's little positive one can say about that poor '92 Spring tour. Even the show in Landover with a Dark Star, a Dew, and the first Satisfaction since '86 never really achieved lift off. In the immortal words of Bruce Hornsby, "I got tired of getting up onstage and sucking every night."

n - Bob Weir & Wolf Bros Feb 27, 2022 Sweetwater Music Hall Mill Valley, CA Benefit for Robin Sylvester Set 1: Playin' in the band -> Jam -> New Speedway Boogie My Brother Esau Catfish John Two Djinn Lost Sailor -> Saint of Circumstance Set 2: Like a Rolling Stone (w/Matt Jaffe on vocals) Uncle John’s Band-> Supplication-> Uncle John’s Reprise Estimated Prophet -> Truckin’ -> Spoonful -> The Other One -> Standing on the Moon -> Not Fade Away > Great to see this music in such a tiny setting. The intimacy really lended itself to this stripped down Bobby interpretation. Plus Barry Sless was a guest on pedal steel which is always a good thing. Sweetwater has a 315 capacity but they limited it to 200 so the place was nice and open. I'm often Bobby's biggest critic as far as his take on Garcia/Hunter material goes, but this rendition of New Speedway was pure gold. And the Uncle John's segment was also awesome. Matt Jaffe is a Mill Valley kid who started showing up and making a splash at open mic nights early in the new Sweetwater era when he was 16. He's now in his mid 20s and it's great Bobby brought him up for the Dylan number. Matt crushed it!

That is one deep and broad looking pair of sets. I count up to 8 song not played live by the Grateful Dead.

While that's definitely some statistical abuse, it could be worse... If you'd hopped on tour after William & Mary '78, and you happened to miss the Landover show in Fall '79, you could have gone almost 150 shows without a Dew!

If Phil sits in with DSO and sings Morning Dew, that's when we really got a problem. Maybe Eyes -> Dew.

Oh geez, Bobby did sing the Dew. Exactly what one assumes they'll avoid going to see DSO.