Grateful Dead

So... Sitting here at the office on my first day back at work since the Chicago shows. First of all, it was one helluva weekend! While the music was always the priority for me, I'd forgotten the sense of community one can feel at a concert. The crowd for all three shows was into it, and they showed the love. I'll never forget the whole crowd singing "you know our love will not fade away" for the entire break between the end of NFA and until Phil came out prior to the 1st Encore. The atmosphere was electric inside the stadium every night. While I have been to MANY concerts and sporting events over the years, it dawned on me that I hadn't felt that feeling since... well... 20 years ago when I attended my last Grateful Dead show at RFK Stadium in 1995. I won't wax poetic about whether or not these were "great Grateful Dead shows" or not. I will simply say that I had a fabulous time. I thought Friday night's show was the strongest, followed by Sunday and then Saturday, but I enjoyed them all. And the 1st Set on Friday was REALLY good. How many times could you say after a GD show that the 1st Set was better than the 2nd Set (especially when the 2nd Set included a Scarlet>Fire AND a Help>Slipknot>Franklin's)? Personal highlights for me were: 1) opening with "Box of Rain" (after all, the end is the beginning, and the beginning is the end); 2) "Passenger"(!!??!!), which they nailed; 3) Scarlet>Fire; 4) encoring with "Ripple" on Friday night; 5) "Shakedown Street" and "Deal" to bookend the 1st Set on Saturday; 6) "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)... Are you kidding me?!!?; 7) a really beautiful "Stella Blue"; 8) Trey singing "Althea"; and 10) a very fitting, and haunting "Days Between". I'm not a big Phish fan... I like some of their stuff, but I've never really been into them. But for anyone who was/is/or will be negative about the selection of Trey... they can kiss it, because I thought he was fantastic!! His enthusiasm alone was great, but I thought he really shined through and he should be proud of the performances he gave. All-in-all, it was a fantastic experience. I'm so glad I went. It was closure to a certain degree, but man was it a good party! See you all down the road. Be kind.

Anyone know of recordings available for the SC shows?Thanks !

That was an amazing three nights and ones that will remain with me till the end of my days. To me, night one was strongest-- truly not a weak link in that setlist and it smoked. The Help/Slipknot/Franklin's Tower to close was simply amazing. Having seen many fine shows over the past 30 years (GD, Clapton, Stones, myriad blues artists), that night ranks up near the top for live events I have attended. Some of it is that so many circumstances fell into place to make the entire night perfect-- and then the music made it ever more perfect. Night two highlights: Standing on the Moon, not one of my favorites, was delivered beautifully by Trey-- I had tears flowing the whole song. Golden Road was hot and Foolish Heart jammed. Trey really delivered all weekend-- big props to him. Night three was about delivering needed songs-- Estimated, China/Rider. Set two had a purpose-- songs about closure, togetherness and the sense of moving on. While the last two nights had a couple ballads I could have done without, I saw where they were going and enjoyed it. BTW, they did show Keith and Donna in the slide show. They did it a little awkwardly by transitioning from showing a bunch of random slides to all of a sudden showing each individual member. The crowd didn't realize it until Brent came up.