Grateful Dead

DV - JeffSmith's post below will get you to my old scribblings, take a closer look.

I camped both '87 and '88. Minimal gear. Lawn tickets '80, '82, '85. Had mail order pavilion tickets '87 but seats for first 2 nights were worthless, way down low and literally on the outside, no sight line, poor sound, so we were up on the lawn, which was just perfectly fine. Never knew anybody who drew any of the true front of stage seats. Seats I had last night '88 were best by far, aisle slightly to outside of Jerry side 5 or 6 rows up.

There are relatively new ultramix uploads for Alpine '88. Healy was definitely f*cking with the sound every night at Alpine, panning the board feed from side to side, wasn't just 6/23. sbds still conspicuously missing for Met, Buckeye, and Pittsburgh from what I see on relisten. Like I said, really enjoyed going back to 6/20 for what was essentially the first time in all these years.

I’ll have to check if I have the newest versions of those shows, if not I’ll get them.

My only time to Alpine was my second show, 7-17-89. Was on the lawn. Very cool place. Camped at Bong.

Tinley Park the next year wasn’t as cool. And instead of clogging up a two-lane road in a small town the Deadheads brought I-80 to a complete stop the first day (don’t know about the following days because we came in the back way those days). The small parking lots of Tinley Park filled up early and since the venue was close to the highway people double parked on each side of the highway and walked to the venue. I know someone who did it and he said his car was still there after the show, didn’t get towed. We were on an overpass looking down at the mayhem on the highway. We got to the venue and a cop told us to pull onto the side of the road and park there.
We camped at Kankakee State Park and drove up I-55, then came in the back way. And came early so we could get in the lot before it filled up.

Made it to all 9 Soldier Field shows, on the floor for 7, with rows 13 and 25 the closest, both Jerry side.
I liked Soldier Field because it could absorb the masses, that parking lot was huge, with a big Shakedown Street.
Was back in 2015 for all 3 FTW shows and that place had really changed. The parking lot was gone and a space ship had landed on top of the coliseum.

Been working my way through a lot of torrent files lately:
GD 1982-03-14 139382.sbd.miller.chastain.waddell (playing now)
GD 1976-07-18 pre-FM.remaster.miller (cool Let It Grow)
GD 1982-03-13 set 2 112858.sbd.digitalrbb.miller
GD 1972-03-22 136682.sbd.sirmick
GD 1972-03-21 136670.sbd.sirmick
GD 1982-04-17 set 2 141100.sbd.dalton.miller.clugston
GD 1972-07-22 updated.betty.pcm.composite.dalton.miller.clugston (rough in spots, I can see why only a portion of the show was released)
GD 1976-07-12 150658.cm.cass.miller
GD 1973-02-22 Fries remaster of 111169
GD 1973-02-09 Fries remaster of 150166 (distortion on Casey Jones)

I’ll get Alpine 88 onto my music player soon.

Hey Bluecrow, in fours years of going to see the Dead at Alpine 86-89, I never made it into the Pavilion. We were always in the lawn, which was still a great unbelievable time. Yes. OB, the scene definitely changed after In the Dark, and the fact we could stay on the grounds the whole time. Love Wisconsin. As other spots across the country it was huge party scene.

Yes, the heat was something else. And the shows were so much fun. A true experience. Where did you stay Bluecrow?

Where can we find your write up from Gans BC?

I think there are some newer transfers of these shows from Miller via Pearson.

I will have to check these out at some point.

Oh and enjoyed the 3/30/88 OB, recording was good, always enjoy a Hey Pocky Way, West LA Fadeaway, Big Railroad Blues, Nice second set, from the Shakedown opener to the BMR. Great show. Thanks.

Words to take to heart.

Thank you for tracking that down Jeff! A few years before I became Bluecrow here.

Who knows where the time goes.

Hey Bluecrow, I think maybe this the Grateful Dead Hour show you were featured in? Nice! Thanks!

dead dot net/features/grateful-dead-hour-no-555

I streamed rest of 6/20 - really really enjoyed it. Big fat old Terrapin > Drumz > Other One at the heart of it. The Other One probably bent a few brains, including mine, back then.

Yes Oro, it was miserably hot and I didn't manage heat well back then (that came when I moved out to the southwest.) Buckeye more of the same. I think Maine was a huge relief for the band and any heads that did the full tour. 7/2 probably show of the tour except for the things that made 6/23 special.

6/23 needs to be understood in context of 6/22 and all that heat. "A gift lost will be recovered." I wrote up my recollections and Gans posted it as part of a gdHour years ago. I'll see if I can find it. Blackbird>Brokedown was a truly remarkable musical gift to cap that night and that run. Totally off the cuff move. It was a thank you from the band and a blessing. Not so much bragging rights but just the feeling of how lucky we were to be there.

Alpine '89 was what it was musically because of Alpine '88.

and there were shows, and there were shows between.
Like this lil nugget (3/30/88)!
Really enjoyed this. Great opening trifecta, couple different era songs for variety, nice Cassidy. We get a Shakedown, fun inverted Uncle J/PITD/Uncle J, and a nice post drums sequence to ramp up the vibe!
Love to check out these shows that fall between/around official ones!

Enjoyed it so much I hit 4/3/88 for extra credit. Jers starting to get the dreaded spring north east tour bronchitis, but not the whole show? Next night I recall he sounds worse? Decent show, but I dug 3/30 more.

So then I through on Dicks 30 while doing some chores, but didn’t get to the second set, though I did catch the fun BD bonus stuff from 3/25. So not a DHB but a grateful day none the less!

Summer 88, sighhhh.
Was all stoked, armed and ready for the last six of tour, until I broke my ankle…
87 Alpine was such a hot shit show as it’s rep had blown up and like all good places it seemed to get too big? So we figured Maine would be the laid back alternative to freak freely and it surely was! When we got to Buckeye the general consensus was that besides the Blackbird bragging rights, folks were writing the whole scene off as miserably hot, too many people, and the band didn’t play that great overall?
I don’t know, I wasn’t their, that’s just the vibe we were getting.
I do know that Buckeye seemed like more of the same though I thought they played decent. Over tge years I’ve really come to enjoy this show, the first set with early Bruce encounters etc, and the three new songs to open the second was cool. But being at that venue in those conditions on crutches and still pretty sore even with enough analgesics for a platoon, it was a ruff day. Pittsburg was a god send comparatively, with no adventures through the countryside and seats to keep off the leg. Don’t recall much of that one cept maybe a good Cumberland and the first of only 2 Start your Engines, which we liked.
We’ll long/short I’d had an unfortunate incident involving ambulance and hospital before the tour started that time has led me to believe was related to excessive acetaminophen in the analgesics? So had to skip Toga, gulp, yep, that one still really hurts, but had to go back to hospital for upper GI and testing. One of the few shows I had a ticket fir but had to get rid of : (
Crotchfester was a good show, and nice flat soft baseball lawn which combined with a week or so of healing made things more fun and less hassle. Another very crowded show and a really muggy day.
So when we got to Maine the night before and it snowed it was quite the change lol.
Maine was a blast all the way around. Things came together and a good time was had by all, though the long slog home on the fourth after all those shows etc was ruff and rememberer it felt weird not seeing then on the fourth.

So since I’ve never heard any of the 88 Alpines (that I remember), figure I’ll fire up 6/23/88 in BC and DVs honor!
ONWARD,

PS: yeah BC those Hampton shows truly were mind blowing. 3/27/88 is definitely one of the best shows I was fortunate to be at, though 3/26 was the only show I went to that I didn’t get in…
Sometimes you eat the Baaarr, sometimes the baaarrr eats you ; )

Yep, I was there too DV. So I have a fair amount of memories about these shows. Some of its already out there. One of the most powerful Dead concert moments was the Morning Dew last night of the run (6/23). that, and the Believe it or Not earlier in the set. But some aspects of this run were a struggle. Damn was it hot. did Buckeye and Pittsburgh afterwards. my last Midwest shows until 7/8 and 7/9/95 at Soldier Field.

Without a doubt one weird thing going back to the tapes is that Healy seemingly recorded the entire run with strong panning across the sound stage. I have never heard anything like it on any other SBD. Question came up on the GD Hour many years ago regarding the panning on the SBD source for 6/23. At the time I had never gone back to listen to the other nights, but 6/23 tape I knew very well. I replied that I thought maybe the panning was a one-off and gave the context. But no, It's there 1st night 6/19. and it's on the Jam of the Week first set 6/20. "Sort of" cool in some ways and sort of a big WTF was going on with that guy. Just odd stuff. Truly.

I had 2 mail order pavilion seats each night. sold the other to a friend who in the end only made the last night. 6/20 was near soundboard to left. Great sound. "kids" next to me proceeded to stub in 20+ of their friends on what were like 4 seats worth of tickets - completely freaking rude, asinine, and ridiculous - literally forcing myself and others out of our legit seats as more and more of them got ticketed in. I was already overheated by Day 2 and not very tolerant of that thoughtlessness. sort of still pisses me off, though I write that with something of a dream time memory smile on a beautiful rainy morning here in the high desert some 30+ years later. at set break I was wandering the lawn and ran into some other folks i knew from OH (school/home at the time) and when Set II rolled in I was like F*** the pavilion I'm hanging up here, and we danced our asses off upper hill right end. It was great. Super fun. Remember an awesome Terrapin. I'm not sure if I have ever heard 6/20 since, maybe once. listened to JOTW 1st set last night and now again listening this morning. It's a great 1st set. I'm like, Box of Rain song 2??!! Band is on. Guessing Dave will feed us the whole show JOTW but probably will stream the whole show today.

Academy of Music 3/26/72 DaP 14 - great to hear that one again (has been very much neglected in this household.) Thanks Daverock!

Will have to check out 3/30/88. Was at Hampton right before this and that was some mind blowing music.

Interesting Dave had the Alpine 88 shows as well as the 88 Met Center show in the Tapers compendium. To be honest, I don't look at that to much.

I was at these shows as a wild eyed 17 year old. Great times. The Alpine shows were 4 shows in five days in the hot sun. We had a crazy drought that summer. Our crew rented RVs for those shows and we were able to camp at Alpine. Crazy times.
I am hoping someday we get the Alpine box set 87-89, would be a fun ride.

New in Jam-o-Week: 6-20-88 Alpine Valley.
Most days I only have time for a taste so Jam and Taper's fit the bill.
Already curated by Dave so you know it will have something tasty.
So often it gets me to try eras and tours I'm not as familiar with like last week's two from 6-11-92 (Jam) and 6-12-92 (Taper's) from Knickerbocker Arena, Albany, NY. Both very tasty which I rarely expect from the later era. It all just depends on whether they're ON that night no matter what era. Like this week's Taper's 6-17-88 selection from Bloomington, MN was NOT ON. Didn't help that I didn't care for the setlist. But I always learn something so thanks Dave L. and POTDWD crew.
Cheers and onward through the fog, literally this morning in W. Colo.