Nice crispy sound here..I have just got done listening to this show twice..and boy I liked what I heard..This show just drips with trippyness..the Sailor>Saint>Deal to end the 1st set is killa~! wish the rest of the set was there..The second set just flows with psychedelic passion and I'm going to spread the word of this beauty~!!! 7-4-84 still holds weight over this one but not by much..GIVE IT A WHIRL~!~ Forever Grateful>Forever Dead

My recollection was that the helicopter was during Drums and I always figured (or wanted to believe) it was Jerry, Bob, Phil (and Brent?) that went up for a ride while Bill and Mickey banged it out. I thought they did it for effect since it was sort of a Rhythm Devils style Drums segment. Oh well, it was a smokin' show and one of the more interesting venues. It was this show that really brought me in to the fold. A good time was had by all.

We drove down from the Detroit show to watch this one. When we got to Indy, we couldn't find the "Indianapolis Sports Center". We drove all over downtown, asking everyone we could find. No one had ever heard of the place.

Finally, we find this wino who says to us, "do you mean the rock band that's playing on the tennis courts?" We said, "Huh?" And he goes yeah and points us down the road.

Next thing we know, we're at the home of the US Tennis Open dancing on the clay courts to one of the finest shows I ever had the privilege of witnessing. Without a doubt the best Sailor/Saint I've ever seen, and the second best Deal (best was JGB opening for FZ at UIC). Fucking amazing show! Dust and dirt everywhere as we tore those courts to shreds with all of the dancing.

Amazing memories!

this show was at a tennis center! sickest lost/saint/deal...jgb-style jammy deal! great shakedown/spoonful; trippy, small venue....this summer tour was quite hot!!! indie did in fact rock, especially coming off the heels of spac/mpp...great times...starlight/alpine very, very noteworthy also...such sickness......!

The solo on Deal is the best I've heard from a non-Garcia Band gig!Wonder why I've never heard of it till I stumbled on it here. The whole show seriously rocks too. Amazing energy!

this was my first showw of 300 boy I was trippin, freaks every where it was so much fun $6.00 at the door hells angles every where! i remember this big goofy guy yelling at the top of his lungs "thank god for the grateful dead". boy was he right! I think its the best sailor saint ever. so much energy and bobby yelling "what the fuk exactly wucth u gonna do now"! 300 shows later im still wondering........... hey what do u want its 23yrs old but it still fukin rocks and what about shakedown and stella holy shit i freaked the first time i heard it.........only better shakedown was 10/20/84

helicopter! It's all coming back now... I was deeply tripping, way up looking down into the arena from the back facing the stage on Phil's side, and this THING making a huge noise and flashing a searchlight came right on into the space, I think it was during space or I don't seem to think it was an interuption of anything really important, like Spoonful or Stella Blue (which, by the way, is phenomenal). It doesn't seem to come through on the SBD, I wonder id any AUDs out there may have captured it?

This was the last show I got to of my first ever spring midwest tour, so glad we made it!

A few minor technical imperfections are just a part of the whole gestalt of the shows, the tour, the scene.... while the Dead have many instances of flawless performances on a merely audio level, I don't think it's good to reduce the entire experience to its audio dimension. That said, This show F***ing ROCKS, people! Well worth the download (or stream, as the case may be)

all those chairs on a clay tennis court - and when people started ripping them up and piling them in the middle of the court some locals were a bit taken aback. Perhaps the most memorable was a conversation I had with a middle-aged guy (must be 70 by now) who claimed to be a brain surgeon. When I asked him how he did it, he said he needed a week on tour once or twice a year, ya know, to blow out the cobwebs... The show was a blast - I was a broke tourhead - the only time I've jumped a fence to get in for free - hitchhiked afterward and caught a ride with some freaks that put me up in a cockroach infested motel - but hey, no complaints. All in all it was great to see wide=eyed, unsuspecting locals witness a true scene.

I was at this show. Out of my 100+ shows, I actually remember a good portion of this one which really says something. The venue was really unique. I do not think they were ready for a freak show dance party. I remember all the chairs being folded and piled and the place becoming a dusty dance party as heads grooved on the soft clay courts. I would rate this venue up there with the Frost or the Greek as a really great intimate place to see a show. The show was really trippy. The Shakedown->Jam->Playin->Jam->Terrapin was really warped. This was not whimsical or jazzy dead, this was f'ng weird freaky music. I'll give it four stars but I will say it is one of the more unique shows you will hear.

I sought this one out based on the glowing review it received in the Compendium. 1984 is my favorite year, but this one falls short in my estmation. If you're looking for a representative sample from this period, check out Merriweather, Cedar Rapids, Berkeley, and especially Ventura. Great sound quality though.

This is a great show... HIGH 3 / LOW 4

But not the heater that it is cracked up to be - certainly one of the best 84's but that's not saying alot. Alot of energy great Truckin with nice jam into Spoonful. If you want a truly classic '84 go try Providence. That was a 5.

the novel thing i remember about this show was the venue...downtown indianapolis at this sports complex and the stage was constructed at the center court of this tennis facility. (appropriate since they were playing two sets) The festival seating area was actually the center court with stands on three of the four sides...the second set was blistering hot up to the drums and then it kinda of loses steam. during the drum solo a helicopter flew over the stage and was shining a search light on the crowd...it was freaky. A beautiful summer night and great music though.

It's hard to fully rate this show because the copy offered here at the Archive (not that I'm complaining!) is a partial first set and full second set.

With that said, I agree this is a great example of the intensity of '84 shows. The Saint has some real jaw dropping leads by Garcia and although I like the sailor>saint coupling in the 2d set, this is a stand out version.

The second set is a beast, a real mind bender that will keep you glued to your chair from beginning to end. The Shakedown is well jammed, though JG does flub the lyrics a bit, but the Playin more than makes up for it, taking it all the way out there and back before transitioning into an outstanding Terrapin. On this download the space segment is chopped up, a minor faux pas to this reviewere but nevertheless the sound retains the creepy stylings of '84 space segments. The back end is gravy with a pitb reprise and truckin in addition to peter, gdtrfb and sat. nite. When a single set plus three tracks fill up most of a 2 CD set, you know they were playing their ASSES off that night. The day job encore is a throw away in my opinion, but after getting a second set like this one, I'm willing to look past it.

The sound guality is very good, the show is well played, another sparkler from 1984.

RECOMMENDED

One of my favorite shows of the 80's bar none. Read my review in the compendium. Sound quality is superb except Day Job is cut up. Right channel is almost entirely missing in action during the Shakedown. Bummer! My copy has either been normalized or turned into mono source for the Shakedown. I think this is the reason that the first set songs are missing.
Download it and play it for anybody who says that 1984 was a bad year