Grateful Dead

A benefit show for the Rex Foundation on Sat., Nov. 7th starting at 8pm. It did indeed start with Brent's "Hey Pocky Way". It was part of a series of three shows that were often played around this time of year along with a pair of two or three bookend shows at Long Beach Arena down in the Southland around Thanksgiving. The only thing unusual about these shows was the 7pm start time for the Sunday evening show -- perhaps due to the Lake Merritt Resident Association's concerned about the crowd size expanding. The error has to do with Dead.net's respecting of copyrights, in this case the copyright of they authors of DeadBase. Therefore, the only comprehensive listing of dates of concerts they have are ones that are submitted by the readers. I think that since they (Dead.net) have the contract from the band for putting up this website and total access to the vault they should have rights to the dates of shows, thereby avoiding this kind of confusion. The last show at the Kaiser (Oakland Auditorium Arena) was on 2/7/89. It was the run at which they often did the dragon dance for the Chinese New Year's parade during Drumz. I'd like to think that in 1990 they should have finished off this venue with a run of 10 shows that included an acoustic set. The truth is the acoustics were just not good enough there at the Kaiser. Perhaps the MCVA in San Rafael was the place to do it. We'll never know as they never attempted it.

And having a moment of sadness for the demise of BASS. Hey, you had to be here.:-)

I drove back from Monterey where we were visting my wife's mother to attend the Saturday show and it was fantastic, one of the most fun nights I had at the Kaiser. The energy in the crowd was amazing that night, the second set in particular. Thanks for the memory!