This was my first of about 30 shows at age 17 after 4 years of my friends and their older siblings talking up the band and playing tapes for me, and looking back in my opinion is the second best show I ever saw after the fall '89 Bobby's birthday show at the Meadowlands show where they played Dark Star for the first time as the Grateful Dead since that Berkley encore (I know they played it at Hampton earlier as the California All-Stars or whatever they called themselves to get around the Hampton ban on the GD). Jerry was on fire back from his health issues, Bobby was in his 80's rock star front man prime for his tines, and I think Brent (whom I think was amazing despite what some say) was at his peak - loved Tons of Steel and Dear Mr. Fantasy. After hearing Dylan all my life from my father, I was blown away by their version of Desolation Row. To this day, the Dylan songs with Bobby singing are high on my list because I grew up with Dylan, love what Bobby put into the perfomance, and you get to hear hear Jerry soloing over the top througout. I had heard tapes of the Good Lovin=>La Bambas from each of the earlier northeast stops on that fall tour and thought it was kind of cheesy given the current pop buzz about the Ritchey Valens movie that was out at the time. Once they started with Good Lovin the anticipation for La Bamba started to build in the crowd and I was all in. I will never forget seeing Jerry absolutely putting his entire being into busting out those lyrics in Spanish and the reaction from the crowd. Even after listening to dozens of tapes and having dozens of people explain what the Dead were about, it was not until the solo during La Bamba that I understood that the GD were the ultimate all-American rock band that blended jazz, rock, country, folk, and oldies together like nothing I could have ever imagined. The U.S. Blues encore was really rocking and they have been my favorite band ever since.

Bobby is on fire this show, guitar nice in the mix and super high energy vocals - -check out that Desolation Row, Good Lovin' and several others if you like high energy Weir as I do. The whole band is kicking ass the 2nd set -- great stuff...a four star rating might be a little low; very nice mix vast majority of show.

The Healy mix is great except for the technical difficulties during Stranger. Set 1 is weak on lryics, but Jerry's solos make up for it. Big RR and Music are typical: start off weak, mess up the words, then finish strong after great guitar work.

Set 2 is powerful, and the La Bamba is indeed sweet. Fun to hear Jerry sing the spanish lyrics.

One last comment: the use of arrows to denote musical transitions is abused on this set list. There is no musical transition from Stranger to Franklin's for instance. Not too much time elapses between the two songs, but there is no transition. Same goes for Bertha and Cumberland, and Cumberland to Playin. There are breaks between these songs, and I wish people wouldn't use arrows where they don't belong. It's misleading and inaccurate.

Two of the greatest Mexican-Americans. God Bless!! The movie came out July 24, 1987. Sweet!