Full Show Friday: Joe Russo's Almost Dead 10/2/15 Brooklyn Bowl

We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's.  These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Joe Russo's Almost Dead!

We have discussed this group of players before here, but the full group of Joe Russo (drums), Marco Benevento (Keys) Dave Dreiwitz (bass) Tom Hamilton (guitar) Scott Metzger (Guitar) are an adept bunch of players who breath life and energy into the Grateful Dead's catalog. JRAD don't hold the music sacred, they know it is living and breathing, amping up the pace when needed and delving into the bands enormous back catalog.

It is simply the best "Dead" related playing we have heard since the days of the Phil Lesh Quintet.  Yes, that includes this summer and any project the original members have been a part of.

This show can't get any fresher as it comes from last Friday night at Brooklyn Bowl. We were seeing the TTB on the upper west side, so it is great to hear/see/experience this show from across the river. Our personal highlights from this one are the killer "Standing On The Moon> Wheel" combo and the pairing of our favorite Springsteen song "Atlantic City" with "I Know You Rider". This is a hell of show, pro shot, pro sound.
  
Full set list below, Enjoy:

Grateful Dead New Yorker Article

There is a fantastic article in the New Yorker that I need to point out by Nick Paumgarten on one of RtBE's favorite topics, The Grateful Dead and specifically their back catalog of music. 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/songlyric

You can read the full article, titled The Vast Recorded Legacy of The Grateful Dead here.  Fair warning it is a long one, but it is really a solid read from an obvious fan of the band who can easily communicate with non-fans.

I had never heard Brent Wood's characterization of the Dead as "Electronic Dixieland" but I love it. We have called the Grateful Dead, the best American Band and that description accentuates it nice-like.     

In talking about the community and taping of the band this sentence stands out:

So a drug-addled, rehearsal-averse, error-prone band of non-virtuosos perfected a state-of-the-art sound system that created a taping community that distributed a gigantic body of work that often came to sound as sloppy as some of the performances.

Some of those sloppy tapes will always be my favorite (as I am sure they are for Paumgarten) and that was kind of the personal touch and generosity that really got me and countless others into the band.  These tapes were mine, I owned them, shared them with any who wanted them for free, entering into a special kinship with the music. 

Nick's recollection of the Fox Den tape is so fucking funny and spot on it is hysterical, and he is right, that transition from "Scar>Fire" is amazing, Grade A stuff.  I wonder if the digital age is going to feel the same way with all of the top notch streaming shows on sites like archive.org as opposed to dusty old tapes?

Just the sheer volume of live tapes described in the article is staggering.  While it is always sad when a person dies, having the musical legacy the Dead has is unequaled; new fans will be analyzing it for years to come and that is exciting.    

Something odd also came out of reading the article, I realized after the latest mishap with my iPhone's music I do not have one Grateful Dead show on the phone...an error I need to correct this weekend, and that Fox Theater show will be on there.

Also I have not pointed out this year that once again the Dead are releasing a song a day for November, 30 Days of Dead.  When they are all aggregated come the end of the month I will post a link for all of them, but feel free to jump in now and enjoy a pretty good version of "Playin' In The Band".  Thanks to Paumgarten for a great article and a reminder of how important the Grateful Dead truly are

Beginners Guide To The Grateful Dead - Part One

There is a lot of music out there and some artists have massive catalogs which can paralyze new listeners with overwhelming choices. This Beginners Guide series will attempt to give those new listeners entry points to some of these artists. Today we will look at: The Grateful Dead.

This post became very long so we are breaking it into two parts. This first offering will discuss the five places RtBE feels are the best entry points to the band. The follow up post will dive into the different eras of the Dead and pull out some well known and underappreciated shows for further listening. 

In the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic here in NYC the soothing sounds of The Grateful Dead helped ease my mind during a tumultuous sense of loss and uncertainty. Shortly after lock down, a co-worker reached out and mentioned they wanted more information on the band as they were just discovering them. 

That request led to this series, so it makes sense that the good ol' Grateful Dead should be the first group we discuss when it comes to Beginners Guides. RtBE will take an extensive look into their career with a focus on new listeners and will provide links to youtube when possible, but feel free to buy all of the albums from the band themselves. We also wrote about the band in our Masters series previously ranking our favorite studio albums, official live releases and more. 

Also feel free to check out the amazing Internet Archive with its phenomenal collection of Grateful Dead shows.  In the early days of this site (2010-2011) we wrote on most Monday's about random Dead shows, we covered 46 of them, and they are in a list on the archive here and you can scroll back and read our takes if you want. 

Almost everything you could want is on the archive and usually with multiple recordings from the groups insanely dedicated fan base. The truth is the band could hit amazing highs any night they played and while they have the reputation of drugged out hippies, the quality of their musical output remained incredibly consistent and excellent for the majority of their careers.  

We will dissect the bands shifting sound in part two of this post, for now let's start with the basics. Click the read more button: 

TL:DR Version:

Start with, in order: 

1. Cornell 1977

2. Workingman's Dead/American Beauty

3. Sunshine Daydream 8/27/72

4. Dick's Picks Volume 8 Harpur College 5/2/1970

5. Without A Net

Album Review: Grateful Dead - Dave's Pick's Volume 50: 5/3-4/77 Palladium NYC

Grateful Dead

Dave's Picks 50:

5/3&4/77 Palladium NYC

***and1/2 out of *****

Standard disclaimer: When reviewing the Dave's Picks series, and really any Grateful Dead release at this point, it needs to be noted that a lot of the truly great shows from the band have already been professionally released. (If new to the band, check out RtBE's Beginners Guide to The Grateful Dead Part's one and two.) With their vast back catalog on archive.org and all of their previous releases, the band's selections are running thin when it comes to must own, professionally released shows.

That said, this series still exists for a reason, obsessive fans (like RtBE) will always listen to anything from The Grateful Dead as Dave and his team continue to unearth rare gems.

30 Days of Dead Returns for November

It started yesterday, 30 Days of Dead has returned for 2022.

For those who are unaware, everyday throughout November the Grateful Dead do this:

We hope you've been brushing up on your live Grateful Dead and making room on all your devices because we're about to drop a motherload of high-quality MP3 downloads on you. Yes, there will once again be 30 days of unreleased Grateful Dead tracks from the vault, one for every day in November, selected by archivist and producer David Lemieux. The tracks are yours, no strings attached, but we hope you’ll stick around for the challenge and the chance to win some sweet swag from the Dead.


You know your Ables from your Bakers from your C's, but can your finely tuned ears differentiate the cosmic "comeback" tour from a spacey 70s show? Each day we'll post a song from one of the Dead's coveted shows. Will it be from that magical night at Madison Square Garden in '93 or from way back when they were just starting to warm it up at Winterland? Is that Pigpen's harmonica we hear? Brent on keys? If you think you know, lob your answer in and you just might find yourself taking home our daily prize of a 2023 Grateful Dead wall calendar or the grand prize - both, YES BOTH - of this year's coveted boxed sets, Lyceum '72: The Complete Recordings [24LP] and In And Out Of The Garden: Madison Square Garden ’81, ’82, ’83 (Dead.net Exclusive)[17CD]!

Getting 30 Dead tunes for free, gifts for guessing correctly, and allowing super fans to test their knowledge is a fun way to pass the month. So head on over and enjoy. 

They started the month off with a version of "Passenger" (RtBE has no idea the year or performance), so here is a different ripping version of a Dead tune that is quickly becoming one of our favorites, form one of the best Dead releases ever, Dicks Picks #18.       

Album Review: The Grateful Dead - Dave's Picks 48

The Grateful Dead

Dave's Picks 48

****and1/2 out of *****

2023 was a strong year for the Dave's Picks. As stated before, when reviewing the Dave's Picks series, and really any Grateful Dead release at this point, it needs to be noted that a lot of the truly great shows have already been professionally released. The selections are running thin when it comes to must own, professionally released shows.

That said, this series still exists for a reason, it continues to unearth rare gems like this release, which is the best of the four released this year. Dave's 48 contains the full show from November 20, 1971, at Pauley Pavilion UCLA in Los Angeles, California and a single disk from October 24, 1970, at Kiel Opera House in St. Louis, Missouri. 

Album Review: Grateful Dead - RFK Stadium 6/10/73

Grateful Dead 

RFK Stadium, Washington, D.C. 6/10/73

****and1/2 out of *****

As RtBE has mentioned in past reviews of recent Grateful Dead releases, there aren't that many major Grateful Dead shows to still officially release. The band and their archivists have done an amazing job of getting their best music out through Dick's Picks, Dave's Picks, Box Sets, Road Trips, Download Series and the list goes on. 

That said, this release, RFK Stadium, Washington, D.C. 6/10/73, a stand alone show from the recent Here Comes The Sunshine Box Set, is a major show from the bands past, capturing them at the top of their game. 

Album Review: Grateful Dead - Duke '78

Grateful Dead

Duke '78

** out of *****

Standard disclaimer: When reviewing any Grateful Dead release at this point, it needs to be noted that a lot of the truly great shows from the band have already been professionally released. (If you are new to the band, check out RtBE's Beginners Guide to The Grateful Dead Part's one and two.) With their vast back catalog on archive.org and all of their previous releases, the band's selections are running thin when it comes to must own, professionally released shows.

That said, the band still release shows because rabid fans (RtBE included) will listen to everything they put out. So click that "Read More" button and dive in...

(Late) Monday Dead: A show of 1st's, 8-18-1970 Fillmore West

Was traveling this weekend, (that's why Monday's Dead is showing up on Tuesday) and it got me thinking/questioning; when was the first "Truckin'" played by the fellas?

Well here's the answer:

 today's show: 8-18-1970, click that link or listen right here:

Pretty cool that the first version was acoustic set opener for these cosmic folkies.

Don't come to this show looking for great sound it is not to be, this one is more for historical signifgance then for capturing sonic moments. Any audience tape from 1970 would surely sound a bit whack-a-doo, but even with glitches and distance it is listenable for an important day in the bands history.

After the 1st ever appearance of "Truckin'" which let's us hear some excellent piano playing from Pigpen we find the band sorting out some sound issues, with Jerry proclaiming it, "A Harrowing Trip".  Next comes an almost sweet version of "Dire Wolf".  The audience feel is pervasive and can distract when ill timed hand claps come into the ears, but the vocals are top notch.  As is the still new "Friend of the Devil" and the old standby when the Dead break out the acoustics, "Dark Hollow"

This show finds the group in the middle of perhaps it's most critically successful phase of their career having shifted from their Acid Test days with the release of the folk/roots record Workingman's Dead and 1 month away from releasing their studio highlight of their career American Beauty.  What comes next is just as epic as the "Truckin'" the first airings of "Ripple", "Brokedown Palace", and "Operator", a huge treat for those in attendance who witnessed it and for us today.

I talked bout the simple perfection of "Wish You Were Here" the other day and "Ripple" is in the same rarefied air, majestically breathtaking in it's seeming simplicity and then all encompassing scope.  Gorgeous.  "Brokedown Palace" was written by lyricist Robert Hunter during the same afternoon in London that he wrote "Ripple" and is almost as stunning, must have been a great day for Hunter with his bottle of Retsina.

 This version is historic, but there are a few shuffling tape problems in the beginning of the recording taking away from it's grandeur, before an over-excited group harmonizing effort of "Ooh's and Ahh's" that end the track.  The final 1st timer that is played here finds Pigpen crooning out "Operator" that gets the crowd giggling and clapping along, this is only 1 of 4 times that the group ever played this song, rare indeed.

The band dips into a couple of more acoustic ditties, highlighted by the best pure playing of the set contained in the 10 minute's of "New Speedway Boogie", before plugging in and getting the psychedelic bus started.  

"Dancin' In the Streets" starts it off, seemingly caught in-between a freak-out and a boogie. "Next Time You Seem Me" and "Mamma Tried" give breathers to those looking to catch their mental breath before the mind warp of "Cryptical Envelopment > The Other One > Cyrptical Envelopment" combo.  "Attics Of My Life" weeps out then Pigpen takes the reigns and runs with the show.

 
"It's A Man's World" is burning soul from the man who drank and lived the blues in the end a touch out of step with the rest of the fellas, but claiming the stage as his own here.  It is completely different from the original James Brown classic, but that just goes to show unique renderings of great songs can all work on different levels.  There is no way James Brown would let his band wander the way The Dead do, and the Dead could only wish they played as tight as Brown's boy's who in 1970 may have been the baddest group the planet has ever seen (may have to do another post on that topic)...here is a version from '91 that The Godfather did:

 "Not Fade Away" is bumped and drummed getting crowd fired up with an electric "Bid You Goodnight" run through tossed in the middle for good luck, why the hell not?  The cocaine was probably flowing with "Casey Jones" bleeding into the night ending "Uncle Johns Band".

In a cool piece of Internet magic, Rolling Stone sent Michael Lydon out to cover this exact show and report on it.  If you are interested in the full review, I am posting it below.  Pretty cool that he called "Truckin'", "Juggin" as it was still so new.  Enjoy this slice of the bands history...

An Evening with the Grateful DeadMICHAEL LYDON
(RS 66, September 17, 1970)

Jerry and co. mellow out, grow up

Working man
 
We change and our changings change, a friend said once. It sounded true, but it seems too that through it all we stay the same. That obscure rumination takes us to, of all places, backstage at the Fillmore West, a spot that has mutely witnessed its share of changes and has gone through some of its own. Backstage used to be literally that, a few murky closets with just a few inches and a thin wall separating them from the amps. Now the car dealer on the corner has gone through his changes, and Bill Graham got extra floorspace for a dressing room as big as the lobby of a grand hotel. 
  No palms but a lot of sofas, on one of which sat Jerry Garcia as if he owned the place. Which he once had, sort of, when it was the Carousel, changed from an Irish dance hall to a mad den of psychedelic thieves who for a few months put on a series of dances the likes of which hadn't been seen since the early days of the old Fillmore.

Jerry Garcia had played over there too -- he had been a foundering member, so to speak -- but he had never owned it. Bill Graham had owned that Fillmore and now he owned this one and Jerry was working for him one more night. There was a time when Bill Graham was always on hand when the Dead were playing, but this night he was in New York on business (the next night in LA), and a second or third generation of underling, a soft-faced young man named Jerry Pompili was watching the clock and counting the heads on behalf of Fillmore Inc.
It was just past eight-thirty, showtime, and Jerry P. approached Garcia and asked if they were ready to go on.
Jerry G. was deep in one of his eyeball-to-glittering eyeball monologues, but he paused long enough for a glance around that indicated he was the only musician present and accounted for. "The other guys will be here in a minute, man," he said, "Phil's the only one who might be late."
"Well," said Pompili, "what happens if Phil is late?" allowing into his voice a hint of his hope that the Dead would find a way to start without him, to be nice for once. A hopeless hope.
"Nothing happens," said Jerry G. grinning deep within his hairy tangle, "We'll start whenever Phil arrives."
"Okay," said Pompili, shrinking like a tired balloon, and Jerry geared back up to rapping speed, instantly oblivious of the interruption.
Everything had changed, and nothing too. After over five years of extra inning play, the celebrated Fillmore (and all of rock and roll show biz) versus Grateful Dead game was still a nothing-nothing tie. For five of those years the Dead took their lumps, always scraping through but never out of trouble. In the past half year, however, their tenacity has finally begun to pay off (perseverance furthers, says the Book of Changes). The years of weathering cosmic crises have given them an unshakable musical and group foundation (and even an odd sort of financial stability) and on that they are building afresh.
Typically, their luck waited until the last possible moment to change. 1969 ended with the near disaster of Altamont. The Dead family had been crucial in its organization, and they were as responsible as anyone for the sanctioned presence of the Hells Angels. That day -- they did not even get to play in the end and do their best to save it -- was, says Jerry, "a hard, hard lesson," and while they were absorbing it in early 1970, they had an epic management crisis. Their manager, whom they had chosen because of his honesty and earnestness, was irritating some family members who did not trust his ingratiating manner. Weeks of tense encounters led to a showdown and the manager was let go. Only then did the band discover that he had been bilking them all along; by that time he had disappeared and no one had the time or heart for a suit.
Then they got busted en masse in New Orleans (their second time, the first in the fall of '67 in San Francisco). That has now turned out to be just an inconvenience of time and money, but in March they didn't know that. In the middle of all of this they had to do a record. Something complex was out of the question; Jerry and his writing partner Ron Hunter had some tunes, so they walked into Pacific High Recorders in San Francisco, and banged it out in nine days.
The result was Workingman's Dead, one of the best of the few good records released this year, their simplest production since their first LP, and their most popular release so far. "It was something," said Jerry, "all this heavy bullshit was flying all around us, so we just retreated in there and made music. Only the studio was calm. The record was the only concrete thing happening, the rest was part of that insane legal and financial figment of everybody's imagination, so I guess it came out of a place that was real to all of us. It was good old solid work. TC (pianist Tom Constanten) had just left to go his own way, and with his classical influence gone, we got back to being a rock and roll band again, not an experimental music group. Man, we had been wanting to boogie for a long time."
Workingman's Dead is just about as good a record as a record can be. Easy on the ears from the first listening, it gets mellower as it grows on you; a lot of different rhythms but one sure pulse. In it they tap the same rich emotive vein that the band has reached, and have made from it story songs with down-home feel hiding sophisticated structures, but the Dead's molding of the material is a lot more raw and driving. The Dead look at the world from the outside edge, and their song heroes are losers and hardworking men. "A friend of the devil it a friend of mine," they sing at one point, and the closest they come to "I Shall Be Released" is:
One way or another,
One way or another,
One way or another,
This darkness got to end.
That's a long way from the messianic enthusiasm of "Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion" ("See that girl barrbonn' around, she's a dancin' and a singin' she is carryin' one"; remember?), but it's won them more friends. Sales haven't been at hit proportions, but enough to make Warner Brothers friendly for the first time since they were trying to sign the band up.
"Of course we still owe Warners money," Jerry said, "but we're getting the debt down to the size where it's more like a continual advance." A family member, John McIntire, is now the manager, some old friends are watching the books, and the days when organs got repossessed five minutes before showtime have receded, at least for the present.
"We're feeling good," Jerry went on, "really laid back, a tittle older and groovier, not traveling so much, staying at home and quieting down. We used to push ourselves and get crazy behind it, but now we're all getting more done but not having to work at it so hard.
No one could say when the turn from the old Grateful Dead to the new began, but the key was opening up the band's structure. The Dead's complex personal changes are as legendary as their public ones, and they ended only when they decided that they didn't have to be just the Grateful Dead. They could also be Bobby Ace and the Cards from the Bottom, a reentry group led by Bob Weir, or Mickey Hart and the Heartbeats which a lot of golden oldie rockers. At the same time (spring 1969) Jerry got a pedal steel to fool around with and ended up commuting dawn to Palo Alto twice a week to play Nashville style in a little club. That group became the New Riders of the Purple Sage and other Dead members sat in from time to time.
All that country music got them singing, something for which they had not been noteworthy in the pass, and hours of three-part harmony rehearsals got them back to acoustic instruments. Less noise made them less wired. The small quiet groups could and did do club work, around the Bay which meant gigs without touring or equipment hassles. All that ended up with the groove that made Workingman's Dead possible and has created a unique musical experience which they call, rather formally, An Evening with the Grateful Dead.
Phil arrived, sweeping in with madman-long strides, a few minutes before nine, and the latest evening began before a happy crowd of oldtime heads. They opened with the acoustic part (there's no other name). Jerry and Bob Weir on guitars, Pigpen on piano, Phil on electric bass, and Bill Kreutzman (who alternates with Mickey Hart) on drums. The first tune was "Juggin'," an easy going autobiography of a band's life on the road, dotted with busts and bad times and long gone friends like Annie who they've heard is "living on reds, Vitamin C, and cocaine, and all you can say is 'ain't it a shame.'" It went on like that for an hour, music soothing to weary hearts and hard-driven minds because it understands that state of mind only too well. Jerry and Bob shared lead guitar and vocals, Pig doodled around when he wanted and just sat there when he didn't, and Phil and Bill just kept the beat. David Nelson of the New Riders came in about half way through on mandolin, and Jerry switched to his Fender, and it was all very sweet and funky. They ended with "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," and believe it or not, the Grateful Dead looked angelic at last.
The New Riders came on after the break -- Jerry on pedal steel, Mickey on drums, David Nelson on electric guitar, Marmaduke lead vocal and acoustic, and Dave Torbert on bass. They opened with "Sly Days on the Road" and that too set the pace for a rolling set of country rock that probably sounded a lot like the Perkins Brothers when Carl was working honky tonks around Jackson, Tennessee. Except that Carl Perkins never had a drummer as tense as Mickey Hart, and while Jerry most often was tastefully traditional on the steel, he allowed himself some short freakouts banshee-style seldom heard below the Mason-Dixon. They ended with "Honky Tonk Women" which was a gas; Keith Richards, from a film clip in the light show, watched them without cracking a smile.
Then it was time for the Grateful Dead, and everyone was on their feet moving as they began as they used to begin with "Dancing in the Streets" ("It doesn't matter who you are, as long as you are there"). After that came the lovely "Mama Tried" that the Everly Brothers had on their Roots album, and then Pigpen took it away with an all-out dramatic rendition of "It's a Man's, Man's, Man's World." Out of that into "Not Fade Away" (quite a repertory that night, huh?) and it was past one thirty; Jerry Garcia was still going strong after four hours on three instruments but the Fillmore floor had gotten to me and we wandered out with that Bo-Diddley-by-way-of-Buddy-Holly beat pounding on and on and on ("My love is bigger than a Cadillac . . .") It wasn't one of those weird nights when, acid-blitzed, they gushed out music as hypnotic energy; is was more legible and, if not as spellbinding, more open music. Very fine indeed.
Those weird nights are surely not gone forever, but the Dead are a bit more careful these days. "Altamont showed us that we don't want to lead people up that road anymore," Jerry had said before the show, "taught us to be more cautious, to realize and respect the boundaries of our power and our space." The Dead never called themselves leaders, but they were high-energy promoters of the psychedelic revolution. On one hand they know now that it's not going to come as quickly as they thought; on the other, they know it is already too big for them to direct. They are now just helpers, like the rest of us. "At last the pressure's off," Jerry said.
He is disturbed, however, about what he calls the "politico pseudo-reality that we find when we go out on tour. Dig: there's a music festival, but because there are people there, radicals say it's a political festival now, not a music festival. I don't want to take over anybody's mind, but I don't want anybody else to take over anybody's mind. If a musical experience is forcibly transferred to a political plane, it no longer has the thing that made it attractive. There is something uniquely groovy about the musical experience; it is its own beginning and end. It threatens no one."
"The San Francisco energy of a few years back has become air and spread everywhere. It was the energy of becoming free and so it became free. But the political energy, the Berkeley energy, has assumed a serpentine form, become an armed, burrowing, survival thing. It's even still on the firebrand, 'To the barricades!' trip that I thought we had been through in this century and wouldn't have to will on ourselves again.
"'Accentuate the positive' though, that's my motto," he said with a gleam in his eye, "and there are more heads every day. Heads are the only people who have ever come to see us, and it used to be that if we played some places no one would come out because there weren't any heads in the town. Today there is no place without its hippies. No place."
With that Phil had come and the band had to start juggin,' playing for the people and hoping to get them high. "We realized when we started out," Jerry had said a few minutes before, "that as a group we were an invention, as new as the first chapter of a novel. We started with nothing to lose. Then suddenly there was something, but always with the agreement that we could go back to being nothing if we wanted. So nothing that has over gone down for the group has ever been real except to the fiction which could be made unreal at any time. A lot of limes when we were at that point, we consulted the I Ching, and the change we've gotten has always said push on. So we have; there's not much else we can do until the next change." 
http://obie1.homesite.net/deadcd/articlesrs.htm

Full Show Friday: The Grateful Dead 9/10/91 MSG, NY, NY

We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Grateful Dead!

For July The Masters Focuses on The Grateful Dead

July finds RtBE mining familiar ground when it comes to our Masters Series, but there is just no better summer band, so enjoy The Grateful Dead in the sunshine to end the work week. This month we have four shows from the band and we will be using the four decades they were active for each week. This week the 90's get some love, 1991 in particular.

The nineties saw the end of the band with Jerry's Garcia's passing in the summer of 1995 and even though the music never truly stopped, things have never been the same. In truth if you are listening with a critical ear, anything after 1991 is not that great, there are moments sure, but '91 is pretty much where the must hear shows end, and this show we are highlighting today is the best of an underrated year. 

Once Brent Mydland died the band used both Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby for sometime as replacements, sharing the keyboard work. Bruce in particular is excellent on this night but for this MSG show a different addition to the band plays a huge part, Branford Marsalis.

The saxophone player is a huge plus and while he had played with the band before this is the pinnacle of his contributions in what many fans consider the last great Grateful Dead show, 9/10/91. From the first notes of "Shakedown Street" things are just on. The first set is a joy through and through, other highlights after the opening "Shakedown Street" (an RtBE personal favorite) are...well hell, the whole set rocks. It is one of the best first sets of any era, let alone the 90's.

The second set gets a bit more adventurous but that is never a bad thing with this crew.  The opening "Help>Slip>Frank" with Branford is must hear as is the "Dark Star" reprise coming out of drums. This version of "Standing on the Moon" always brings a bit of a tear to the eye as well, this is a great one so put it on and enjoy. 

Not quite pro shot, but pro sound, full set list info below. Enjoy:

Grateful Dead September 10, 1991 Madison Square Garden New York, NY Lazy Cow Production Video: AUD (Tripod) Master NTSC 4:3 8400 kbs 720X480 Set 1 & 2 Master: JVC Single Tube Camera, Nak 300 Shotguns ? Decks JVC Deck VHS Master Transfer: VHS Master Panasonic AG-7150 Canopus ADVC-100 iMac G4 Final Cut Pro 3 DVD Studio Pro 1 Audio: SBD DAT(M) DAT(1) DAT(2) Transfer: DAT R500 M-Audio 24/96 CD FLAC LPCM 1.5 Mbs DVD 1 Set 1 Intro Shakedown Street C.C. Rider It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry Black Throated Wind Hight Time Cassidy Deal 01:00:20 DVD 2 Set 2 Intro Help On The Way Slipknot Franklin's Tower Estimated Prophet Dark Star Drums 00:57:43 DVD 3 Space Dark Star Space I Need A Miracle Standing On The Moon Lovelight It's All Over Now, Baby Blue 00:43:57 Jerry Garcia - Guitar Bob Weir - Guitar Phil Lesh - Bass Vince Welnick - Keys Bruce Hornsby - Piano, Achordion Branford Marsalis - Sax Bill Kreutzman - Drums Mickey Hart - Drums

Full Show Friday: The Grateful Dead 8/4/76 Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ

We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Grateful Dead!

For July The Masters Focuses on The Grateful Dead

July finds RtBE mining familiar ground when it comes to our Masters Series, but there is just no better summer band, so enjoy The Grateful Dead in the sunshine to end the work week. This month we have four shows from the band and we will be using the four decades they were active for each week. This week the 70's get some love, 1976 in particular.  

This is a pretty famous show, with some big crowds and thanks to the magic of the internet the whole thing can be enjoy in the year 2019 and beyond. This was a great tape in our cassette collecting days, because it unequally turned up Phil's bass levels to uber loud. This video is more even but Phil is still a force to reckon with.  

Excellent sound, gives the live feel and the video is just dynamite, showing the band in the prime days. Full set list and information below, including tons of "noodling" call outs from the original poster. 

Enjoy:

Grateful Dead - Full Concert Recorded Live: 8/4/1976 Roosevelt Stadium (Jersey City, NJ) More Grateful Dead at Music Vault: http://www.musicvault.com Subscribe to Music Vault: http://goo.gl/DUzpUF Setlist: 0:00:00 - Introduction 0:06:05 - Sugaree 0:17:42 - noodling 0:20:16 - New Minglewood Blues 0:24:56 - noodling 0:30:34 - Row Jimmy 0:41:18 - noodling 0:42:55 - Big River 0:48:43 - noodling 0:50:29 - Loser (Incomplete) 0:55:25 - They Love Each Other (Incomplete) 0:57:16 - noodling 0:58:35 - The Music Never Stopped 1:05:10 - noodling 1:06:59 - Scarlet Begonias 1:22:23 - Crowd Noise: "Fireworks Display" 1:28:34 - Announcements 1:31:07 - Jay Green Juggles 1:38:34 - Mr. Jiggs Performs 1:47:05 - Announcements 1:49:17 - noodling 1:52:45 - Help On The Way / Slipknot! / Franklin's Tower / Dancing In The Street / The Wheel 2:42:13 - Samson And Delilah 2:49:19 - noodling 2:51:14 - It Must Have Been The Roses (Incomplete) 2:58:26 - noodling 3:02:43 - Not Fade Away / The Other One Jam / Space Jam / The Other One 3:29:47 - Ship Of Fools 3:37:52 - noodling 3:38:46 - Sugar Magnolia (Incomplete) 3:45:52 - Sunshine Daydream 3:49:38 - Crowd Noise: "Encore Break" 3:53:15 - noodling 3:55:47 - Johnny B. Goode 4:00:28 - Outro

Full Show Friday: The Grateful Dead 10/3/87 Shoreline Amphitheater, Mountain View, CA

We search the murky back waters of youtube to find full concerts and post them to the site weekly, come back every seven days to help us celebrate Full Show Friday's. These shows are of varying quality and may not be here for long so enjoy them while you can...As always, please support the artist every which way, but especially by seeing them live (if they are still playing)...This week...Grateful Dead!

For July The Masters Focuses on The Grateful Dead

July finds RtBE mining familiar ground when it comes to our Masters Series, but there is just no better summer band, so enjoy The Grateful Dead in the sunshine to end the work week. This month we have four shows from the band and we will be using the four decades they were active for each week. This week the 80's get some love, 1987 in particular.

The eighties were tough on everyone, especially long touring musical bands as New Wave, Glam and Rap took hold of the pop charts. The decade was especially hard on Jerry Garcia who fell into a diabetic coma in 1986 and when he awakened he needed to relearn how to play guitar from scratch. 

The last few years of the decade however saw some really strong tours from the Dead, Summer '89 has a few great shows, Spring '88 was solid and Fall '87 was good as well. Today we are going to grab a show from that run, 10/3/87 at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. 

The key to late eighties is Brent Mydland's modern key's and Bob Weir singing strongly (in his Daisy Dukes)as they both had a few big songs to work with including "Throwing Stones" which anchors a really strong second set on this night. By this point in their career the group fell into a two set routine with "Drums and Space" every show, and on this evening they are worth a listen (not always the case). Brent's sound and singing may not be for all Dead fans, but it sounds proper to RtBE.  

First set highlights are the funky "Hey Pockey Way" with Mydland's electro keys and beautifully gruff voice leading the charge where as "Candyman" just oozes out of Garcia's guitar. "When I Paint My Masterpiece is a joy as well.

Pro shot, pro sound, full info below. Enjoy:

Grateful Dead October 3, 1987 Shoreline Amphitheatre Mountain View, CA A Peanut Production Field Recording: Don Pearson Tapes Provided By: Charlie Miller Capture, Edit, Encode, DVD Authoring: Markiki Audio Synchronization: Kevin Tobin Video: Pro Line Feed - Master Master: Pro Line Feed - Unknown Signal Chain - Unknown Beta Deck - Beta HiFi Master Transfer: Beta HiFi Master - Sony SL-HF900 - Canopus ADVC-300 - iMac i3 - Final Cut Pro 6 - Compressor 3 - MP4 - YouTube Audio: SBD - Cassette Master (Maxell MX90) Transfer Info: Cassette Master (Tascam 122mkII) - Apogee MiniMe (24bit/48k) - Samplitude Professional v9.02 - FLAC/16 Remastering Info: FLAC - Adobe Audition v3.0 - Samplitude Professional v11.2.1 - FLAC - (shnid=121961) All Transfers and Mastering By Charlie Miller - September 14, 2012 Set 1 Tuning Hey Pocky Way New Minglewood Blues Candyman The Addams Family Tuning When I Paint My Masterpiece West L.A. Fadeaway My Brother Esau Birdsong The Music Never Stopped Set 2 Maggie's Farm Cumberland Blues Looks Like Rain Terrapin Station Drums Space The Other One Stella Blue Throwing Stones Lovelight The Mighty Quinn Jerry Garcia - Guitar Mickey Hart - Drums Bill Kreutzmann - Drums Phil Lesh - Bass Brent Mydland - Keyboards Bob Weir - Guitar

Happy 4th of July with the Grateful Dead 7-4-1987

Well it is a national holiday, and hopefully you are all out BBq'ing up some fun and watching the sky explode in honor of our great country.  I was in a bar 4 years ago around this day and the conversation came up, "What is the Greatest American Band?"  We discussed/argued/arm wrestled/danced jigs over various issues and criteria, and we all had different opinions in the end, but I went with, you guessed it. The Good Ol' Grateful Dead.

 To me they just represent American popular music the best over the course of the last 60+ years.  Never settling into genre's, routine or predictability.  Having up moments down moments, new members half members, problems and awe inspiring live musical moments on more of a regular basis then their critics like to admit.   So July 4th and The Grateful Dead, ain't that America?!?  Last year The Dead released one of their best July 4th shows with Trucking Up To Buffalo.  If you want a great clean late 80's Dead experience give that show a whirl, it is really great in both DVD and CD form.

Today is something else entirely...

it is from a sweltering hot country birthday in Boston July 4th 1987, you can click that link or stream it right C'here:


This is a Front of Board Audience tape so the quality may not be as high as some of the past shows I have highlighted but on the 4th we are in the crowd with the people, we can hear their cheers and the crackling of mics and swirl of the tapes.  At any case it is certainly listenable in fact I think this version is better then the "supped" up one also found on archive.

This show was a bit different then the rest of the tour, while technically you can call it 2 sets, in reality it was 1 long one, but during the first part some of the highlights are the Brent led "Tons of Steel" (yes I love Brent...who doesn't?!?)  and the crisp sounding "Box of Rain" that fired up those in attendance even more then the oppressive heat.
 
After "Althea" the band went pretty much right into a perfectly summer shining "Uncle John's Band" that had some sharp lines from Jerry and a great drum section from Billy and Mickey.   A brief "Playing in the Band" and a nicely segued "Truckin'>Other One>Wharf Rat" which found the band (especially on "Wharf Rat") flowing sweetly even with the echo vocals.  OK I know you must be thinking sure it's an decent set but nothing remotely special... well they had to play another full set, helping out this guy...

And magically that recording is posted here (sssh don't tell Sony!) ....so it is a special holiday treat.  While I am sure looking back neither group was particularly in love with the performances on this tour, I find them much more listenable then most people.  Perhaps because I love Dylan so much, but I always find him a fascinating listen even when he is sucking donkey nuts, and believe me he is far from doing that lewd act here.  Summer of 87 weren't his best run of shows, they did remind him how powerful a live show experience can be and for that you can directly thank the Grateful Dead.

"John Brown" bristles, I love the ease with which the Dead play "I Want You" even if Dylan is a touch aggressive.  The "Joey" and the fire and brimstone laced "Slow Train Coming" both made the official release following this tour from this show.  I've never really been sure why when it comes to the "Joey" but today's show may actually be my favorite version of "Slow Train Coming" Dylan ever did, the oppressive heat comes thru reminding that there's Hell Below...

All of the "All Along The Watchtowers" are fun this tour as are the "Queen Jane Approximately"

Dylan and The Dead 07-04-1987 Queen Jane (approximately)

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And the "Stuck Inside A Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again"

Dylan and The Dead 07-04-1987 Stuck Inside of Mobile

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I am hoping to do a whole series on Dylan (with some help) so I will leave this show here for you to enjoy, and have a happy, safe, fun July 4th...The boys wish you all the best: