Grateful Dead

this one opened with a fresh sounding "casey jones" (unlike the weary sound of later years) with a rolling steam locomotive rhythm and also had a really hot "easy wind" as i recall. nrps still had jerry sitting in on pedal steel and also sounded great with marmaduke doing a decent mick jagger impression on "honky tonk women". i have never been able to find a recording of this one even though the fillmore shows seem to be well-documented in trader circles.

This was my first show and I haven't been the same since. I remember there was no smoking in the auditorium and there ws a mad crush of people in the restrooms smoking during intermission.

I remember Weir at the mike before the show talking gibberish. . . wonderful weirdness. We were sitting on the left side - 10 (??)rows back. Folks kept throwing joints from the balconey down to us. I would love to find a recording also.

Wish I could see a set list. All I can recall is that it was a great show. I seem to remember comments about the house lights going on and off.

This was my first show, too! I sat in the balcony, must have been the first or second row. When my dad picked me up after the show (I was 15 years old), he commented, not disapprovingly, that he had seen topless hippie girls outside, while he was waiting for me. So he wasn't bored.

I think my mother made a mistake letting me go , I was only 16, Lucky Me!! Quality is not expensive, the lack of it often is.

This was my first show and actually got a stage pass to get in. My friend and i were standing near the backstage door trying to sneak in. We heard some voices and guitar playing and looked through a window and the Dead were practicing! A stagehand or someone connected with the band saw us and said if we got them some coffee, he would give us a pass. We got the coffee and he gave us a pass. We knocked on the backstage door and showed the pass and got in. My friend and i were back stage for the entire concert. We tried to sneak out after the gig with the pass but were stopped a the door and had to give it back. That was my most memorable concert. Anyway, i was a pretty happy 18 year old to have seen the Dead backstage.

When the house lights came on during the first set just about everybody booed because we wanted to smoke our dope - there were uniformed Pasadena's finest in the house and who knows what other kind of heat. Jerry stepped up to the mic and said "No no no you don't understand. We want to see you too!". However a little later on they dimmed the lights. Great set by The New Riders. Garcia sounded might fine on pedal steel. The Dead were cooking, finished with Love Light and they shot off their famous cannon at the end. No encore in those days. There was a hot Santa Ana wind blowin' that night. One of the best nights of my life.

Grateful Dead Guide has a (partial) setlist for this show though no actual recording exists. I wonder where they got this information. Here's the list: [ Set I: Casey Jones, Me And My Uncle, I'm A King Bee, Cryptical Envelopment>Drums>The Other One>Cryptical Envelopment, High Time; Set II: Dark Star, Cosmic Charlie, Alligator>Drums>Turn On Your Lovelight, Morning Dew; We Bid You Goodnight ] Here's the link: http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2009/08/missing-1970-shows.html

The music was superlative. Garcia's steel playing was piercing. I just remember that I was tripping so hard during this show that I became of every nerve in my sphincter. It'd never happened before, and it's never happened since, but it was peculiar to say the least. I had just turned 16 a couple of weeks before. Wasted youth...

William Clarke - this was my second show and I was by now a full on Dead fan. I thought this was a great show because the venue was gorgeous, one of those old art deco movie theatres from the 1920 in Southern California. It was small enough to feel close to the band but large enough to get crazy at the end when introduced "Casey Jones" which hadn't even been released yet ("Working Man's Dead" came out late '70 if I'm not mistaken). I also like the New Riders of the Purple Sage set that opened for the Dead, as it featured Jerry on pedal steel which I thought Jerry played brilliantly and Mickey on drums as he got to shine. Was a great "acoustic" set (from what I can remember - if you know what I mean......

Being my first show, and being 'influenced' by lotsa very fine Oaxaca, much of the show is a bit hazy. I do remember waiting forever for the show to begin. Jerry on steel, with NRPS, being very 'piercing' at times, 'Dirty Business',...Then, chuggin' 'Casey Jones' opener (finally, after much milling about on stage). Great show with 'out there' jams...Pigpen lettin' loose on 'Lovelight'....nice, poignient 'Morning Dew', I got out of the army the previous year....an a capella 'Goodnight'. Went to most shows at the Palladium and Bowl....the great 6/17/72 mind melt... Just amazing memories especially when you locate and hear those shows again ....as close to teleportation as it gets. Huge thanks to Jer' and the boys for all the great, memorable, and amazing times.