PREMIER INDOOR VENUE, BAR NONE! Thats the way it should be - baroque, oppulent, service, GREAT STEEP SEATING, NIGHT SKY CEILING. The Boys LOVED playing there. FUN FUN FUN.SMIESMILESMILE. I DO MISS DEM DAZE.

ballin-the-jack is right: This Esau smokes! It's one of my fave Dead numbers, and this version is great, with some wonderful space echo on Bobby's vocals. Also, if you're looking for Set 2, it can be found here:

http://www.archive.org/details/gd1985-10-28.sbd.miller.77370.sbeok.flac16

smokin'set. whats up with 2?

Weir ponders how many people were watching TV the night prior to this show. The reference is to the Royals winning the World Series against the Cardinals in the I-70 Missouri Series of '85, something we St. Louis fans would just as soon forget (the Cardinals finally came back in '06 and tamed the Tigers in five games-first Series title since '82, and so much sweeter for us than the sweep in '04 courtesy of the Red Sox; I know you Beantown Heads had been waiting a long, strange time for that one, but that still didn't make it any easier on us). I'm going to assume that Bobby was just tipping his hat to a current event, as opposed to having had any big money on the Royals, but who knows? The fact is, though, musically speaking, this is a really good example of how, as much as anything, the Grateful Dead had a very fluent knowledge of the standards in a number of different styles, particularly blues, which gave them that rare ability among "mainstream" acts (if you will forgive me for pigeonholing them as such) to pull something out of their sleeve that was not at all part of their regular repertoire and do it with great flair and finesse. He overpowers the microphone a bit, but the sound quality of this recording is almost pristine.

It's like Bruce Dickinson was preachin' on to the Rhythm Devils right before Esau! "I got a fever, and the only prescription is MORE COWBELL!" You want, you got it Bruce, as the Devils are happy to oblige. Blue Oyster Cult would have been proud. This has got to be the sweetest Esau EVER, with Bobby Rock Star slip slidin' away on his axe. I can't believe they didn't retire this tune, this is easily second set material. This Esau definitely has the "dynamite sound".

This was only my second Dead show, and it still ranks as one of my favorites. The band was really on (they really loved Atlanta), and there is no place like the Fox Theatre to see any band, much less the Dead. As the second set began people had broken open glow-sticks and sprayed the crowd with neon green dots. The transition in Scarlet>Touch is increadible. At the change from "I will survive" to "We will survive" a banner as high and wide as the stage featuring the Twenty Years So Far minuteman unfurled behind the band. It still gives me goosebumps when I hear the crowd go wild on the tape. I highly recommend this show.