That solo in the stella Blue screams. We made it, from alpine, our first such adventure, but we made it, they left for akron, I went home. Was only 17 so it was far for us back then. High school was finally over. Thank god. The lot seemed ok, hear its not ok/safe now/anymore, there at Alpine valley.

This is the worst band that ever was. I was so happy the day this slimy junkie died for the last time.

Loser>Cassidy are stellar. This needs to be played way louder than where I am right now.
I'm gonna save it till I get home. It's a new favorite.

...You would never know anything was wrong from his playing! I probably listen to 1986 less than any other year, gotta fix that........

My first show was Riverbend '85, a year before this one. In '85, I was 15 years old so most of that show I was almost completely occupied with walking around and watching all the heads spinning around. This show was different, I was 16 and attended the show with my first serious girlfriend, she was a beautiful hippie girl and I was totally in love with her. Our seats were pretty close to the stage so we had a great view and this time I was really into the music. It was a great time that I'll never forget. I can still picture the parking lot, the look of the stage, the swirling sounds during Drums/Space, and the look of my girlfriend's beautiful long brown hair and skirt flowing with the music as she danced beside me. Being able to hear the show again 30 years later is an amazing treat :-).

We did this whole tour with two small children. We where the first ones in the parking lot. As we met D/Heads arriving we told them I was going to take my first born 2YR old ( Cassidy ) into the show. We later found out from friends close to THE DEAD they played his song for him. Most of the day we spent in the water park with the kids. In the late afternoon we hung out in the parking lot waiting for the show. Someone in the parking lot had one of those bad ass gas powered R/C cars. I saw the car hauling ass around the lot. Well it comes down the roadway between the rows of cars parked, and there are three cops walking. The car comes to a stop about 10 FT. from the cops. One cop takes a step towards the R/C car, and the car moves back about a yard. He takes another step and the car moves back another yard. He takes out his night stick and starts to run after this car, but the R/C car was to fast for him. It would turn on a dime and haul ass under parked cars. After it lost the cop, it would come around the row of cars for more fun with the cops. The cop looked like one of the Stooges chasing after this R/C car, it was so funny. The cop had a smile on his face the whole time, so I think he enjoyed it too. After the show the cops said, (shows over get in your cars and leave ) I told them that I thought someone had slipped me something and I didn't think it was safe for me to drive. The cop told me to drive it of the lot or it would be towed. After driving on the interstate at 10MPH for about a half hour we came to a rest area . The cops already had a few rolled cars on the interstate, so they said we could camp there till morning. What a long strange trip its been.

DNA

Not sure what the big hassle is against Weir. Saw the boys many times - not this show. Weir was energetic - tried too much sometimes - possibly a bit dramatic. But I feel his presence during '84-'86 was pivotal in keeping the shows more vibrant, given what we would find out was going on w/ Jerry.

As for leaving the blues to black people - I think the response already given hits the nail on the head.

How about Bertha>Women and reversing Smokestack and He's Gone? Pretty cool.

I always thought Weir handled Spoonful Smokestack and Bottom>Ain'tSuperstitious well in execution and delivery.

The show is definitely a step above anything after the Berkeley Shows. And I would put it (just this one) in the same category some of the shows from '85.(I said "some").
Given its standout - I give this one 4 and 1/2 for the year and 4 overall.

Yeah, that confirms the quality of this one. Every note of the 2nd set is like an old friend. Hearing from them again is like, "Oooooh yeah I remember."

Short but really solid 1st set. You could watch the boats on the river behind the stage. I swear you could see the raindrops on the surface from the lawn! Pretty cool. It was just a warm up for the 2nd set though. Somehow the song selection does not at all reveal the tightness, the blazing they did & brilliant work by Garcia. Bertha for the rain. The Women is really fantastic, which sounds weird but it's true. Smokestack could easily be the best version ever. Brent really shines the whole time and his tones fit perfectly with the acoustics of the place. He's gone is sweet and has a killer jam at the end & goes into a drums that really matches up with the raindrops somehow in a jam that is unlike any other drums I've ever heard. They basically give up on the actual drum kits after about 2 minutes & go to sticks, talking drum & something else that sounds like Brent. The space that follows is epic. I am not that into D/S, but when it is good like this you gotta love it ripping your face off. I guess it had to go into Miracle in a release of all the twisted energy they built up. The little sarcastic noodles right before it are perfect. Note the difference in crowd noise after that space. I think everyone was on the ground! Sweet Stella with some soaring Jer slide work & a Good Lovin' to bring you back from outer space before you hit the road. Best Quinn they ever did to tie a bow on it. Everybody's gonna want a...

My GF & now wife (it all rolls into one) was from Cinti, so we got ourselves some of those prism glasses and spent a good part of the night after the show on the roof of a mall looking out over all the endless suburban lights with some of her buddies.

Those who say that the scene sucked when it got big must have missed some of the shows I saw b/c I thought it was pretty cool when that BMF locomotive would roll into towns across the US. Safety in numbers & all. There is some really good stuff buried in '86. You just gotta pokaround.

i had just turned 16 on may 9th, and i think i passed my license test on june 9th, so this was my first road trip. at that point i only had the skeletons from the closet tape i got out of a close-out box for cheap. i had no idea what to expect. the parking lot was huge and in the middle it was like being in another country, some people felt comfortable enough to walk around naked which is what i heard was the reason cincinnati decided to not have us back. i remember there were a lot of older heads, hippies and bikers, than there were as the '90's came on. it was very chill in comparison to later shows. i was so taken in by the whole scene i barely stopped to watch the band. the mellow music flowed all around. i was taken by the spinners who were distributed throughout the lawn in small groups. the light rain fell and i was transfixed by a beautiful spinner girl and the beads of water spiraling off her skirt. i didn't know how to act or what to think, i just flowed with it, running around like a kid in a candy store. i was hooked... i ended my show-going daze when jerry passed on in '95. a bunch of us were living in a house a friend of ours was watching in issaquah, washington. six of us piled into a rental car and shift-drove the 800 miles to san fran. we just knew there would be something in the park, and we were right. it was a nice tribute, and a fine goodbye. a long strange trip...

can't believe i didn't hear it before tonight! yeah baby ;)

i remember the drought that year. YIKES! still my review is bias. just graduated HS. first stop for me on my way back east. stopped @ rainbow gathering in the allegany forest on way to buffalo july4th missed first set but rainbow was great. more wood fire higher!

I didn't remember this show as a standout at the time, hearing it now I suppose it's certainly competant and a cut above the others of that tour, seemed like they weren't taking the chances they used to. We did this tour because we thought it might be the last time we'd see Jerry alive, "Trouble ahead, Jerry's in red".
We bought some really bad KFC on the Kentucky(!!) side of the river before the show, maybe it put a damper on the evening for me.
The venue was called the J. Ralph Corbett Pavillion if I remember correctly.

While I agree that on more than on one occasion Weir butchered the blues (particularly anything that entailed slide guitar), this generalization is off. I assume that you also are referring to white boys like Pigpen??? Good thing no one ever said this to Hendrix about rock and roll. I would also add that hearing these songs at Dead show led me to track down the original versions and opened up a genre to me that I otherwise might have missed as both a listener and musician.

Otherwise, I concur concerning the show, which was the best of this tour. It also was a fun scene, with an amusement park and the Ohio River adjacent to the arena. I also remember the steamboat gliding down the river in back of the band for Ship Of Fools.

The only bummer for me was that my friend had his pack and the tie dyes he was selling stolen, along with his shoes. However, we chipped in and gave him some of dyes to sell, and fortunately we wore the same size of shoes. For me it was yet another sign that the tour experience was diminishing in quality as a less ethical crowd of folks became increasingly prevalent.

BTW, the gd1986-06-30.mk4.miller.87521.sbeok.flac16 source is better, which is no wonder, as the Oade>PCM rig was the best available at the time.

Great show apart from that track
leave the blues to black people please

apart from that great gig - good sound
weir was doing great then too - he managed 6 different guitar chords
2 less than Michael Phelps but its a start

I remember watching these two people that worked at the Riverbend. They were REALLY out of place with all these street hippies dancing around with big eyeballs. What a job for some straight 18 yr old collage kid trying to keep people in line.
Anyway I loved the Smokestack and remember the lights all shining down center stage on Weir. Very cool effect. This was the best of the three shows that I saw that summer.

The one thing I'll always remember about this show was the river boat that went by behind the stage during ship of fools. It was one of those moments that was special not only at a Dead show, but also in life. Was a really hot day and sprinkled during the show enough to where I had to put some bags over my mics...still came out pretty good though. This is a nice aud recording.

this show had the flavor of something more energetic and fun, and less like jerry was keeling over or just rushed and anxious to get off stage and pee. this and roanoke were the only shows where i felt like i was in the deep south. hampton was not as "deep" in as those.

the recording is very good.
3.5 for the show, a little over 4 for the sound.

I did about 1/2 of this summer tour. This was one of the few shows without Dylan and Petty. Riverbend was a very small venue- with nice acoustics- and the Dead put on a really big show. Great sets with most songs played very well. This, by far, was my favorite show of the shows I saw that summer. Highly recommended!

Well oiled machine. Jerry and Bob having that fluid delicate inter play. Phil sounds 'dark' percussion has african and bongo like touches.Keyboards are reverbed and distant.Running on all cylinders. I always loved this show. All beefed up after Alpine. enjoy. and turn it up very loud. 5 for performance 4 for an audience.

I liked the 85 shows better but this one is still a keeper. Awsome feel like a stranger to open.

Unfortunatley, this was the last time Cincinnati saw the Grateful Dead till 1989(and that was THE LAST of the Gdead for Cincy), and the LAST time they played this venue until Furthur Festival 1997! I dont know why Cincinnai is so anti-Gdead. This show is definitely a keeper, like the previous post, it's not a long mind bending show, but just a groovy kick ass show. very upbeat!!! I love the hometown shows!!!

show: 4 stars
quality: 3.5 stars

darkstr56
#the darkest star of all#

I was 15 and got tickets from WEBN and got stoned for the first time. Strait from Catholic school lifer to much crazynes. I bought my first ti-die, the parents loved that. Saw most Deer Creek and Buckie Lake from here - I remeber 18 years later this show more than most. Thanks so much for the copy.

Well, obviously, I'm stoked to finally get my hands on my first show....I actually didn't remember much of the music of the show at all...just the happy vibe. I almost didn't go; I had barely heard of the Dead...my friends called me to bum some weed and invited me....but I was short on cash....but my Mom said, "go ahead, you'll have more fun than sitting at home!". Thanks Mom! 20 + shows later, I can say she was definitely right on!!!

Upon listening to this show, I would have to say it's in the top 4 or 5 shows that I ever saw. An excellent audience recording! Can't hear a whole lot of Phil...but Bobby and Jerry's vocals are outstanding, and Jerry's playing is consistent throughout this show. Not a long show...and not a mind-blower, just a groovy, singin- and-dancin'good time. Considering the trek from Alpine Valley the night before, an excellent performance by the whole band!!! Highlights, IMO: FOTD, Big River, Bertha, Women R Smarter, Ship of Fools, excellent Good Lovin/Mighty Quinn closer!

Yep, this was a good show alright! Good night for Jerry songs like Devil, Loser, Ship of Fools, He's gone etc... He was really smokin'. So was the whole band! Bobby was running around the stage...The Cassidy and Good Lovin' are also great! Good sound too! A must for '86!

this is a great show. great recording.