Welcome back to the Tapers' Section, where this week we have Grateful Dead music from 1972, 1981 and 1989, three fine years in the Dead's history.
Our first stop is on 7/16/72 at Dillon Stadium in Hartford, the first show in the post-Pigpen era. Pigpen had missed the October and November 1971 shows, but returned for the December 1971 shows and all shows through the end of Europe '72, plus the first show back on US soil, on 6/17/72 in Hollywood. A month in Hartford, he was absent, never to return to the stage with the Grateful Dead again. From this show, we have Truckin' > Drums> The Other One > He's Gone> The Other One> Looks Like Rain.
From nine years later on 7/8/81 in St. Louis, we have mighty fine first set music from a great tour, featuring Althea ; Me And My Uncle > Big River ; Don't Ease Me In ; New Minglewood Blues.
Lastly this week, from 7/15/89, the Grateful Dead's first appearance at Deer Creek Music Center in Noblesville, IN, we have the end of the first set, Peggy-O, Queen Jane Approximately, We Can Run, Bird Song. After seven straight huge east coast stadium shows to start the summer tour of 1989, it was magical to walk into Deer Creek to see the Dead play a 15,000 amphitheatre. I distinctly remember the drive to the theatre, through Indiana corn fields, a major contrast to the highways and concrete of the stadium shows that preceded this.
Be sure to join us here next week for more music from the vault.
David Lemieux
vault@dead.net