Grateful Dead

Nitecat, I was there too...we ran into each other on the flight home. The set lists were nothing special(except the hot aforementioned UJB -> Playin' -> UJB), but the playing was stellar, they sounded very tight and rehearsed. June '80 had some great moments besides Boulder; Portland, Seattle and Alaska are all good.

...vision

By the sound of it, RSD is the worst day of the year to go to a record shop. I have always managed to buy what I have wanted-sometimes from an independent shop - online. Sometimes I have paid more than the asking price on the infamous day, and sometimes - 5/19/74, for example - considerably less.

I did used to go to record shops, and buy up, whenever I went to London in pre Covid days - just not on RSD. Hopefully those days will come again.

Dennis, Crow, icecrmcnkd et al - love the stories on how things went for RSD. Sorry it wasn’t always what you hoped, but it is a super-hyped event now, and I wonder how many of the guys jumping on the bandwagon are shelling out the big bucks, but then get home and are gripped by extreme Buyer’s Remorse?
Dennis - great story on a “small world”, and a reminder of how much fun it used to be to line up for tickets at box offices long before the Ticketmasters etc changed the game.

Decided to try a small Denver area record store. If there was a line, I was leaving.
Showed up at 10. No line. Uh oh...
Asked manager if they still had copies.
He hands one to me. I buy it.
3 minutes. I'm gone.
Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket today?

That's a good suggestion, I was there for those two shows, my first foray into Colorado for shows. I should dig out my recordings of the shows, although they probably aren't great, as I recall I was in the bleachers recording.

What city is that?

I wonder if small cities might give a better chance or large cities will get more copies.

I too venture out for my first foray into RSD.

I saw the comments about long lines the other day, found the "big" local store, called because their webpage said they were opening at 5 AM. No that was wrong, they were opening at 7 and had 5 copies.

Got up at 530, there by 6. Line around building. Took a 1/2 hour for the line to move up and they gave you a ticket with a number. Mine was 115. They let 20 at a time at the RSD stuff. 1.5 Hours my turn, none left.

Thought about driving to the other "local little", decided to head home. Got home call the other joint, yeah I got 3 sitting here with 9 more coming. Drive downtown, waited on line again for 30 minutes,,,, all gone.

Guy says UPS is bring 9 more TODAY. Give us your number and will call when here. OK. Almost get home and they call UPS has been there and they got one for me. Turn around, head back,,,,, still a line. 45 minute wait. Go in and guy hands me one. They also had a copy of The Very Best of Jerry Garcia (5 LPs),,, 90 bucks. Grab that too because it was limited to 4,000. What the hell.

So I was on the road or in line from 5:30 until 1:30,,,, worth the wait? I got em, but..........

The whole time I thought is this suppose to endear me to come to brick and mortar record stores??? If so they failed!

The silver lining to it all is you get to hang out in lines like the old days of getting tickets and meet the people around you. They may not be there for the dead, but they are there for music. The old thing,,,,, yes odder than Franco Harris,,, yakking with this guy, says he's a drummer and metal is his thing. I tell him my boss knows, knew, Dimebag, he grew up with the guy. He played in a band that opened for Pantera on two tours. The guy was wait, you said your boss's name is Mike,,,, Mike what. Mike Madison I say, his band was Red something. I know Mike,,,, we worked together 30 years ago at this record store, used to go to the same parties!

It really can be a small world!

I didn’t wait in line, I figured that f I get a copy I get a copy.
Arrived at the store around 12:30 pm and there were a lot of people in the store and outside but no line to get in.
Grabbed 1 of the 3 copies of 5-3-72 that were still available ($139.10 after tax) and waited a couple of minutes in line to check out.
Listened to the first side and it sounded pretty good. Will do the whole show tonight.

Of note, last year I went to the same store on Tuesday after RSD and there were 2 copies of 5-9-77 still available. There was another guy there who grabbed one and I grabbed the other.

This year I decided that I would go on RSD but wasn’t going to wait in line.
My plan paid off.

So what was my RSD disappointment?
The taco shop across the street was closed. I was so set on getting tacos after getting some vinyl….. :(

Happy Record Store Day! Or should we say, Record Scalpers’ Day?

I went downtown this morning and got in line about an hour before my local record store was due to open, and I wasn’t surprised to see that there was already a line down the block and around the corner. From what I’d heard, that was normal for RSD, and that’s the reason I’d never tried to get there early before. I always figured that, no matter how early I got up, there’d be people who got up earlier, and those door busting early birdies would get all the good stuff and I’d be picking through the picked over remains.

But this year I gave it a try, for one reason and one reason only: the Paris ‘72 vinyl set. I really really wanted that one. Even more than I really really wanted the Buffalo ’77 vinyl set last year. So I got in line, behind maybe 70-80 people, and waited. And waited. An hour later, the line started to move. About 45 minutes after that, I was within 30 feet of the door, hoping for the best. The people in line definitely didn’t look like Deadheads, so I figured there was a chance they’d still have a copy of the Olympia vinyl by the time I got in. But just before I did, a guy from the store came outside and made an announcement like, “hey, thanks for coming, blah blah, and oh by the way, if you’re here for the Grateful Dead or Lady Gaga, we sold out on those right away.” (The Dead and Lady Gaga... there's a pairing I wouldn't have expected.)

So I left, after two hours, without ever getting into the store, and without a copy of the Paris set. When I got home, I went online, and yep, just as I suspected, there’s about 100 copies available on eBay, selling for about $225 and up.

Oh well. I’m not sure whether Record Store Day really helps those independent record stores so much, but it’s like Christmas in June for the flippers and scalpers.