As I mentioned in another review how the third times a charm...this was my third show, and after this one I moved to the back of "the bus" where I've only occasionally gotten off just to stretch my legs. It cracks me up now to think I wasn't familiar with half these songs at the time, or didn't realize how regularly they did, say , the other one, and remember whilst they played it that it seemed Jerry was late on his vocal, as if he'd forgotten where he came in while looking at Weir, thus my thinking how cool they'd pulled this one out of the chest, while not realizing how infrequently they performed To Lay Me Down and Casey Jones during the 80's. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, sometimes not. Ah, we're all newbies at one time, fortunately I was at this point in their history.
What strikes me about this show is that they continue a trend throughout this tour: solid playing and song selections. Jerry had just turned 40, and he's on fire. His singing is strong overall, and the band in general is right there with him . '82 was the last year they'd do Mississippi Half Step until '85, and the last that they'd follow it with Franklin's. Some of the other segues here seem kind of unusual (Althea>Cassidy>Big RR snd Samson>Shakedown).
Right now I'm listening to Big RR, and am pleasantly surprised how well I can here Bobby's guitar during Jerry's solo. I'll never forget looking around the Starlight during Shakedown and everybody was boogie'n. One more note on this show, which I love to recall, is this place holds about 8,000, and we bought tickets at the box office around 5
p.m. that day. Seems like a long, long time ago, considering.
As I look over the set list it strikes me how many genres of music are represented, which of course the Dead are renowned for, but check it out: blues (Big RR, Stella, He's Gone) gospel (Samson), country/western (El Paso, Cumberland), folk (Peggy O, Casey Jones) calypso (Man Smart), r&b or dare I say disco (Shakedown) and the signature Dead, defying category (Franklin's, Might as Well, Sugar Mag). It's all here folks, you've spent too much time reading this when you should have been downloading it!
Thank you so much Jonathan Aizen and
Archive.org.
My tape of this show isn't so much to listen to anymore, and it brings back fond memories.