Tag Archives: Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead, Music et al

Grateful Dead Play MSG

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Grateful Dead Play MSGGrateful Dead Play MSG

The Grateful Dead played 2,318 shows.

On January 7, 1979 they played the first of the 52 shows they’d perform at New York City’s fabled Madison Square Garden. (The Dead also played 5 shows at Madison Square Garden’s Felt Forum)

They played more often at only two other venues: Winterland, (60 times) and the Oakland-Alameda County Arena (66 x)

Grateful Dead Play MSG
ticket stub from the first Dead show at Madison Square Garden

The first Garden show was rescheduled from November 30, 1978 and thanks to the ever vigilant Deadheads, we know the set list:

One Jack Straw [6:08] ; They Love Each Other [7:48] ; Cassidy [5:00] ; Jack-A-Roe [5:16] ; Looks Like Rain [7:57] ; Tennessee Jed [8:27] ; El Paso [4:19]; Stagger Lee [6:42] ; Passenger [5:07]
Two I Need A Miracle [7:03] > Shakedown Street [10:00] ; From The Heart Of Me [3:42] ; Estimated Prophet [10:38] > Eyes Of The World [9:42] > Drums [4:55] > Space [4:11] > Not Fade Away [13:09] > Black Peter [11:34] > Around And Around [6:03]
Encore Good Lovin’ [7:37]
Grateful Dead Play MSG

Recorded

And like pretty much every Dead show, fans were there to tape it. Bob Wagner’s (transferred by the legendary Charlie Miller) is a great audience recording which the amazing Internet Archive has for you to listen to: AUD of show

AUDs sometimes have their clicks and gaps, but they can can be more fun to listen to than a soundboard recording because, if well done, you are right there with band’s sound.

Grateful Dead Play MSG

Madison Square Garden

The Dead also played the Garden the next night, a common occurrence.  And only Good Lovin’ was repeated. Another common feature of the ever-changing Dead setlists.

Grateful Dead Play MSG
ticket stub for January 8, 1979 Madison Square Garden

Set list? Of course.

One Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo [9:37] > Franklin’s Tower [9:56] ; New Minglewood Blues [5:04] ; Candyman [7:07] ; Me And My Uncle [2:56] > Big River [5:28] ; Friend Of The Devil [10:02] ; It’s All Over Now [8:19] ; Brown Eyed Women [5:09] ; Lazy Lightnin’ [3:34] > Supplication [7:43]
Two Scarlet Begonias [11:43] > Fire On The Mountain [10:16] ; Samson And Delilah [7:09] ; Terrapin Station [12:18] > Playing In The Band [13:25] > Drums > The Other One [8:23] > Wharf Rat [10:52] > Good Lovin’ [6:27]
Encore U.S. Blues [5:31]

Bob Wagner was there again. Charlie Miller has transferred it, again. click >>> January 8 Dead AUD

Grateful Dead Play MSG

Here’s a link to the entire list of MSG Dead shows. How many did you attend?

Grateful Dead Play MSG
Anniversary, Music et al, Music of the 60s

January 4 Music et al

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January 4 Music et al

More than psychedelic 

It is a common point in many of my blog entries that music of the 1960s was much more than the psychedelic brume made by Hendrix, the Airplane, the Beatles, the Stones, or the Dead. As with anything, there was much more to it. Today’s date is an easy way to demonstrate both that variety and evolution.

January 4 Music et al

Marty Robbins

On January 4 – 17, 1960, Marty Robbins’s country style “El Paso” was the Billboard #1 single Of course, Deadheads  will recognize the song as one the Dead often often covered–396 times according to the excellent Deadlists dot com site.

Oddly, El Paso was the first of three #1 songs in a row in which someone died. The other two were Johnny Preston’s Running Bear and Mark Dinning’s Teen Angel.

January 4 Music et al

South Pacific & the Kingston Trio

For most listeners, 1960 was pre-stereo and an interesting aside is at that time Billboard had two #1 album categories: stereo and mono. Not until August 1963 did Billboard have a single list. Home stereo systems were simply not as common…yet. So…

January 4 Music et al

Kingston Trio/South Pacific

January 4 – 10, 1960: the soundtrack to South Pacific was the Billboard #1 stereo album and from January 4 – February 14, 1960: the Kingston Trio’s Here We Go Again mono album was Billboard’s #1.

January 4 Music et al

There! I’ve Said It Again

January 4 Music et al

Four years later on January 4 – 31, 1964, just days before the Beatles arrived and that British avalanche forever changed the US pop landscape, Bobby Vinton’s There! I”ve Said It Again was the #1 single. The Dead didn’t cover Vinton.

January 4 Music et al
The Doors The End

January 4 Music et al

That avalanche covered the US and the world and three years later, on January 4, 1967, The Doors released their first album, The Doors.

Did you first hear AM’s 2:52 version of Light My Fire or, sitting amazed, hear FM’s 7:06 album cut? So many great cuts by a group that few realized named themselves after Aldous Huxley’s 1954 mescaline memoir,  The Doors of Perception.

To ask what was your favorite cut is perhaps a foolish one since the album is the album. One listens to it in total. But when you did get to that last cut on side two, well to use a 21st century acronym, OMG!

January 4 Music et al
Lyrics

A November 19, 1967 New York Times article began with: The Doors is one pop music group that may make it to the end of this rock generation, which is to say it may last another five years. (click for full article >>> NYT article

Rolling Stone review

January 4 Music et al
Grateful Dead, Music et al

Grateful Dead 30 Days Dead

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Grateful Dead 30 Days Dead

They’re BACK!
Link to 30 Days

Since 2010, the Grateful Dead have given away a file of live music every day in November.

From the Grateful Dead site:

It’s a Dead Head’s most wonderful time of the year! Welcome to another 30 days of unreleased Grateful Dead tracks from the vault, one for every day of the month, selected by archivist and producer David Lemieux. The tracks are yours, 100% free gua-ran-teed, but the real fun is taking part in the challenge for the chance to win some sweet swag from the Dead.

Those of you who know what to do, feel free to skip right on ahead. For those of you who need a refresher, here’s the drill:

You know your Ables from your Bakers from your C’s, but can your finely tuned ears differentiate the cosmic “comeback” tour from a spacey 70s show? Each day we’ll post a song from one of the Dead’s coveted shows. Will it be from that magical night at Madison Square Garden in ’93 or from way back when they were just starting to warm it up at Winterland? Is that Pigpen’s harmonica we hear? Brent on keys? If you think you know, lob your answer in and you just might find yourself taking home our daily prize of a 2025 Grateful Dead wall calendar or the grand prize – a copy of limited, numbered, FRIEND OF THE DEVILS: APRIL ’78 boxed set!

Grateful Dead 30 Days Dead

NOW!

2024’s first download was “Space>Playing Reprise>The Wheel” performed

Each day, if you want, you can enter the contest and guess. Or simply wait for the answer the next day.

Keep in mind that these are high quality live recordings and if you are only familiar with the song’s studio recording, live is where it’s at.   Of course, there will be the seques like a China/Rider or a Candyman/Cassidy or even a Help/Slipknot/Franklin’s Tower.

And even if you are familiar with a live version, remember how songs evolved, left a tour’s setlist for a few years, and came back renewed.

You can’ go wrong. 2023’s 30 downloads yielded  9 hours and 19 minutes  of previously unreleased Dead recordings. That’s right!

And so far (2010 – 2023), the site has given away 473 files which adds up to over 3.7 days of music, nearly 90 hours.

Open up.  November is the month the sun is shining on your back door.

Climb aboard!

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