Grateful Dead

Maybe some confusion? R.T. Vol.1, No.4 is From Egypt with Love - taken from October '78 Winterland shows. Rocking the Cradle is the Egypt box. I still need to revisit that From Egypt With Love Road Trips - I was trying to track down the discs scattered through my collection a little while ago and 1 is still MIA.

I hear you with with the lack of nearby places to have certain work done, sort of the price for living a long ways from a true metro area. For me it's auto work. As luck would have it I just drove an insane distance to have a truly critical repair done in a correct and timely fashion and guess what. Everything was going just exactly perfect until it wasn't and something else got screwed up right at the tail end, that as it turns out they could not immediately fix. So I get to make that drive again this Friday and hope they can get it right this go around (and I'm not fully confident right now.) Ouch.

Still trying to get to the Rockin' the Cradle bonus.
Good chance today w/ snow and cold weather.
Only got partial listens on the '79 & '80 recommendations.
Stupidly missed the '92 Phx. (Gila Resv.) shows in person. Doh! What was I thinkin'? But I got 1 show each of the '90 and '94 versions. The '90 outshone the '94 by a wide margin with Bruce there in '90.
Interrupted by a system failure. Had to tear apart the stack. Switched on the bedroom stereo and no lights on the tuner. I've listened to CPR Classical every night at bedtime for a couple of years and now my mellow blue glow of incandescent bulbs (LEDs suck, way too bright) on the Pioneer silver face are missing. Really messing me up. And no tech in town! They've all died or moved to bigger markets. Asking all my local network who still toys with electronics in their basement shops. May have to drive 65 miles and drop it off with the only known repair shop. Two trips in winter, argh.
Be careful out there Jim. Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep, so beware, be-e-e-e-ware. ( I can never hit that bottom bass note) And you beat me to the ski tracks, I'm slacking. Feels like when Lucy Van Pelt says she never eats December snowflakes, they're just not ripe yet.
Cheers

Really every show between 5/29 and 6/21 are solid. I’ve listened to them sporadically over time so don’t have a cohesive comparison, but I recall thinking the Alaska shows seemed to improve each night, really liked the 21.
Perhaps Portland gets slight edge of the PNW?. 5/29 is a solid tour opener, 5/30 has a hot Jack Straw>>Franks, and passenger etc, and 5/31 seemed to step it up as well as the interesting set list, and ending.
I saw the Band in 84 and nobody left and continued to raise hell, and even though the crew started to breakdown, they made em set it back up and eventually came out and kept playing, probably to avoid a riot! So can only imagine what it must have been like to see that happen with the dead! Thought it might happen on 4/12/83 but after long time they eventually brought up the lights, but even then nobody left!
Compton seemed to settle into a longer more classic flow of songs, but then there’s Boulder too? So I can’t really pick just one or two Jim lol.

12/7/68 looks interesting as well as the 92 Compton, so I’ll try to get to those next couple daze…

A new one for me and comes with a Strider story. I really enjoy connecting stories with shows. It's always the music, but the culture, life and times matter. I think most of us grew up with the GD. It's more than just notes and chords. The music certainly spoke to me and I bet most if not all of us. These are no simple pop ditties.

Have a good day folks.. heading out and testing out a new boat at high water in December, what could possibly go wrong?

A well deserved spotlight, thanks Doc. Tagged this one here a few weeks ago, part of my 1968 quest this fall, rough cut but essential because of Rosemary, not to forget NPC. Reputedly only 500 or so were there, would love to hear further details from anyone. Apparently some missing cuts, probably did not start with Dark Star. Another example of a show that will never get released due to recording issues, nonetheless so very worthwhile.

Hey there space rockers!!

Pick Of The Day: Bellarmine College, Louisville Kentucky, December 7 1968

If you can explain string theory to me, maybe you can explain this show………try not to go all Hawking on me…..

The strings are played, dulcet tones result. It sounds like a small yet enthusiastic crowd witnessed this cosmic spectacle, which begins in slightly typical big jam form, a nice Star/Stephen followed by an Eleven which is cut inexplicably short. The band restarts the trippy festivities with a mournful Death Don’t followed by a crunchy CE/TOO/CE suite, which foreshadows the closing weirdness to follow by melding seamlessly into New Potato Caboose. How to explain the closing Rosemary (?the only existing recorded live version?)-He Was Friend Of Mine-It Hurts Me Too-Morning Dew-And We Bid You Goodnight? Good luck with that one…..

In essence, string theory describes space and time, matter and energy, gravity and light, indeed all of God's creation... as music…..

Mr Miller’s remaster is very decent and worth a listen. That being said, it might never be officially released due to the numerous cuts and edits. Enjoy what’s there!!!

On a cosmic scale, our life is insignificant, yet this brief period when we appear in the world is the time in which all meaningful questions arise…….

Rock on!!

Doc
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light, our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark……

Jim - only familiar with 5/31. We hit it a good while ago, but if it's "new" to you (always a relative concept for me) then well worth your time. SBD available for Set II. Dave L. has posted parts of Set II from this show for years and maybe it will see the light of day as an official release. I really need to follow in Oro's footsteps and check out the previous 2 nights, and maybe you should start there.

I got side-tracked and right now I'm down in AZ on 12/6/92.

edit - that was whole lot of fun!! 30 years ago today. 3 weeks later, on Christmas Eve 1992, at the annual party for family and friends, Tom R. was talking about seeing this show and he was all aglow about the return of Here Comes Sunshine.

that must have been something day 2

good to see you again Strider

just had a juvenile Prairie Falcon in the yard. what a beautiful, fierce presence.

Gila River Indian Reservation was where these two wonderful Grateful Dead concerts happened. Home of Ira Hayes and Russell “Big Chief” Moore. I saw my final outdoor Dead concert 30 years ago today. After those two shows I only saw them three more times, February 1995 in Salt Lake City.
That skeleton holding the hour glass with wings is watching from a not too distant cloud. Or as old time Montana cowboys used to say, “When I stand up in the stirrups I can see the end gate in the distance”.
Seize the day , and the night.
Gila River hit first stage flood in the past few days, just like 30 years ago when torrential rains kicked up every wash and river course in the southwest. And then the winter sun shone on the 5th and 6th in time for the Arizona Grateful Dead shows.
As Jay Leno said to his guest Sting years ago who was opening for the Dead in Las Vegas, “ it’s amazing how the Grateful Dead can control the weather, wherever they play there’s a huge cloud above the audience “.

Want to toss one of the more liked from the mini tour you just cycled through?