Grateful Dead

I think a lot of the Furthur, FTW, and Dead & Co. setlist writing comes from Phil's extensive use of setlists to tell stories over given night, or run, and once, over an entire tour in the various Phil and Friends iterations. I take the Dead of the 70s and 80s at their word that outside of a few songs, and maybe the big sequence, it was mostly improvised, or somebody gets an idea and tosses it out. I agree with Thin that it is overly mythologized that they never knew what would happen next, and good evidence has been pointed out, with certain sequences being known and planned and whether this night in Europe would feature Dark Star or The Other One. I have yet to see a written setlist onstage in any of the pics of any of the shows from the 60s or 70s. Given that they were often on a different astral plane, it is amazing how much they had to have figured it out on the fly. I personally like a setlist that's written in advance, I think it allows everybody to be on the same page. When the arrows are thrown in, that's when the real fun begins. String Cheese is a band that uses fairly rigid setlists, down to a pretty set number of songs per set (normally 7), but there's no such thing as a first or second set song, and all sorts of segues can occur, almost any song could be jammed (some of the more traditional bluegrass songs not so much, but many have still been taken out for a ride). They've experimented with playing without a setlist, and each of those shows I know did not have a setlist are stilted and just not as cohesive. I like the way Phil constructed his setlists and incorporated new covers, JGB songs and covers, old retired songs like Golden Road, New Potato, Pride of Cucamonga, The Eleven(!!!), Blues For Allah, and wove them all together. I like that JRAD and others including Dead & Co, even without Phil, have continued writing setlists like that that give the audience the chance to hear Alligator and Terrapin in the same show.

7/4/84 a good, solid show. disc three awaits. I like the 84 sound 7/13/84 :)))

By 94 they were using teleprompters so they could ‘remember’ the lyrics. So, the setlist had to be known ahead of time. For FTW the setlist was printed in large black letters on white paper, and the paper was taped to Jeff’s piano. At one point during the 1st set of 6/27 the camera shot was from behind Jeff and you could clearly read the setlist. During intermission someone posted the set 2 setlist and the internet exploded because someone ‘leaked’ the setlist. At 7/3 a guy sitting by me was still talking about how the setlist had been leaked.

This is awesome. I look at it lovingly everyday. A thing of beauty for the eyes & ears Rock on

"Legacy band". I knew cover band wasn't quite what I was looking for. Lovethegirls - I'm looking forward to reading the Weir interview tonight I'm on the road now so I can tap into it. Thanks for the link. When are they going to announce this effing box set?!?! Darkstar - I've had that Floyd song in my head all day because of you. What's the significance anyway? Speaking of Dark Star, we need a lot more officially released 1973 versions. Smithers...release the hounds.

...bob weir - interview, :) https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.guitarplayer.com/.amp/miscellaneous/bo…

Are a legacy band, KF.Bobby Weir, Billy Kreutzmann & Mickey Hart. Their own cure for *old-age* for themselves. Still, a great band.

That's a yes, then.

They always seemed to have an agreed upon group of songs that they played in any one era-certainly in the 1960s and 70s. The choice of songs fit with the style of music they were playing at the time. There was no way, for example, that the Eleven, or New Potato Caboose ever seemed likely to turn up in 1972 set lists. Or that Dark Star would have cropped up in 1977. The extent to which they decided in advance which of those given songs to play on any one night is a mystery. Listening to those shows from FW1969, it seems very clear that they had planned in advance to go from Dark Star-St. Stephen-The Eleven. Partly because they were recording the shows, but maybe also because the material was so open ended and strong that they were able to re-interpret the same songs every night and keep the music interesting. It occurred to me last week that part of the strength of those shows was due to the limited amount of songs played-which allowed room to develop them.

This was discussed recently. That's the biggest romanticized myth, imho: "They NEVER plan a show, just get up there and then decide!" First of all, Furthur and every post-Dead project has absolutely used prepared setlists, probably a necessity as Warren/Jimmy/Trey and now John Mayer/Oteil got up to speed with the material. A friend of mine was in the the owners box at a Dead and Co show at Fenway last summer and the setlist was printed and sitting on their table before the show - he was shocked and sent me a picture. Jill Lesh wrote up the Furthur setlists pre-show, and unconfirmed rumors indicate that may have caused a little friction with the drummers.... (cue the sarcastic Yoko jokes). As for the Good Old GD, every era was different - I believe '67-'70 was more loose-y goose-y based on all dead air and "we're gonna decide what to do next" dialogue on the tapes, while late 90-91 was fairly rigid setlists as Vince came up to speed. But no matter the era, they generally had a rough plan of the arc of the night - opening and closing sequences and "the big jam" for each set, etc. Did they call audibles and change it up on-the-fly a lot? Yup, a ton.. especially in the middle of the first set, or going into (or especially out of) Space. Sometimes it depends how good everyone feels... some nights when they were "off" I think they bailed out of some songs in favor of safer fare like Women are Smarter or Deal or Don't Ease or Promised Land. And if they were "on like Donkey Kong" someone would lay a finger aside his nose and POOF!.... a 7/13/84 Dark Star. Jerry rolling over in his grave over prepared setlists? He wasn't that uptight. Heck, one of the JGB '70's releases includes a reprint of Jerry's hand-written setlist! The no-setlist notion has been waaaay over-romanticized, imo.