Leaderboard

84/07/13 Greek Theater, Berkeley, CA Set One Bertha>Greatest Story, Dire Wolf, CC Rider, Loser, Cassidy, Dupree's Diamond Blues, Hell In a Bucket>Might As Well. Set Two Scarlet Begonias>Touch of Grey>Fire on the Mountain, Women Are Smarter>Drums>Space The Wheel>I Need A Miracle>Stella Blue> Sugar Magnolia. E: Dark * Star. last Dark Star 81/12/31 [167] shooting star during Dark Star. While a follow up to the insanity Atlanta Saturday Night would be tough to find, a pretty significant Grateful Dead performance is a fabulous starting point. Solid efforts by all, special shout out to Jeff tonight for tackling all that Jerry material with competence and flair. Crazy venue set up, I spent the evening dancing on a raised metal platform, with brief spurts of wood chips. Solid versions throughout the first, the closing triad especially strong and Might As Well the foreshadowing, although I didn't know for sure until the Touch. As mentioned Jeff was front and center in the second, the transition back to the Fire silky. Skip's bomb dropping helped draw the Star, which was lovely, right up to the curfew, so darn no filler. Enjoy a couple days off band and crew. Praise DSO.

This new venue, Coca Cola Roxy, is actually located between Atlanta proper and the suburbs and just off I-75 and I-285. It will be an easier drive for us Dead heads now living outside town than going all the way to Variety Playhouse in Little Five Points area where many other older folk are afraid of the free people there. I think that after we eventually get over the C19 stuff this venue will be sold out. Unfortuntly I could not attend the shows because a few days earlier I was in the emergency room and hospilized for a whole week. I'm doing fine now and finally back home. My tickets did not go to waste for a good friend of ours who you all know was able to pick up the mircle tickets from me during a good welcome visit at the hospital. Peace and Love, Doc

Announcing Winter Tour! That's right, we are heading back to the West Coast, winding our way through the mountains to culminate the run with our debut at the Mission Ballroom in Denver, Colorado! Take a look at these tour dates, tickets go on sale this Friday, Dec. 3 at 10 AM local time. Jan 28 & 29 - Stateline, NV - Harrah’s Lake Tahoe Jan 31 - Chico, CA - Senator Theatre Feb 2 - San Luis Obispo, CA - Fremont Theater Feb 3 - Monterey, CA - Golden State Theatre Feb 4 & 5 - San Francisco, CA – The Warfield Feb 8 - Salt Lake City, UT - The Commonwealth Room Feb 10 - Aspen, CO - Belly Up Feb 11 - Frisco, CO - 10 Mile Music Hall - ACOUSTIC Feb 12 - Denver, CO - Mission Ballroom

Z-Man is a live recording ACE and a nice man. He does a lot of Dead music around the Atlanta area. Peace and Love, Doc, who missed these shows due to an emergency stay of over a week in the hospital, I'm fine now and finally home.

Original Recipe. Set One Truckin', Second That Emotion, Ain't It Crazy (The Rub), Mama Tried, Big Railroad Blues, Hard to Handle, Dark Hollow, Pride of Cucamonga>King Bee>Pride of Cucamonga, Casey Jones. Set Two Cumberland Blues, Big Boy Pete, Big Boss Man, Cryptical> Drums>Other One>Cryptical>Wharf Rat>St. Stephen> Goin' Down the Road>Lovelight. E: Johnny B. Goode. Our band delivered the goods. The all powerful Elective reaches new heights in Atlanta. You keep going to shows to catch an evening like this one. I was giggling typing the list, I mean look at that masterpiece. Where to begin, a Pig night to be sure. First set reaches flawlessly delivered, the sandwich, filling. After a great jump to the second, the business really picked up during the BBP/BBM combo. I thoroughly lost my marbles on that pair. Other One an epic journey, Stephen transcendental, the Pig Lovelight complete with all scat covered by Rob. Thanks band and crew. See you in Orlando. Praise DSO.

78/05/17 Uptown Theatre, Chicago, IL Half Step>Franklin's Tower, Me and My Uncle>Big River, Must Have Been the Roses, Looks Like Rain, Tennessee Jed, Lazy Lightning>Supplication. Samson and Delilah, Friend of the Devil, Dancin' in the Streets> Family Drums>Space>Terrapin Station>Not Fade Away, Round and Round. E: Werewolves of London. FIller: Box of Rain, How Sweet It Is. Southern tour begins with riches of dance space along with forum attendees who knew what to do with it. Opening duo heavenly, Lazy>Supp set close a scorcher. Second set silky smooth, everyone in on the drums, Terrapin inspired. Skip, who killed all night, took the NFA to some new ground. Great start to the tour. Sat. Nite Elective? Love you all. Praise DSO.

It’s hard to really feel that early 70’s hard jamming psychsdelia when at the house mostly because the quality of the boards won’t let you get all of the intricacies of the original. Hearing this on that amazing PA system in all its glory is hard to describe. I thought their compositions were all so original. The style was unique, the transitions were improv genius and they really stretched a lot of songs to their limit. 16 minute other one, 18 minute lovelight, 9 minute GDTRFB. They didn’t skimp on the jams. It was superb. Pig shined in this original. Got home a few hours ago and feel rejuvenated. There were these folding chairs zip tied taking up half the space in front of the board so we pushed several rows forward and several rows backwards and had this protected area that was around 25’x10’ for meili and I and a person here and there that wanted a lot of get down space. Slowly over 30 minutes I moved those rows of chairs as people would get up until we had this amazing area 20’ in front of the board where we could get wild and no one could interrupt. It was awesome. It was like some roped off vip area with just us using 200 sq feet of dance space. I wish the band would have sold more tickets but it was great for fans. Georgia @ Georgia tech was played that afternoon in Atlanta which definitely didn’t help. Met a group of 6 young guys who did the game then the show, but that definitely hurt attendance. I also think the area isn’t great for attendance. It’s sort of touristy with expensive parking on the outskirts of town near Marietta. It was great for a travel weekend as we had food and drink and venue all within a couple blocks. Hung around the Braves stadium Saturday afternoon after lunch. It’s definitely a solid spot for anyone who flew or drove in from out of town but could see how it may not be an ideal location for locals, but there are thousands of parking garage spots within 200 feet of the venue so it’s super easy to get in and out of considering they have parking to hold the 40k baseball fans who come to the games literally 20 feet away. Another great Dso weekend is in the books. We are very grateful to the band and to our friends who came. :))

The cucamonga sandwich with king bee gave us a hint of what we were in for. The cryptical>lovelight was one insane song. The construction of the jam segments was so unique. Every song in set 2 had a complete deconstruction of the song. You could play just a jam segment of any song in set 2 and no one is guessing what song you are in. Very dark hard psychedelic Jazz. Every song left the structure of the song and went into a fantastic jam segment. It was nuts. The lovelight to finish was psychadelic butter. That hour long nonstop segment was a pure improv masterpiece. Wow. They came at us hard tonight. There was no space in the cryptical, just drums. Been a while since I’ve seen an original not have a space segment. I guess it’s why koritz had a quick pee before cryptical lol. This was a ridiculous show. The song construction was very different or weird even. They created alternate jazz melodies for songs. It was a barrage of I’m in a mood to see how far we can take intersong jams. I’m like well they left GDTRFB. They left every other song, then well lovelight will be more straightforward. Nope. 4 minute crazy jazz jam segment and when they return to the song it’s done completely different than you will ever hear. It was like they were playing it in a different key or something. Trust me it was mind blowing hour segment in set 2. oh and Jeff busted out a new guitar, peanut. It’s like a replica of a guitar Jerry played in 71 maybe? That must have been the inspiration for this 2 drummer early 70s show.