Greg from Chestertown

No, see,it’s like this, he’ll in a bucket was the encore but they ran out of time. That’s why you didn’t get a touch of grey filler. No time. Yea, see, it was an elective set list with an eighties theme but you couldn’t tell cuz they ran out of time.

I read that Jerry forgot the words to the third verse so Casey Jones is filled with his and Keith’s jamming until he could figure out which way was up.

Pretty work

I guess they’re showing us. When will we ever learn?

How sweet! Yea, I found a piece of a pipe (no pun intended) at the native site I discovered on the farm. It’s where a spring flows into the river. I’ve found some nice artifacts there, about 300 arrowheads. (They aren’t actually arrowheads, they’re knives or spear points.) be careful with the tobacco. I’ve read that it is a blend that is psychoactive. When natives tried to negotiate trade with white man, the different languages made it difficult so the natives just got them high. Hence, let’s smoke the peace pipe. Enjoy your birthday tomorrow. I’m enjoying mine today.

Thank you!, friend that I have never met. Ah, the beauty of the Dark Star universe.

Lmao! RFK, my wife turned to me at half time and said I ‘m ready when you are. I immediately said you’re not coming next time. Gee, that relationship ended too. Again, too cold.

That point makes a greater point. DSO puts a lot of effort in their set list choices. Recreation, original, preannounced, fillers, era, venue, geographic location, it doesn’t matter. You could go to every show they play in a year and there’s something special about every night. ....smile, smile, smile!

Kevin on bass. Nice!

That could work. GD set lists are predictable, DSO set lists are not.

Grateful Dead music is an experiment. Always has been. Improvisation. I think electives are an ingenious way for Dark Star Orchestra to keep the music moving forward. (Yea, I said it again) if they are not improvising, pioneering, then they are stagnating. I don’t think they are recreating the Grateful Dead experience so much as they are taking the concept that the Grateful Dead is rooted in and growing it, evolving it. Dark Star Orchestra are the only ones who do what they do. Oh by the way, cosmic Charlie, throwing stones, visions. Self explanatory. Wow. Is anyone keeping track, noticing if the band has taken songs out of the line up, maybe on purpose? Are there certain songs that are noticeably absent from the set lists? Curious. Should we be preparing for them bringing stuff off the shelf and reintroducing it, or have they been doing that all along and I just haven’t been doing my homework.

I was just kidding! Ah, the downside of giving advice. Now, you’re going to have to keep dyeing his hair, can’t let the white roots show. See what I started. I feel so bad.

I thought you would go all out and get some blue hair dye.

Remember, the last Grateful Dead tour was known as the tour from hell. Gate crashes, a porch collapsed killing or hurting a bunch of deadheads, etc. Phil had said in an interview, not sure when, that the last five years weren’t that much fun for him. Jerry was having more fun, I think, doing what he was with David Grisman. After Bruce Hornsby passed on joining the Grateful Dead full time, the only thing that kept me going was that somewhere in the show, even if it was just one song, Jerry would simply blow me away. That, and the fact that it was Obvious he was dying and then we wouldn’t be able to see him play. The Grateful Dead was running on fumes and inertia after Brent died. I’m not so sure they would have continued in their current form. They may have needed to evolve some more, maybe they had run their course. Maybe they would have gone their separate ways, doing their own thing with the music. Jerry told somebody in 1995, ‘I ‘m not going to make it through the year’. After the tour, he laid down and died. He gave the best he had to give. Everything in this world has a life span. A few years of mourning and uncertainty, the right group of people got together, and the time is right for the music to be born again and move forward again. Dark Star Orchestra picked up the torch and proceeded to learn and love and grow once more. They have the benefit of a bit of a road map, to be able to learn from the mistakes of the ones who went before them. They do have that indescribable intangible that makes them so special, just as the Grateful Dead was. This reincarnation of the music that is Dark Star Orchestra seems to be a healthier, more vibrant, longer lasting version. I intend to keep this oasis as part of my life’s style, for the long haul. Thank you, entire band, for your sacrifice, deadication, and commitment. You are, oh, so appreciated.

I love that pic. Lisa rocks !

Great question. Hard to say. Things would have been different but I think the cover bands would still be around. Some were there when Jer Bear was alive. Local bar bands. Would they thrive like nowadays? Probably not. Heck, if you ask me, Dead and company is a dead cover band. Dark Star Orchestra has captured that intangible that the he Dead had. Experimental group music moving forward into uncharted waters. That’s what separates them from all of the others. What was your original question?

Isn’t today Mickey Hart’s birthday?

I saw Dead Reckoning play the night after I caught Dark Star in Atlantic City this summer. Not perfect, not polished, but a great night of music nonetheless. Two guys on acoustic guitars and a keyboardist. Nothing but Dead. A small crowd that all seemed to know each other well. I was the new guy they welcomed with open arms. Beautiful music that is still stuck in my head, wonderful people, great conversation with perfect strangers. The next morning, I took myself out to breakfast at the airport diner in Ocean City, New Jersey. When I was leaving, an older fella was setting up out front to play for the people waiting to be seated. He was strumming a ukulele, playing songs from the twenties and thirties. He opened with ‘ in the jailhouse now’. Most of what he played either Jerry had played or sounded like something they could have but never got around to it. I listen to him for about an hour. ....in the strangest of places, if you look at it right.

Ship of fools, war frat music festival September 8th, Egg Harbor City, N.J. Camping, Grateful Dead cover bands, warf rat sober music festival. Pretty cool.

Yea, you heard $15 bill too? I commented on that in an earlier thread about lyrics changes, someone said they heard $50 bill. $15 bill is more funner. I heard Jerry sing in ship of fools once, forty years upon my head.....

He has crop insurance. He grew up farming, had great success in the medical profession. Now, he’s doing it more or less for the challenge. Some people call people like him gentlemen farmers. Some call them hobby farmers.

Wow! Nice! Yea, what we grow goes to feed cows that produce organic milk.

When I got to the farm this morning, I saw that he had tilled the field under, soybeans and weeds. Gonna plant wheat and try to salvage the year. Nothing’s for certain, it can always go wrong....

Frank and I planted 110 acres of soybeans on his organic farm early summer. A flush of weeds took over after the last cultivating, choked out the soybeans, no light getting through. It will be unharvestable. Long story, but problems with the organic alfalfa also. He’s gonna lose about a hundred grand but still bought the seed and did all the work. Humbling.

So, I’m working for an older couple today who are from England originally. When I finished, stepped inside to get paid. The husband comes in to the kitchen and says, ‘today is the fiftieth anniversary of ‘Hey Jude’. The English are proud of their Beatles. She has told me about how she saw them perform in England when she was a young lady. She said she was a little older than most of the girls in the crowd. (Funny, she never said anything about male fans) but you couldn’t hear them playing for all the screaming. I told them how the Grateful Dead would intertwine that song with Dear Mister Fantasy, literally play two songs at once. They weren’t impressed. Today is the fiftieth anniversary of Hey Jude.