Grateful Dead

I just realized that tomorrow is the 50th of International Amphitheater 7-25-74 Chicago, IL.

Proceed accordingly.

Edit: glad folks here appreciate the story - thank you friends. It was yet another (very) strange occurrence in the desert here and not even the only one that was GOGD related.

The goodness continues…

Edit: thanks BC! That’s an great tale and being aaaaa, “memory challenged” lol, it was nice to refresh. Yes indeed, wonder what else might be “lost” out there?

6-20-80 Gans-Miller.25469

Sounds pretty good, has potential to sound even better after being polished up.

Wonder if there were other tapers who never released copies.

Release the SBD Dave.

Yes, I listened to the Dark Star>Slipknot theme twice.

For the taper story.
Legendary indeed.
Cheers

Oro on his ongoing trip through '74 had me revisit this overlooked show from Europe '74. (David Usborne matrix). Parts of the SBD are missing but don't be deterred, there's some great playing on this one!

Obeah - here's an edited/slightly reworked version of what I posted on another forum years ago. I'd go for the GEMS SBD remaster (152924). Not as jammed out as some '74 but there is some really and truly, very fine, music here (sound of Oro's foot tapping.) The Dark Star jam is unlike any out there and I really really dig it.

Ca. 1997/98 – I was living in a small desert town. First worked here summer of ’95 and it was here that I first learned of Jerry’s passing (and still here 25+ years later). Jim, a long time resident (moved away years ago) and fellow Deadhead (saw Vegas Ice Palace ’69 I think) mentioned that a friend had come through town and left a list of tapes he had to trade/share. The friend was a river runner out of Flagstaff, would be back through town in a week or so. Jim invited me to take a look at the list and see if there was anything I wanted. It was a short list – all that I remember at this point is that it had the International Amphitheatre show, 7/25/74, complete show, an audience rated at C-. The show was unknown to me and, as a favorite year and a Chicago boy at heart (born and raised north suburbs), I asked for that one.

One night a little while later the river runner friend came back through town. I remember standing outside in the summer dark talking to him for maybe 10-20 minutes, he only stopped to drop off tapes. It turned out that he had taped the show himself and it was the only show he ever taped. A cheap deck with the microphones hanging over the balcony railing (IIRC). He had talked to Phil outside the back door before the show and Phil had big time dosed him. Said that Phil sat on a stool for part of the show. He got all wide-eyed with nostalgic awe when he recalled the Ship of Fools encore – clearly the song had been a major religious experience. I think he handed me his masters to make a copy (or maybe he just dropped off a copy?), saying he would pick them up from our mutual friend on the way back through town. Don’t recall his name and never saw him again.

Listening to the tapes you felt like you were way in the back of a cavernous space. To me, C- was possibly a generous grade, but with a pair of cheap headphones (all my gear was cheap at the time) - listening in the dark in the middle of the high desert night - you could be there, and for a poor boy in the backwoods of tapes it was a cool listen. I dubbed a couple of copies and sent one to Jeff, a close friend, who was back in the Chicago area – at the time he was managing Dr. Wax (a chain of several used record/CD stores/Jeff also founded and ran a niche record label Quinnah Records) A little while later Jeff calls me, all excited. “Where did you get this?? This is the only known recording of this show currently in circulation!!!” Circulation was a relative term in this case. Turns out Jeff had reached out/was in contact with the gentlemen who were putting together the first Tapers Compendium and, connected as they were, they knew of no other recordings of this show. The Compendium folks wanted him to review the tapes/show for the Compendium, but in the end it was too late because the book had just gone into galley(?) and it was too much trouble to revise it. This is the only ’74 show not reviewed/completely missing from the first edition Tapers Compendium Vol I.

A bunch of high-end traders contacted Jeff requesting copies. When Jeff asked one what his opinion of the tapes were, the gentleman replied that it was pretty rough and that basically it was for completists only, but of course it had a heretofore uncirculated Dark Star with a Slipknot tease, which was everything you needed to know right there. This may have been at the time the only uncirculated Dark Star post-1970. Another commented that he thought he knew the person who might have the soundboard reels (or copies of them) but that they were holding them close. The SBD recording finally entered public circulation a few years later and Dave Lemieux (I raise a toast, or two or three, or more, in his honor) has featured portions of this show a time or three, I think, in the Jam of the Week and/or the Tapers Section/and 30 days of the Dead. So the masters are in the vault. The audience has never been uploaded to the archive.

It makes me smile that this show first resurfaced from the depths of time (relatively speaking) in this dusty, high desert, town.

1972 was some great concerts in some out-of-the way places

Rise and shine lil Pedro
Bfast in bed wiff the GD

Passed in Tacoma at 81