Recording: I'm not sure which recording I like better, this one, or the one from Krahmer. Both provide different vantage points but tell the same story.

This was the 3rd show on our tour. Alpine Valley was a famous venue and I had many Grateful Dead tapes from them playing here, so I was quite enthralled. We arrived a day early and found a hotel.

One of my riders, Tennessee Jed, was a semi lucrative businessman selling psychedelic substances and made some transactions with some dudes next to our hotel room. He literally was sweating from nerves because he thought he was being setup when they offered to buy 10 sheets from him. But, being a businessman, he wanted that cash and sold. Thankfully, they weren't the feds, all was well & good.

We went to the venue that day to scope out our plan of attack and to visit since the H.O.R.D.E. festival was happening. We worked the lots, much less livelier than the Furthur Fest, but all was good. We all scored free tickets, so that was interesting.

Blues Traveler wasn't my thing, but it was an interesting rock show with lots of interesting acts, Ben Harper, Mighty Bosstones, and it was free. It was a wildly different crowd than the Grateful Dead crowd.

After a decent day, we got a good night's rest and worked Alpine from morning until showtime. I never realized how big and how many lots there were. I was sunbaked and my feet were shredded from walking all day, and honestly, I was so focused on working I didn't really eat or drink much.

The last few shows I had been watching the Rusted Root & Hot Tuna openers and realized the Rusted Root show was basically the same every night. This was pretty much the last show I watched the openers.

Also, every show on tour there was a Camel tent in the lot, and you could sign up and get a free pack of a new style of cigarettes. They obviously didn't plan on tour rats going to every show and grabbing free smokes every day, but yeah, that's what I did.

After a super long day in the hot sun walking the lots to & fro with barely any food or liquids, I found someone in the lot giving free massages, and boy, I almost melt on that table. There were 4 of crammed in that small car on tour and when I wasn't walking the lots, I was sitting in a car, and my muscles ached.

After the massage, I headed into the venue with a lawn ticket. It was steeper than I imagined it would be. It was a crowded show also, and energy was high. As I wondered what they would play, Phil busted out the Dark Star bass line and I overwhelmed with the moment. I was basically in a really crappy boring and confused life moment back home in Ohio and when I took some risk and followed the Grateful Dead (working hard for it mind you) I was suddenly surrounded by like minded folks hearing fresh amazing music that transcended time and space. It was amazing.

Every tune brought it. The whole show, start to finish, was awesome. I was unfamiliar with Easy Answers and Bruce's tunes, but it didn't matter.

Also: Drums>Space>Dark star jam>Preacher in the Ring> Box of Rain>Dark Star>St. Stephen>The Eleven>Lovelight, Saturday night? WOW.

If you were a deadhead in 1998, this was amazing. Ratdog didn't even really have a lead guitarist up to this point. Phil hadn't been playing. This was amazing.

We all met up back at the car after the show and started driving to Columbus, Ohio, which felt like my home area. Per usual, we were pretty miserly tour rats so we drove every night and stopped for a nap at rest areas.

This was the best night on Other Ones tour so far that I had experienced.

because there is a nice taper's section version on the site. However I thought that it was worth having available a different take on the show.

Prior to getting my ticket, I decided that I would bring my mics, stand and deck in the taper's section if I got lawn seats. I ended up receiving a ticket in the covered area, about a third way back from the stage. "Why not try doing a stealth F.O.B. recording?" I asked myself. So I brought my D-8 and cardioid stealth mics.

I got to my seat well before the music started. I explained what I was going to do to the people around me and told them to not worry about being quiet during the show. I also handed out cassette tapes from the previous year's Furthur Festival along with my e-mail so they could get a copy of the show.

I clipped the small, eraser-sized mics and plugged them into the D-8 that i kept in my light jacket.

Everything was fine until just after the Hot Tuna set. The three young men next to me stubbed down two of their friends, so there were five very large, and somewhat drunk men squeezed into three seats.

During The Other Ones set, the man next to me kept yelling at me to move down. Unfortunately the people next to me were an very nice, older, frail couple who were already being squeezed by the people who stubbed down on the couple's other side. So I didn't "squeeze down" as he kept demanding.

His friends eventually told the man to leave me alone as I was recording the show and they were going to get a copy.

It didn't stop him. He started clapping his hands and chatting "bootlegger's suck!" from time to time during the later part of the set. As Lovelight ended he finally left the seating area.

Well, it turned out he left to tell an usher that a "bootlegger" was recording the show. You can hear my argument with the usher between Lovelight and into OMSN. She asked for the tape, so I gave her one of the blanks that all tapers always carry. When she asked for the "other tape" as well, I immediately and quickly left the seating area and lost myself among the teeming, dancing crowd on the lawn.

After OMSN ended I loaded another blank tape into the deck and hid the recorded tapes on my person. (Don't ask!) I switched my reversible jacket to different color and make my way through the exit unchallenged.

This is one of my last stealth recordings. I am little too old for this shit...

PS- I never heard from them about getting a copy of the show.