John A

I talked to a buddy who was at the show. Apparently it was in a super cool little amphitheater and the W & M guy who put it on was ridiculously conservative is ticket sales. Maybe the most elbow room you'll find at a DSO show these days!

That Dark Star is not only wonderful but I think it's particularly unique (yeah, all Dark Star's are unique but I stand by that statement). Jerry's voice is a bit fried, but no matter. Anyone unfamiliar should cue it up ASAP!

Yeah, what about Blossom? That's a curious omission.

Summer Magic update: The Saratoga double encore is all that. JGB gets nice and soft toward its conclusion with Brent adding beautiful low level vocal parts. Then Jerry announces he's very much not done yet, launching forcefully into Baby Blue. He confuses himself a few times on the lyrics, but it's powerful throughout, and when he nails vocals he totally means it! There are 3 double encores in this 7 show release. The Boys were having much fun.

I'm through the Greek run and into Saratoga. They really got the impact and bloom on Phil's bass dialed on the remastering. But with the cassette boards Healy was running in that era you can only do so much. '85 is such a unique beast. Surprises around every turn. The return of Stagger Lee. Dupree's. Comes A Time. China Doll, coming off a heavy 1984, in relatively heavy rotation. The introduction of the monstrous She Belongs To Me. Double encores. Songs showing up all over the shows in surprise slots. Jerry's voice mostly back from the '84 period. The huge bust out of Cryptical, although that ranged from tepid to outright weak. I can see why they dropped it. That said, Bill's "uneven" descriptor couldn't be more spot on. It's quite evident even in the highly respected Greek run. I will say that 6/15 set two is an absolute work of art. Looking forward to revisiting the Merriweather shows.

For the life of me I can never get straight which Red Rocks '82 Other One contains some of the most explosive Phil insanity ever. They played it twice in the 3 night run. I think it was this night. I went through at least a 1/2 dozen audience tapes looking for a capture that would do it justice, finally landing on the Jamie Poris Nak 700s. So crazy is Phil's barrage that the soundboard doesn't reveal it. The cassette levels must have gone off the meters, because rather than bombs there's just distortion. But the PA did indeed deliver!

Gotta love an inventive elective that creatively mixes virtually every era. Nice!

The best examples, IMHO, of lyrics invading one's mind, is when by whatever reason a familiar Dead song throws up a few lines that you interpret anew. For me, this is most typical with Garcia/Hunter material. It usually happens based on a new life experience, but it can also happen out of nowhere by a surprisingly fresh interpretation. To wit: despite Jerry shelving it after 3 live plays, I consider If I Had The World To Give top notch Garcia/Hunter stuff. And I digress by noting DSO seems to agree, as it pops up more than occasionally in elective shows. More digression: this shit fascinates me - what made Jerry take up great songs that he poingently delivered only to abandon them? Sing Me Back Home and She Belongs To Me are a couple other good examples. World To Give is classic Hunter, whereby its thrust is powerfully uplifting, only to go against that grain while not in obvious fashion (and of course we all know Hunter thrived on the non-obvious nebulous verse). Anyway, I'm trying to get to lines I heard in a newfound darkness. "Only if you let me be your world, could I ever give this world to you." What an awful concept, and what an unhealthy sentiment.

I had what I'd go as far as to call a profound experience Friday night, on account of music / location / psychedelic enhancement. (I guess that trifecta reads like, well, duh!.") I'm going to write it up while still fresh, and to help some life to this place I'll definitely post it. 😬 😜 Teaser alert: I saw Easy Wind, for my show at Belly Up in Solana Beach. (Which is pathetic; I've lived here in North County SD for over 6 months and Solana Beach is one town down.) I was totally solo, Ubering in case I wanted to imbibe with impunity. I didn't spend a cent in the venue, because the wildcard was the shrooms. I've partaken a fair amount over the past few decades various psilocybin forms, including the premium harvested stuff. I've also done small to medium LSD doses a couple times since the 90s. So how could carefully portioning off a third of the 4g laboratory mushrooms my wife bought home from a source in NYC go wrong? I'm eating about 1 1/3 grams. By showtime and hour later I was (a) dumfounded at the potency of these things, (b) wondering and/or fearing how much higher I was going to get, and (c) realizing that if when the music started this band wasn't bringing it I for me I might be in trouble! It's about 8 miles home if I walked on, or closely when not possible, the coast line. What a great way to experience this unexpectedly insane high if necessary! This is the kinda shit now hitting me. Looking at my phone to text my wife about these Frankenshrooms was a chore as it swirled and pulsated. While I'm a lightweight in these circles, I know what a full scale phchedelic high is, this stuff was turbo charged. I don't think I've been this high since the late 80s. So all that said, maybe folks can chime in with Easy Wind experiences. My story soon...

Bro, there's no "leagues". Just the love, passion, and connection with the music. Now having scolded you, welcome! 😁 And your passion seems palpable. If you want GD in its purest mold, you've come to the right place...

Good grief does that ever look like the ultimate tastiness!

Morning Dew (torrential downpour)

Talk about a setlist that'd keep one off their feet from start to finish. An inspired looking flow. I mean, Maggie's -> Mystery Train? Yo! And to top it off a bust out!

2muchfun - I haven't gotten to the Palladium yet (my stereo will blissfully come out of 6 months relocation driven storage next week!), but as fate would have it post drums Buffalo was on Sirius XM as I was driving yesterday. The body of Comes A Time was sublime, and listening to Garcia spit out a tour's worth of gorgeous high pitched notes in the outro jam was breathtaking. That'll be a tough one to beat!

Man, witnessing Spring '77 in person? Regardless you win! And it's sandwiched between Playin' and the Playin' Reprise no less. My memory says 5-9 is the one, but specifically because of the insane volume of beautiful notes Jerry delivers in the outro jam. I will freshly cue up 5-4 in the near future. I'm not suggesting the body of the song can't compete...