John A

One other comment on the site itself - while Chris has tweaked it to be perfectly sufficient on mobile platforms, it deserves the respect of a computer / tablet to get the full gist of how useful, while remaining deceptively simple, the page layouts are.

Thanks for the kind words, Chris. I must say, this project is all that. While the concept of this might have been something I'd have expected to come together many years ago, it never did, not even in a remote shadow of what Grateful Sets currently is. It's everything one could have expected of DeadBase should DeadBase have been born in the modern technological world. Just an overall damned impressive effort, and I'm proud to be even a tangential part of it. As an example of its power, I recently was wondering about a full accounting of Fire On The Mountain performances without Scarlet played at the show. Well, I quick little search easily uncovers there were 12 instances of a Fire and no Scarlet. A few are famous, like the Egypt performance out of Ollin Arageed, the Radio City version out of space that ended up on Dead Set (and at all of 6 min 30 sec perhaps "infamous" is more apt), and the '91 Boston show where Jerry supposedly said to Hornsby before Help on the Way to "pay attention" only to launch from Slipknot! -> Fire. Others are downright cool, like the '85 show in Ventura that opened with Saturday Night -> Fire and the '86 Greek 2nd set opener. And then there's the 3 iterations of Hell in a Bucket -> Fire - maybe not the best transition. But in any event, where else could someone so readily generate that data? Nowhere! 👏

'89 Cal Expo was the first shows I was involved in DAT taping... no flipping necessary! ☺️

Love how the flow of that 2nd set looks.

I once was funneled into the back of a horrific lot at Shoreline, and I knew from experience that getting out of it could potentially take over an hour. Had a great seat FOB in the center section. I left the seat before the encore, and positioned myself at the rear aisle ready to bolt. Then Jerry went into Baby Blue and I found myself loitering until the end of it. Couldn't leave early. 😀 There were rail rats hardcores at later era Oakland Coliseum Arena shows that would leave before the encore to hustle outside and be the first to get the priority tickets to line up the next morning. That's some "method to my madness" shit right there.

For 7-22-84 Ventura, listen to Loser as loud as possible, paying particular attention to the Phil bomb at the end of the jam and Jerry's ensuing vocals. Good shit!

Saying "I saw The Grateful Dead with Jerry" is so painfully redundant. What a tool.

I finally got to this, and I'm through 2 of the 4 episodes. Thus far it's awesome. Looking forward to the rest of it. Episode 1 has a seemingly nonstop barrage of Dead tunes, most of which are integrated into the Walton narrative remarkably well. But especially impressive are Eyes of the World, when Walton has achieved top level high school success after a crazed growth spurt and is now considered the next real hoops deal, and Estimated Prophet, when they're hammering home the unbeatable nature of UCLA basketball, Pauly Pavilion in particular, and Walton's arrival there. Episode 2 has an epic inclusion of Morning Dew. They retrace the big anti-Vietnam rally on UCLA's campus that Walton was a part of and was arrested over. During the narrative of "this is where everyone on campus went this day" the Dew seemlessly reached the "where have all the people gone today" verse. Of course the concept whereby Dead songs mean different things at different times to different people based on life's circumstances is well known to Deadheads , but I thought it was a wickedly good how they reinterpreted the pathos of the song's meaning. Instead of "there's no people here because civilization's been obliterated", they used it to amp the intensity that all the people ARE HERE, and moreover they're all participating in this important political statement on a college campus. But even more powerful was the montage of grizzly, rapid fire, still images involving the police response, which was done in perfect time with Phil's big dramatic base notes at the opening of the first jam. Brilliant stuff.

That's pretty slick how the whole show bobs and weaves around all sorts of eras. And how the first set bobs and weaves around 2nd set elements.

The potential for those transitions in and out of Lay Me Down seem intriguing.

This was the first Don't Ease since before the hiatus, and it never left the rotation again. I recall a story that Jerry was uncommonly fucked up before the show, apparently on some pills or something, and there was concern about him getting onstage. But of course he rallies, to the point of opening the show with an amazingly appropriate bust out!

You got it! Umm, that's Bordeaux. I only offered up Burgundy. 😜

When you can make it over the Golden Gate Bridge, I'm good for some. Grand Cru even. 🍷😚

10-12-84 was the first of about a dozen instances of a Playin' Reprise without a main Playin' having occurred earlier.... That's totally righteous DSO included the rest of the Playin' in the filler slot.

Would never have guessed Way To Go Home came out of space 7 times. Thought it was exclusively pre-drums material. God bless humanity for that tune to drive the coveted transition out of space slot. This prompted my own research re: Wave to the Wind. Could it have actually come out of space? Yep. It did so twice. Turns out I actually saw one of them. Better to have blocked that kind of shit out I suppose. There are also 2 occasions of Way To Go Home being followed by Wave to the Wind. Ouch.

I consider Days Between as much more than "holding up as a Jerry ballad." It's A-list, and I know that high praise, but it's simply brilliant. The only knock on it is that it came around just as Jerry was on his downslope. Listen to 12-11-94. Mesmerizing.

Back to Valley Road, The Dead seemed gung-ho about it, at least briefly. Of the 6 versions, the last 4 were all in Dec. '90 and all 6 were 1st set closers. And just like that, it was gone. 🤭 The other Hornsby song they did, Stander on the Mountain, also saw all 3 of its appearances toward the end of '90 and again all as 1st set closers. I wonder what made them shelve the "Bruce slot" come the turn of the year. Likely Bruce himself I suppose. Hey, one could ask him...

I was also at that Landover show with the lone GD Fever. That seems like something Eaton would want to bust out in an elective. Maybe they've recreated that show? Don't think anybody is gonna get a Samba at a DSO show. 😆

This kind of stuff and a '69 venture are my DSO wheelhouse. Nice.

Other tidbits I've heard to help fill this in... Come Together, Hey Jude, and a double band Makes No Difference / Shape I'm In. 3 set 2 Beatles songs, plus a double Band encore.

Funny, but true. The last missing link chronologically to the Dead's long, strange trip. And yes, good blog about a strange little winter tour.

Good extended take on the shows / venue, Mango - thanks. I was just listening to a New Year's set 2 GD opener on Sirius XM in the car and I turned it off because even on the soundboard the balloons were brutal. As a former audience taper, you can imagine how I felt about them back in the day. 😠 I streamed the 12-30 show on my big TV / stereo. Sound, video, overall production, not to mention the band's playing, were all impeccable. Funny to read your rant about the repeated encore tandem, because once I'd realized the 12-30 show was almost assuredly a mid to late '78 recreation, I'm thinking shit like, "ok, now it's going to Samson, Estimated, or Playin' and anything else will be a shocker." As well as "Wharf Rat, Stella, or Black Peter - what else is possible?" And it's bothering me! Point being, how fucking spoiled are we to have such gripes? 😉

It's a solid app. I did beta testing for it, although I ironically don't have it due to all the beta versions timing out. But I definitely recommend it. Technically Stu Nixon is the only original DeadBase collaborator that is involved. John Scott, the main force behind Deadbase (he did all the programming) dropped off the grid some years ago and the software vanished along with him. It's a crime to pedantic Deadhead humanity that the print version can't be revised with the hundreds of updates and corrections that have surfaced since Jerry left us. That's why Deadbase 50 is such a let down.

It feels safe to proclaim that Eyes > Comes A Time is the first such pairing. Pretty brilliant call, actually. The reverse would seem quite awesome as well.

Having 6 copies of every DeadBase ever printed (kidding, I'm just kidding 😉), I count 14 second set Candymans, the last being 7-7-81 in Kansas City.