The Grateful Dead

[mountain bed]

Yeah, that's the "Maybe You Know" where everyone but a drummer or two left the stage and Brent sings it really slowly and emotionally. I've got it at home and I believe he drops an f-bomb in it, too. Kind of a strange and perhaps inhebriated version. The only time he did it at that tempo, too.

I don't think I've ever heard that. I was thinking more along the lines of that "Blow Away" from '90 where he kinda raps. The "fist" version.

[NightOfJoy]

What's the deal on the show I heard about recently where Brent had some sort of meltdown? It's up at archive.org.

 

I heard about that show not too long ago via the GD room on usenet (great site btw, good people there). It was said that Brent was pretty obviously drunk n sloppy during that show and he did have a bit of a breakdown during one particular song, sorry, dont recall which one.

[Lammycat]

I don't think I've ever heard that. I was thinking more along the lines of that "Blow Away" from '90 where he kinda raps. The "fist" version.

It's actually kind of awkward to listen to. Like overhearing your grandmother talking about sex or something.

 

Brent did the "take that fist and put it up in the air" rap a bunch back then on the "Blow Away"s. I liked that shit.

 

The last "Far From Me" he did (NY, I think) had the infamous ad lib "this song's my last fucking song for you, bitch" in it. Obviously things weren't going well for him in the end.

[Analogman]

Paul Liberatore: How Grateful Dead came together again for Obama fundraiser

Paul Liberatore

Article Launched: 02/07/2008 10:50:09 PM PST

 

Marin s Phil Lesh jams at fundraising concert for presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama on Monday in San Francisco. Lesh reunited Grateful Dead band mates Bob Weir and Mickey Hart for the show. (AP photo/Noah Berger)

Marin Democrats rocked the vote for Barack Obama this week, right in tune with the Grateful Dead.

 

On the eve of the Super Tuesday primary, which Obama won handily over Hillary Clinton in Marin County, bassist Phil Lesh gathered his Grateful Dead brethren for a sold-out "Deadheads for Obama" concert at the Warfield Theatre.

 

Under a banner with Obama's campaign logo inside the Dead's iconic skull-and-lightning-bolt insignia, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart joined Lesh at a press conference before taking the stage together for the first time since they went their separate ways in 2004. It would have been a compete reunion of all four surviving members if drummer Bill Kreutzmann hadn't been in Hawaii.

 

"I called these guys up and asked them, 'Are you with me on this?'" Lesh said at the press briefing. Hart chimed in without missing a beat: "I was just about to call you up and ask you the same thing."

 

Before the music started, Obama addressed the crowd in a video he made on the campaign trail, getting an unintentional laugh when he told everyone: "Sit down and enjoy the concert."

 

"Sitting down is not quite the way it works at a Grateful Dead show," Dead publicist Dennis McNalley explained.

 

Phil, Bobby and Mickey, but he knew enough to especially thank the one who really made the concert happen: Lesh's 18-year-old son, Brian, an Obama campaign leader in Marin.

 

Last summer, Brian, a senior at the Branson School in Ross, went to "Camp Obama" for a three-day intensive training in campaign organizing. He's been part of the youth movement behind Obama's phenomenal rise into contention for the Democratic presidential nomination.

 

"Brian cut his summer short to join this campaign for change," Obama said in the video. "It's young people like him all across America who are rediscovering a sense of idealism and a sense of possibility in this country."

 

The Lesh family met Obama last fall. For Brian's 18th birthday present, his rock star dad managed to score tickets to Obama's appearance with Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show" in New York.

 

"He actually shook our hands on the way out, but that wasn't the big thing," Phil told me.

 

The big thing came later that night, when Obama addressed a fundraising rally in Brooklyn that the family attended.

 

"I was just blown away by this guy," Phil said. "It was like watching Robert Kennedy. I got goose bumps. The hair stood up on the back of my neck. The energy of the people responding to his passion was truly inspiring."

 

Lesh said he hasn't seen a youth movement like this since he and his bandmates were leading the countercultural revolution in the '60s.

 

"The younger voters are flocking to this man," he said. "And it is a movement. It's not just a campaign anymore. We haven't seen anything like this since the Haight-Ashbury. And this is more pragmatic. This is young people saying, 'Yes, we can change the world.'"

 

Because of his status as one of the campaign's youth leaders, Brian was invited backstage after the speech to meet Obama, who then came out and said hello to Phil and his wife, Jill.

 

"We talked a little bit and then he asked me, 'What do you do?'" Phil recalled. "I said, 'I'm a musician. I was the bass player for the Grateful Dead for 30 years.' He said, 'Oh, I enjoy your music very much.' I asked him if he'd been to any of our shows? He said, 'No, but I have a lot of your music on my iPod.'"

 

At one point, Jill told him, only half-jokingly, "We can get out the hippie vote for you."

 

Phil also offered his services, which led to the Obama campaign asking if he'd be willing to put on a concert on the candidate's behalf. He quickly agreed on a get-out-the-vote show with his Phil and Friends band the night before the California primary, but he wanted the evening to be something special.

 

Phil insists that this is not the beginning of a permanent Grateful Dead reunion.

 

"Everyone's having such a good time doing their own thing," he said. "Bobby has Ratdog, I've got my band, Mickey has all his projects, and everybody's really flourishing.

 

"But the thing we can do when we want to play together is to play together for a good cause, for something bigger than we are, instead of just going out on tour," he elaborated. "I look forward to that. If there's an opportunity for another reunion for something this important, I'm sure we'd all be into doing it."

 

Who knows what that next "important thing" might be. Maybe this is looking too far ahead, or just wishful thinking on my part, but how about a Grateful Dead concert at the Barack Obama presidential inauguration?

[mountain bed]

35 years ago today:

 

Roscoe Maples Pavillion, Stanford U., Palo Alto CA 2/9/73

 

Excellent show. First ever versions of China Doll, Eyes, HC Sunshine, Loose Lucy, TLEO, Row Jimmy, and Wave That Flag (US Blues)

 

Before "China Cat":

 

Wavy Gravy: Okay, how's that? Hi, yah. I am told to make this announcement...short, and not political. I'll make it short, but political is wierd. Like, taking a shit is a political act. Smoking it is a more political act, but world politics and a rainbow on a pole is what we're about. My name is Wavy Gravy. I'm with the Hog Farm. And like many, many people all over the planet we were alarmed and horrified at this incredible disaster called Bach Mai.

 

Now, Managua is not political, right? And Bangladesh is not political. But Bach Mai is another kind of disaster that happened over Christmas with a bunch of B-52s and we leveled the largest hospital, teaching hospital, four times bigger than the one at Stanford, in Southeast Asia. And what we want to do is send them back another hospital. Tell 'em about it Asa.

 

Asa: We've got these baskets around, right? People will be moving around. If you want to, help us find another way of doing it. A bunch of guys here at Cloumbae Hall will get together and do more stuff about Bach Mai. And wear our buttons, and polish our rainbows. And now, The Rainbow Makers! Here they are!

[j4lackey]

35 years ago today:

 

Roscoe Maples Pavillion, Stanford U., Palo Alto CA 2/9/73

 

Excellent show. First ever versions of China Doll, Eyes, HC Sunshine, Loose Lucy, TLEO, Row Jimmy, and Wave That Flag (US Blues)

 

Before "China Cat":

 

Wavy Gravy: Okay, how's that? Hi, yah. I am told to make this announcement...short, and not political. I'll make it short, but political is wierd. Like, taking a shit is a political act. Smoking it is a more political act, but world politics and a rainbow on a pole is what we're about. My name is Wavy Gravy. I'm with the Hog Farm. And like many, many people all over the planet we were alarmed and horrified at this incredible disaster called Bach Mai.

 

Now, Managua is not political, right? And Bangladesh is not political. But Bach Mai is another kind of disaster that happened over Christmas with a bunch of B-52s and we leveled the largest hospital, teaching hospital, four times bigger than the one at Stanford, in Southeast Asia. And what we want to do is send them back another hospital. Tell 'em about it Asa.

 

Asa: We've got these baskets around, right? People will be moving around. If you want to, help us find another way of doing it. A bunch of guys here at Cloumbae Hall will get together and do more stuff about Bach Mai. And wear our buttons, and polish our rainbows. And now, The Rainbow Makers! Here they are!

1st Eyes ever, and just about as good as it ever got!

[Lammycat]

That Pauley Pavillion tape was always a favorite back in the HS days.

[IcculusDC]

Speaking of the Dead -- Nugs.net is currently streaming David Gans' Greatful Dead Marathon to raise money for KPFA's annual fund drive. He has been playing some great stuff.

 

It runs until 1 am PST.

[Analogman]

Grateful Dead Listening Guide - Helping new and old-comers navigate through listening choices in the sea of Grateful Dead shows available on and off line.

[Lammycat]

Grateful Dead Listening Guide - Helping new and old-comers navigate through listening choices in the sea of Grateful Dead shows available on and off line.

The take on '78 is pretty accurate. There are some gems that year and it's a year that often gets overshadowed due to '77. I've been downloading a lot of '78 and '79 lately, and I highly recommend 4-27-78 (Illinois Stat Univ.).

 

Comprehensively, a fantastically played show but highlighted by the intensity of the Scarlet-> (and in particular) Fire. There's also a very fun and boppin' "Werewolves of London" encore.

[Analogman]

Miami, June 23rd, 1974.

 

There are few things that most deadhead tapers can agree on (note, I couldn't even bring myself to say "all deadhead tapers"). But, 06/23/74 being one of the best Dead tapes of them all is one of them.

 

Some of this is on the So Many Roads boxset.

[Lammycat]

Is that the ever-popular (and rightly so) Miami Jai Alai Fronton?

[Analogman]

GRATEFUL DEAD

Saturday & Sunday, June 22-23, 1974

Jai-Alai Fronton - Miami, FL

 

Yes - I have heard those shows in SBD form - pretty cool indeed.

[mountain bed]

The take on '78 is pretty accurate. There are some gems that year and it's a year that often gets overshadowed due to '77. I've been downloading a lot of '78 and '79 lately, and I highly recommend 4-27-78 (Illinois Stat Univ.).

 

Comprehensively, a fantastically played show but highlighted by the intensity of the Scarlet-> (and in particular) Fire. There's also a very fun and boppin' "Werewolves of London" encore.

I remember that show for something off-the-wall. During the tune-up for Me and My Uncle Jerry starts playing the riff to Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. Next thing you know, the whole bands starts doing it - then they segue perfectly into Uncle. Funny stuff.

[mountain bed]

Yes - I have heard those shows in SBD form - pretty cool indeed.

I have a good friend that swears by the 6/23 Dark Star. It's not my favorite, but you cannot argue that it isn't one of the best.

[Lammycat]

I remember that show for something off-the-wall. During the tune-up for Me and My Uncle Jerry starts playing the riff to Staying Alive by the Bee Gees. Next thing you know, the whole bands starts doing it - then they segue perfectly into Uncle. Funny stuff.

Yeah, they play it out for a good 20-30 seconds. They did that on just a few occasions during the Disco craze. I forget what other shows have it, though.

[Analogman]

When looking at Phish set lists, I see that they call that sort of thing a tease.

[Lammycat]

Call it what you( or they) will, but I always get a kick out of them. The "Beer Barrel Polka"s and "Little Bunny Foo Foo"s and "Funiculi Funicula"s and "Adam's Family"s etc. Really more goofing/tuning but whatever.

[Analogman]

I like that sort of thing - there is a pretty cool one on the first James Gang album.

[NightOfJoy]

6/9/77 has a great Funicula going on while the crew is getting everything exactly perfect again. That show, btw, rocks.

[mountain bed]

6/9/77 has a great Funicula going on while the crew is getting everything exactly perfect again. That show, btw, rocks.

One of my favorite Help > Slip > Franks ever. I'm not really a rabid fan of '77 past this show (Fall). I really like the pinched sound Jerry got post-Egypt better.

[hardwood floor]

so what are ya'all's favorite 1973 shows?

 

i've been digging

 

feb. 15 madison

march 26 baltimore

may 26 san francisco

nov. 11 san francisco

[Lammycat]

I agree with the 2/15 and 11/11 shows.

 

'73 is chock-full of gems, particularly (for me):

 

2-15 Madison, WI

3-16 Nassau

3-31 Buffalo

4-2 Boston

6-9/10 RFK

 

I think the real stand-out stuff, even for this great year, is the fall and winter runs, though:

 

9-8 Nassau

9-21 Philly

9-26 Buffalo

10-25 Madison, WI

11-9 Winterland

11-11 Winterland

11-14 San Diego

11-20/21 Denver

11-25 Tempe

12-1 Boston

12-6 Cleveland

12-18 Tampa

[jc4prez]

I agree with the 2/15 and 11/11 shows.

 

'73 is chock-full of gems, particularly (for me):

 

2-15 Madison, WI

3-16 Nassau

3-31 Buffalo

4-2 Boston

6-9/10 RFK

 

I think the real stand-out stuff, even for this great year, is the fall and winter runs, though:

 

9-8 Nassau

9-21 Philly

9-26 Buffalo

10-25 Madison, WI

11-9 Winterland

11-11 Winterland

11-14 San Diego

11-20/21 Denver

11-25 Tempe

12-1 Boston

12-6 Cleveland

12-18 Tampa

 

 

just herd boston for the first time the other day, loved the second set that Here Comes Sunshine onward is killer.

 

I used to like RFK but feel a lot of it doesn't get "there" but its been a while.

 

I don't know I'm not a big fan of 73 I guess but maybe i haven't heard the right show yet.

 

I have 11-11 as well; any of those listed you think are better then the ones i mentioned?

[Analogman]

Bobby called in to KPFA last night during the Grateful Dead marathon. We talked about the February 4 Deadheads for Obama show, and about the importance of participating in the political system - and Bob told one brief but fascinating story about two pieces of music.

 

 

 

From 3/30/73 at the War Memorial Auditorium in beautiful downtown Rochester, we have Truckin