Saturday, February 16th, 2008
I’ve haven’t listened to my iPod much the last couple days save the Valentine’s Day show from 1968. Today I knew I was going to be on the trails, so I made certain the iPod was loaded.
Loaded onto the iPod right now are the following shows:
Grateful Dead
68-02-14: Carousel Ballroom - San Francisco, CA
73-06-22: P.N.E. Coliseum - Vancouver, BC, Canada
standard 1973 show, which is to say awesome! The jam from Truckin’ into The Other One is worth the listen alone.
77-04-23: Springfield Civic Center Arena - Springfield, MA
This show is perfect for someone like me who generally abstains from ‘77 shows because they are so over-played. Yes, awesome playing and great sound (thanks Betty), but over-played. This was recommended to me and it is a fun listen to. Pre-May the band was on fire. All most ever listen to are the May shows.
79-11-05: The Spectrum - Philadelphia, PA
I love the November-December run the boys played this year. The 1 November show has one of my favorite Scarlet-Fire. The late placement of Lost Sailor-Saint of Circumstance is interesting. Brent was really fitting in by now and I love the jamming.
86-03-25: The Spectrum - Philadelphia, PA
I attended this show. The first Desolation Row was played as well as Phil belting out Tom Thumb Blues. The GDTRFB sounds flawed. I always enjoy It Must Have Been the Roses. I sang it loudly (and I am certain out of tune) hiking today.
Legion of Mary
75-05-22: Keystone - Berkeley, CA
When I was turned onto LoM 20+ years ago I fell in love. Absolutely the perfect mix of jazz and jamming for me. I ran into this show twice recently and both times the folks highlighted Little Sunflower. I was unfamiliar with this tune. Holy smokes! It is nice to stumble across something so new and beautiful, even if it was recorded 33 years ago. I love this song. I played it several times today and at over 16 minutes, that’s saying something. 
There is also an upbeat Road Runner here too. I highly recommend this show.
Johnny Cash
03-07-05: Carter Family Fold - Hiltons, VA
I had seen lots of video of this previously, but had not listened in some time. In retrospect, one can hear how fragile Cash sounded that day. I always enjoyed Big River, big surprise. Cash handled his standards just fine.
Jerry Garcia Band
78-11-03: Keystone - Palo Alto, CA
The sound on this isn’t the finest, but I love So What? I recall when I first heard Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue album. My employer at the time played great jazz and blues for the diners. I got turned onto a lot of good stuff. If I am not mistaken, Kind of Blue was my first purchased CD (even before I had a player) given that my cat Butterscotch threw up on the borrowed copy. It’s possible that was another CD. If so, this was the second.
Anyhow, So What? is awesome. I will listen to any show that includes it.
Merl Saunders Band
78-10-03: Shady Grove - San Francisco, CA
This was another recommended show. Jerry sits in with Merl’s band. I am not a huge fan of this show. Others love it, so go figure. Come Together is rather well played, however.
Posted in Concerts, Entertainment | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
As I stated yesterday, I do not have the inclination to write reviews of shows I listen to on my iPod most days. That still stands.
I did listen to the Grateful Dead’s Valentine’s Day show from 1968 today. What an awesome show! This show, as Zooomabooma pointed out, was a mere 10 days after Neal Cassady died. Check out this set list:
1st Set Morning Dew, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl,
Dark Star -> China Cat Sunflower -> The Eleven -> Turn On Your Lovelight
2nd Set Cryptical Envelopment -> The Other One -> Cryptical Envelopment -> New Potato Caboose -> Born-Cross Eyed -> Spanish Jam, Alligator -> Jam -> Alligator -> Caution -> Feedback
encore In The Midnight Hour
Read Zooomabooma’s review. Better yet, listen to the show! Forty years . . . unbelievable!
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Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
Since receiving my iPod at Christmas, I have been listening to much more music than I have in recent years. I used to keep a database of all my shows and CDs. Each time I listened to something, I updated the database. It was a drag. To head that off, I installed last.fm, which I thought would handle the process. It does and it doesn’t. It does keep track of the different tracks I listen to. The issue is that most of what I listen to is live music. These shows are not catalogued like a studio album. When the band plays a song, last.fm sees the name of the band and the name of the song and attributes it to the studio album that the song appeared on. Those familiar with the Grateful Dead/Jerry Garcia understand this is severely lacking.
Until I come up with a better way, I thought I would document what I am listening to here. It would be great if I could write a detailed report of each show. That is just far too time-consuming for me, so it’ll just be a list and maybe some notes somewhere along the line.
Loaded onto the iPod right now are the following shows:
Grateful Dead
73-05-20: UCSB Stadium - Santa Barbara, CA
73-05-26: Kezar Stadium - San Francisco, CA
73-06-10: RFK Stadium - Washington, DC
92-03-03: The Omni - Atlanta, GA
Jerry Garcia Band
81-02-06: Tower Theatre - Upper Darby, PA
87-08-30: Greek Theatre - Berkeley, CA
93-11-03: Knickerbocker Arena - Albany, NY
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Friday, December 15th, 2006
- Run, Run Rudolph, Santa’s gotta make it to town.
- Santa, make him hurry, tell him he can take the freeway down.
Thirty-five years ago the Grateful Dead played Run Rudolph Run for the last time. This is a great Chuck Berry tune. According to DeadBase (oh, I used to have the printed copies years ago), the band played this seven times, all in December 1971.
I used to have the Hill Auditorium show. I loved that show. What a set list:
12-15-71 Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, MI
set one: Bertha, Me & Bobby McGee, Mr. Charlie, China Cat Sunflower –> I Know You Rider, Beat It On Down the Line, It Hurts Me Too, Cumberland Blues, Jack Straw, You Win Again, Run Rudolph Run, Playin’ in the Band, Brown Eyed Women, Mexicali Blues, Big Railroad Blues, Brokedown Palace, El Paso, Casey Jones
set two: Dark Star –> Deal, Sugar Magnolia, Cryptical Envelopment –> Drums –> The Other One –> Cryptical Envelopment, Turn On Your Lovelight –> King Bee –> Mannish Boy –> Turn On Your Lovelight
encore: Saturday Night
The New Riders of the Purple Sage opened for the boys this night.
If I recall correctly, I traded for this show initially when I first moved to Boston and lived in Union Square. Trading shows back then was relatively low-tech by today’s standards. One would eagerly await the next issue of Relix and the pore over the classifieds for traders.
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