Welcome back to the Tapers' Section, where this week we'll cover a dozen years in Grateful Dead history, with music from 1973, 1977 and 1985.
Our first selection is music from the final night of a three night run at the Universal Amphitheatre in Universal City, CA, on 7/1/73, a really solid batch of shows to rap up a short west coast tour of Vancouver, Portland and Seattle, as well as these LA shows. The Dead would take the rest of July off to work on Wake Of The Flood, but heading east for the massive Watkins Glen shows at the end of the month with The Band and the Allman Bros. Band. From the 7/1/73 show, we have El Paso ; Loose Lucy ; Truckin' > Drums > The Other One > Wharf Rat > Me And Bobby McGee; Casey Jones.
From four years later, we have the start of the show on 5/4/77, the final night of a five night run at the Palladium in New York City on the exceptional Spring Tour of 1977. The Palladium had previously been known as the Academy Of Music, where the Dead had played a seven night run in 1972 just before Europe. From 5/4/77 we have Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo > Big River ; They Love Each Other ; New Minglewood Blues ; It Must Have Been The Roses.
Our final selection this week is the start of the second set from 6/22/85 at Alpine Valley in Wisconsin, where we have Keep On Growing > Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo > Lost Sailor > Saint Of Circumstance. This was the start of the short, but excellent, Summer Tour of 1985, with shows on either of the tour in California (the Greek in Berkeley before, Ventura after).
Be sure to stop by next week for more tunes from the vault.
David Lemieux
vault@dead.net