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live Grateful Dead (1 Viewer)

End of an era. Nice punctuation to a half century. Bob alluded to it being more of a semi-colon.

 
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still pretty awesome they did this.

probably wish they had done it sooner (and left more time for another tour or several), but pretty sweet coda if this winds up being the last of it.

 
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Amazing run of 5 shows with what, only 2 songs repeated? Incredible body of work put on display over this stretch and there are still more titles I wish I had a chance to hear.

 
Not one Brent song. That is surprising. Was sure we'd get mr Charlie or easy wind tonight too. Some head scratching to be done in the aftermath.

 
I was a deadhead that never was I thnk.

Born a bit too late, jerry died when I was a junior in high school.

Not sure if I mentioned but I was offered a ticket on the 94 tour. And I turned it down. For no good reason other than, they'll be around again.

Of course we know the rest. Never did get around again.

Until last night, for me. 20 years later. And not quite the dead but as quite as they possibly can be.

I have followed some bands with some fans... Outright aping in the phish world... More of homage in the black Crowe world.

But last night. That lot. Those fans., scattered and as reimagined as they may have been, felt like the geniune article of some sort of something.

Suffice to say, even though I didn't know anyone and don't really know deep cuts, I just felt like I was home. Trite and cliche but there was just a real shared vibe of peace and love. And what two things could you better have in this life.

The dead sit upstream of so much music I love, and I felt like I finally reached Kurtz last night. For me, in my personal case, it brought some closure to a lifelong regret.

I may not have seen THE dead but I saw the dead and the dead were awesome.

Those vocal misfires? Well the man who is supposed to sing it isn't here. It's ok with me personally.

Sorry if this is a mess this is just my ramble of thoughts.

I'll leave you with this...

Lots of kids there. And by kids I mean like 3 and under. And at first glance you say... Why take your kids here. But then I smiled. Because one day one of these kids will live to be in his 50s and tell his friends he saw a band that started over 100 years before.

 
TRIPPER!

A-#######-men. That was the last of a one of a kind train you caught. Your spidey sense is strong and true. So happy to have read your adventure as I couldn't pull it off myself.

 
Tripper,

Thank you for doing what you did.

Friday afternoon I was talking to a buddy (from Chicago who saw the second to last show in 95) and we were discussing driving down to San Antonio for the Widespread show (about 6.5 and 8 hours drive respectively from our current locations). We made excuses, they will be in ABQ and Telluride next weekend, we can just catch those, etc. After I hung up the phone I considered the drive to Chicago. For a brief moment the college chauncey reared his idealistic head. I remember waking up on a Friday in 1998, it was noon, I was bleary eyed and in a strange bed in a strange house. This was before the internet and text messages. I knew Widespread was playing in Nashville that night, about 8 hours away from Chapel Hill, and with the time change we'd have time to make it early first set. Called a buddy from my house phone after I stumbled home, he was down, we hit the road, made it to Riverfront park just as Low Rider was coming on. Low Rider was my tripping song. Every time I ate acid, somehow someway this song would come on the radio, movie, tv, stereo. Anyways, that night led to an impromptu trip to Memphis for Saturday's show. One of the best road trips I've taken. Carefree times, great memories.

Back to this Friday, I'm sitting in my hotel room in bum #### NM thinking of heading to Chicago, because, it is the Grateful Dead and their last shows and I ####ied out in 95 when they were in Charlotte. I did the math, 20 hours drive, I can make it by first set if I just take a few cat naps in OK and IL. I was almost ready to commit when 37 year old chauncey ####ied out again. Of course it is ridiculous for a grown man to drive 20 hours to see a band, at the last minute, avoiding his prior engagements and responsibilities. At least that is what I told myself. Now I am left with some good internet audio streams and some future videos of the final shows of the greatest band that ever toured.

Tripper, thank you for doing what I wasn't able to or willing to do. Just the fact that you pulled a last minute audible and drove a thousand miles to see a band makes the world right. The whole FFA (or at least 15 of us) was living vicariously through you.

 
For some reason I never got into the Dead...no particular reason, but just never had any friends that were into them....I don't dislike them by any means....l dig all the "famous" songs....but I've really enjoyed this thread. I'll be checking them out a lot more now.

:thumbup:

 
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I mentioned that I really, really wish I had been at these shows. However, I did get to watch all three streams with my best friend, my older brother. The man (kid) who took me to my first shows when I was just 15 years old. My first shows were the northeast run in 1990 with Branford Marsalis. Not sure I appreciated it at the time, but always have enjoyed listening to those shows. Eyes of the World with Branford is super slick. I would continue to see many, many shows with him. We saw about 50 Dead shows and a similar number of Phish shows together.

Anyway, he had some work related stuff up here in Maine so there was no way he was gonna be able to make it. I debated back and forth a couple months ago, but decided to take the family across the country on a road trip and come up here to rural Maine to hang with him and his family and my folks.

Been an epic three nights of staying up way late while the kids sleep and listening to music that helped us become the friends that we are. We got to reminisce about taking acid at Giants Stadium, at meeting some crazy folks down in Virginia, at flying out to the west coast for a week long tour, and how we had like 2nd row tickets from mail order and then Jerry got sick and they cancelled the shows in 92.

Cheers my brother. It has been a long strange trip indeed.

:pickle:

 
Apple Jack said:
I think Weir's LET TREY SING shirt post-drums went unmentioned here. That was classic.
Click to expand...
I didn't even know about this until this morning. A buddy posted a pic on FB last night of the shirt, but I thought it was a photoshop joke. Reading about it this morning is classic, happy to find out it did indeed happen. Didn't catch it because I was watching the audience stream... which was great. Thanks a million to that guy.

 
Was at the 95 Chicago shows with several friends. We got shut out on tickets but got the telecast and it was a great time going down memory lane.

At the time I had one of those middle eastern sheik turban headdress type rigs on (pre 9/11) and a yellow shirt that said Africa 94. We had been on tour several weeks so I was up to three tabs. Didn't anticipate the amount of attention the Sheik outfit would get for some reason and it was a somewhat harrowing experience. So this weekend my friends were screaming SHEIK! in my mug like 20 years ago. Good times.

Would have loved to see Warren Haynes in Trey's spot but Trey was the logical choice and I thought he did great.

We were camping out at the lake and had the TV set up outside a trailer. I think we converted a dozen or so random campers this weekend.

 
I ended up going Friday. Got a pair of floors in the re-release. It was fun. The weather was amazing for Chicago in July. Ran into friends on the train and a few walking around Soldier Field. Couldn't find any true "lot scene", but still had fun meeting people. The vibe was good. Most people I met in their 20's-30's said there were there because of Trey, which is cool.

I really liked Friday's set list. Got a lot of what I wanted to hear; Bertha, The Wheel, Scarlet>Fire, Help>Slip>Franklins and Ripple was the perfect end for me. Road tripped from SIU to Maryland in 88 for one show and they played it for the first time in a long while. The buzz in the lot after they played it back was incredible.

If I'm being honest, the playing overall was just ok. Trey is a great guitarist, but it is real hard to put a band together for 5 shows and expect them to be tight or connected. Instead of a celebration of Jerry, I kind of felt that it was a passing of the torch in some ways. Many fans were clearly there to see Trey and how he would interpret these great songs. Jerry was the Grateful Dead experience to me. He pulled the strings and took the music to a magical place for me. I didn't expect to find that magic again at the show, and I didn't; and that was ok. It was a fun celebration of one of the greatest American bands of all time, and it succeeded on that level.

Caught Sat and Sun on ustream and it was fun catching pieces of those shows. Tough to gauge without being there, but Sat. seemed flat to me. Sunday made me wish I was there again for that show. Nice way to end it.

The romance of the Grateful Dead experience may have ended with these shows but the music lives on. Looking forward to what's next.

 
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