John A

I think that taken as a 3 night whole that '89 Cal Expo run is as good as any shows I attended.

There's a set 2 only with AKG mics and an Uher deck (rare and very nice German portable cassette) that's also a pretty sweet listen for that 8-3-82. It's worth seeking out.

That Keith Gotto '76 Hartford is a pretty solid audience capture , which is good because no board circulates!

That 8-1-94 Stella stands alone with 3-21-94 Richfield OH as the "Garcia vocal jam" late era Stellas. The man had virtually no chops left, but he could still muster a way to bring it.

Hey - saw 'em both then! The Laguna Seca isn't ringing a bell though. And speaking of rare songs, when Believe It Or Not slipped into the ballad slot at Laguna Seca it felt like something that was probably there to stay. Alas, no.

Caught that in Pittsburgh summer '88...might have been the only one??

That could be the "best" show (scene, location, band kicking it down, etc) I saw. I recommend finding Sean Weber's spaced Schoeps omni recording as the source if it's on archive. That's the go to. Taping wasn't allowed due to David Lindley opener, so it was all stealth. I mean, seriously Lindley? You're going to unilaterally stop Heads from capturing this show because you're freaked about about your set going to tape? Get over yourself! This was right before I made the jump from taper section to FOB, and as we were completely unprepared to not be let in at the gate we dutifully trudged back to the car and put the gear away. When the Dead came on, however, there was nobody stopping open taping, so if you'd got your gear past the gate you were good. Some grizzled old big bearded hippy was running shotguns on a tall stand way over past the stacks on Phil's side. I was initially shaking my head at the guy's tactics, but when China Cat worked its way into Crazy Fingers I recall thinking this guy ain't looking so dumb after all. 😆

That angry taper banter is absolute gold. As an aside, the new '82 Red Rocks references, IMHO, are the Nak 700s with DBX noise reduction that were recently transferred from my Beta copies. Here's 7-28: https://archive.org/details/gd1982-07-28.142567.Anon.Severson.Weber-Small.Donaldson.Ammons.Noel.t-flac1644 More epic, however, is the same source from 7-29 which features an extended explosion by Phil like no other, which no other taper captured nearly this well. The board is useless, as it actually distorts (more like cuts out) during this savage passage; watch your levels...but I suppose that is for tomorrow.

Those summer '74 Slipknot jams were indeed fascinating. And what a sequence that is. How many were there? Likely deserves its own thread. No more than a handful, and certainly some were more fleshed out than others.

One song / one moment sums up '94/'95 perfectly. Deer Creek '94 is the only show The Boys played on July 20th? What a quirk in the calendar.

That transition into Smokestack is some of the best shit the post coma Grateful Dead did. Then Garcia proceeded to simply not let up for the duration of Smokestack. Great stuff. And nice Deer Creek credentials to have seen every show there!

Hmmm... What do those 3 shows have in common? 30 Trips Around The Sun!

Nice story! I gave 3 years later at Buffalo a whirl last night. 7-4-89. Great show. Ultra-Matrix is the recommended source.

During the show, in real time, I'm thinking, "really, We Can Run in the 2nd set?" Today I'm thinking, "what a blessing to have been witness to that about 15th row center." Jerry didn't leave stage during the second set, or at least that's my recollection.

Billk, That Derby Day Frost show featured a whopping 23 songs - 12 in the second set. Fine afternoon to be riding the rail!

There's a moment in that Alabama that's actually a highlight of '95, for what that worth. Check out Jerry belting "down in the valley of the shadows..." Beyond that, it seemed for a brief moment the first set was going to run all of 1/2 hour when Don't Ease ended, before the shocker of shockers, Unbroken Chain. Too bad they didn't give that one a try while Jerry still had some chops to lend it.

Well then you saw better shows than I did...that Dylan set 2-12 must have been a total blast!

Dec '89 LA Forum was GA. Can't speak for other shows there.

Irvine was reserved in the seats, GA in the lawn. Shoreline was the same, perhaps the last bastion of reserved seating for the Dead in CA. Jerry at Warfield was reserved balcony and GA floor. Just like DSO.....wait....DSO plays the Warfield? 😲👋🎶

I think the Victim jam then into Standing is the best music The Boys played on Spring Tour '90. And that is no small statement, given all that happened on the tour. Best heard via the 24 track Box Set release.

12/30/85 was that rare night where the bust out (Quinn) might have been the best version ever.

Yeah, that was good.

Pro tip: get a tarp that's not blue, so you'll be able to find your space again later.

Saw a band at Sweetwater in Mill Valley called Jerry's Middle Finger. Somewhat of a low rent cover band in the style of JGB, but the price was right at $15. They're from LA, and "the Jerry" is a guy named Garrett Deloian. What was cool is he had been loaned the Stephen Cripe guitar that was being build for Garcia in the summer of '95. Jerry died before the guitar was finished. Recall that Cripe had made 2 guitars for Jerry already; Bolt, which Garcia received as a gift and played the final 2 years of his life, and Top Hat, which he apparently liked but never played on stage. This final guitar was called Tribute. Looked totally cool up close. Here's some more info and a picture I snapped. https://www.cripeguitars.com/tribute.html

Good read - thanks for the link. There are 69 comments thus far, 68 of which are quite positive. Then there's this moron: "The only thing more mind-numbing than listening to the Grateful Dead is listening to someone trying to convince you that they were great. Today I’m embarrassed to be a Times reader." I did get a kick out of this comment, in reaction to the scathing Lou Reed quote in the article: "Lou Reed was a legend in his own mind. When you look at the history of rock-and-roll, is he really much more than maybe a 3-hit wonder?" Ha!