John A

It's worth noting that nothing about his illness went public, much less that he’d started treatments just before the big DEAD 60 Golden Gate Park celebration. Much as I moaned about him taking over Garcia / Hunter gems he couldn’t properly sing, no matter - it was 100% his right to do so as he chose. You could argue it was Phil in the early years, but in balance there was no musician closer and with a greater kindred spirit to Jerry than Bobby Weir. And there’s a school of thought that in his lifetime Bobby played to more people than any musician ever. He was a non-stop musical machine for 60+ years! I played the following short playlist last night in honor of Bobby and I highly recommend it. Short, powerful, and covers I would argue Weir’s 3 greatest eras. Please play it as loud as possible… Jack Straw from Cal Expo 6-10-90 - use Sean Weber’s spaced omnis Let It Grow from William & Mary 4-15-78 - use the official release. Me & Bobby McGee from Winterland 11-11-73 - again, use the official release Jerry steals the show at the end of the first two selections, so save #3 for last; pure and perfect Bobby. When he got to the line, “I’d trade all my tomorrows, for one single yesterday” I got more than a little chocked up. RIP, Bobby Weir. You were a treasure.

Set 2 of that Cleveland show actually starts with Ramble On Rose, but no matter - it's still a compact looking 8 song 2nd set that packs a serious per song punch. The Here Come Sunshine is epic, which I'm sure DSO crushed!

This is a "just the facts" analysis of how the Dead historically used The Other One as a vehicle to introduce what one could argue as the coup de grâce of the show (the figurative, not the literary meaning 😉) - the Garcia ballad. It no surprise that Wharf Rat was far and away the most common paring, but I had a notion of measuring that against the other titans. So with a prerequisite shout out to https://www.gratefulsets.net , I present the following numbers.... The Other One -> Wharf Rat (164 times) Stella Blue (85) Black Peter (35) Morning Dew (22) Comes A Time (10) GDTRFB (9) - ok, not technically a ballad but sat in for one here and there Sing Me Back Home (8) - this surprised me The Wheel (6) - see GDTRFB notation Days Between (5) China Doll (4) Standing on the Moon (4) The transitional jams creating these segues are of course infinately more meaningful than any sheer numbers, and there are a few beauties off the top of my head, but that's what makes listening to Jerry's most tender moments so interesting vs. simply delineating them numerically. And moreover, one couldn't count on such a jam; often to be fair it was just The Other One clumsily pounding into a ballad. Exhibit infinity of why you never wanted to miss a moment. 😍

Tea - you turned me on to the Lay Me Down from McNichols run. Which while NOT as good as MSG in September is damn close. 😜

That's a righteous t-shirt! Think about the concept of Dark Star on one side of a 45rpm single. At less than 3 minutes IIRC. Ha. The infamous (to me at least) 6-23-93 Deer Creek version was 7 min at least. It came out of space and went into The Wheel. My quip was always The Wheel was longer, although I don't think that's technically. Damn close tough...

Not officially an elective until Rudolph (song #7!). Love how Pigpen keeps showing up in those two late 80s / early 90s sets.

Unique for the only time The Dead played Let It Rock, famous for Dark Star -> Spanish jam. I'm staying in North County San Diego two blocks above the "Coaster" rail line. They blow the fuck out of the horn coming through this town. Federal railroad regulations until the crossing is updated to current safety codes. Let It Rock has been on my mind. To wit: "engineer blows the whistle loud and long, can't stop the train we gotta let it roll on." 🚄

Amazing what they can do with the rhythm guitar / critical vocalist out last minute. Impressive looking flow to that, and raging I'm sure.

'85 only at Day Tripper, elective at Loose Lucy. Love the Phil / Jerry dual ballad slots after space, not to mention the Jimmy Cliff shout out with Harder They Come. Jerry loved that tune, in just another example of his musical breath.

Nice shut out to the Ithaca crowd, Mango. I've seen many a movie at the State back in the day, including numerous midnight shows like The Wall and Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ah, the good ol' days... Looking at that setlist one has to wonder if Jerry was under the weather, which he officially was at the London run to close the tour. But that was 10 days later. Hmmm... only 3 Jerry tunes out of 9 in set 1, no standard ballad, and a Bobby encore. Food for thought.

I like the "here, there, and the other place" flow to that. Almost certainly an elective as of Passenger, and unquestionably so at Hurts Me To. Nice!

Not a great one, but yes... https://etreedb.org/shn/80296

I like that unusual 3 pack of Victim / Built To Last / We Can Run in the middle of set 1.

In 1975, Jerry bought back the Boogie Woogie Flu from Europe '72 Dead lore with 5 Fall appearances. The final one also featured the first Russian Lullaby. Which brings us to the "other" Garcia Cornell show, 10-27-75 at Bailey Hall, a much smaller venue than Barton and build in 1912 partly for musical performances. This is no jack of all trades athletics barn. Bailey Hall seated about 1,300 and was known for excellent acoustics. The JGB must have sounded fantastic that night. Get a load of the setlist - wow! Set 1: Let It Rock ; How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) ; They Love Each Other ; Every Word You Say ; Crazy Arms ; Russian Lullaby* ; Mystery Train Set 2: Mission In The Rain ; Rockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu ; Catfish John ; Positively 4th Street ; Let's Spend The Night Together ; Teddy Bears' Picnic ; The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down ; Mean Woman Blues *bust out (Thank you, https://jgb.gratefulsets.net) Also, I noticed an interesting tidbit looking at Mystery Train on the whitegum.com lyrics site. The Elvis Presley version completely changes the thrust of the song; in the final verse the train hasn't taken away his girl but rather it's bringing her to him. But it's Elvis, so of course! 😁 Here's the Elvis closing verse: Train, train, coming on down the line Train, train, coming on down the line Well it's bringin my baby, 'cause she's mine oh mine

Who sang Cassidy? Lisa solo in an ode to Donna Jean?!? If so that would be righteous.

That Colgate Eyes is so insanely super charged. Wow.

Donna was much maligned, and rightfully so, for painfully off key wailing at the worst possible moments in the Dead's epic early 70s jams. In fairness, much of that was to do with technical issues on stage with her inability to hear herself. Rumors even exist that some misogyny within the crew contributed to this. But that's here-say so perhaps best unmentioned. That said, her work within a seminal time of Jerry's solo career, his embarkment of JGB, is top flight. And moreover, duets in '77 with Bobby during the likes of Cassidy and Looks Like Rain are often fantastic. Not to mention the extra charge in the final chorus of some '72 Sing Me Back Home renditions. Make my old memories come alive indeed. RIP, Donna-Jean.

I would call the Binghamton '77 set 2 Truckin' closer the "biggie" 😆 Tour closer to boot. How many times was Bertha part of a "proper encore"? I would have said never, until I encountered one on Sirius XM during my drive to Southern CA today...

Love seeing people's juices flowing off my original post! Circling back to Grateful Sets (and in a Garcia Band shout out don't sleep on https://jgb.gratefulsets.net which is equally righteous), I present the following... Scarlet appeared 75 times without Fire, while Fire appeared just 12 times without Scarlet. For a more balanced equation, China appeared 26 times (although to be fair maybe more do to lack of historical data in 1968), while Rider appeared 23 times without China.

Bill, Yep, I caught 3 of the 9 HSF w/ S>F... and without even knowing it. I consider those Oct '91 Oakland shows the last great run I caught, and arguably the last great run period. At least of 3 shows or more in a single venue.

As I'm randomly want to do, the odd thought came to me today (in Muir Woods no less!) about how many times China > Rider as well as Scarlet > Fire appeared in the same show. Without much further consideration, I put the over / under at 10 times. In a shout out to count2 and www.gratefulsets.net, I knew said info could be gleaned with ease... Well clearly I'm a good odds maker when it comes to this sort of minutia, because the actual number is 9 times... Ha! ☺️ Twice in '79, twice in '80, 3 times in '81, once in '83, and once in '85. Predictably, each instance saw China > Rider in set 1 and Scarlet > Fire in set 2. (Technically one time was a Radio City acoustic show, so one might consider that sets 2 and 3.) In 6 of these shows, China > Rider closed set 1 and Scarlet > Fire opened set 2, as one might imagine. I'm sure ya'll are relieved to gain this information. 😂

The elephant in the room appears two fold: what are the recurring monthly costs to host the forum, and where does/should that money come from?

Praise Tea. (to make a shameless riff on Bill K 😆) He would make a great admin.

Talk about weaving eras with dexterity!

That 2nd set looks brilliant. Would have you off your toes basically at all times after HSF, yet would somehow all make perfect sense. Love that kind of shit.