Saw the Dead two consecutive nights at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor FOR FREE! Went down the day of the 1st show during the sound check, went backstage, into the Men’s Room and unlocked the window. Went to the show that night and it was still unlocked. Climbed through and went into the main auditorium. 2 1/2 hours of the New Riders with Jerry Garcia playing pedal steel, a 1 hour (or so) equipment changeover and 3 1/2 hours of the Dead. Sat in an aisle on the main floor about 4 rows back. I went back the 2nd night and the window was still unlocked. Oh well, so much for that Poli Sci paper I had intended to work on that night…
Sorry - 1971.
That would have been a treat! He started New Riders when he bought a pedal steel guitar and needed a country band to play it with because the Dead wouldn’t let it on stage. So he put that group together and opened Dead shows with them. He only plays on their first album, which now sounds almost like a Garcia album with the pedal steel playing. I think he’s using a wah-way pedal on the pedal steel through this one:
A long St. Stephan jam:
September 1977 Raceway Park was the one and only time I saw them. Marshall Tucker Band also played.
Yes emilybee, I was choosing to rise above dstark’s “elderly” comment…although the general demographic of the group did skew in that direction some! However, I can happily say standing throughout didn’t seem to be an issue.
And thanks to interestedad for the St Stephen…possibly my favorite Dead song ever.
Saw the second Santa Clara webcast at a gathering with friends and a very large screen, but I am just not down to spend the time and money to go to Chicago to see the band without Jerry, in a huge stadium. I did the first GD reunion show at Alpine and didn’t think it was all that great. When Phil & F is around I’ve enjoyed that, and Ratdog, and Phish too…and my work takes me to a lot of music festivals of various sizes and often similar genre of music. I prefer all of those to big stadium shows.
So I, too, will watch from here if at all.
The song after St. Stephen the first night is one of my favorites – the rhythmically joyous The Eleven, aptly named after its unusual 11/8ths time signature. It’s counted as measures of:
1 2 3 -1 2 3 - 1 2 3 - 1 2
Playing in the Band is their other wacky time signature: 10/4th with an odd measure here and there of something else.
Here are complete audio recordings of the first two shows. These are from the “taper section” recorded with stereo pairs of $1500 microphones. Pretty faithful to the sound in the stadium: Intermission is edited out, so these run about 3.5 hours, but they can be selected, played, downloaded, or linked song by song from the Live Music Archive below. You can download complete sets of MP3 for each show to stick on your iPod:
First night
https://archive.org/details/GD2015-06-27.FareTheeWell
Second night
https://archive.org/details/GD2015-06-28.FareTheeWell
OHmom:
I can’t think of a single band in 40 years that has even tempted me to buy tickets for an outdoor stadium show. Even the shows at outdoor pavilions drive me nuts because the crowd is talking and partying and doing just about everything but being quiet enough to listen to the music. I won’t even go to arena show unless its something really special and that I’ve never seen.
I wouldn’t have been tempted to go these Dead shows even if I lived in Santa Clara or Chicago. I got spoiled seeing the Dead in the 4600 seat Fox Theater. Sitting at home with headphones is more my speed.
These webcasts are great. I’ve been working my way through most of both shows for the second time. They are better on repeat viewings.
Yep. At the same time, so many friends are headed to Chicago!
Never saw the Grateful Dead, but I have seen Bruce Hornsby several times. I think he is playing these shows.
Did I ever tell you about the time… my wife and I were selling our house in Oakland CA in 1992 after living in Asia for 6 years. We were moving to New York, so after renting the house to tenants for 6 years while overseas it was time to sell. We got a few lowball offers then suddenly received an offer for full asking price, all cash. I was of course delighted and needed to know nothing more. The buyer’s agent had some questions so I was speaking to her about the transaction. She told me the buyer was a woman who lived in the neighborhood, loved the area and loved our house. Her father, a “musician” was going to buy the house for her. Had I ever heard of the Grateful Dead? (duh, yes). The woman’s father, who bought our house, was Jerry Garcia.
Yep. Playing a huge Steinway grand piano and singing. So far he’s been singing harmonies on a lot of songs and lead vocals on a couple of songs per night. He seems to specialize in singing Jerry Garcia songs in these shows.
He played keyboards on a lot of shows with the Grateful Dead (their luck with keyboard players was similar to Spinal Tap’s bad luck with bass players…)
He did a really good cover of the Dead’s song Jack Straw on an album of Dead covers by other artists:
Jack Straw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPhjA72NNF4
@njres Jerry garcia’s daughter is interviewed in this movie- I saw on Netflix,
Highly recommend. I wonder if she is daughter who lived in your house ! What a great story!!!
And one of my favorite from the first night, the second set closer:
Morning Dew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESghOX8oPkw
Loose Lucy:
https://youtu.be/6xcHYurhAdM?t=1749
Loser:
https://youtu.be/6xcHYurhAdM?t=2232
Row Jimmy Row:
https://youtu.be/6xcHYurhAdM?t=2848
Entire first set 2nd night:
https://youtu.be/6xcHYurhAdM
ChessMom, thanks for the link! He bought the house (in 1992) for his first daughter. not the one interviewed.
Doubt that this will stay up long, but here’s a high def YouTube of the entire 2nd night of the Dead in Santa Clara:
Santa Clara 2nd night (entire show):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wEahk2orFc
Posted too soon, here’s another:
Santa Clara 1st night (entire show)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3tISOCtwo8
Second night is a better all around show, IMO, but both are terrific.
7pm central (or a half hour late) for the first show from Soldier Field today. I hiked all afternoon with a Dead playlist on the iPod… 
We are at the Dead Concert at Soldier Field. Only we are sitting in the family room. Haha! Bought On Demand for $40 bucks. Or at least H did.