40 years ago tonight, the #gratefuldead’s 1st show at the brendan byrne arena in #newjersey's meadowlands complex, with #StephenStills popping up muppet-like for a guest appearance. spring ’83, show #12.
soundboard, with extra weir: https://archive.org/details/gd83-04-16.sbd.miller.28294.sbeok.flacf
steve rolfe audience tape: https://archive.org/details/gd83-04-16.rolfe.weiner.7316.sbeok.shnf [1/5]
4/16/83 east rutherford: complete-feeling 1st set. 10-minute BIRD SONG has lots of twining bass that plays off garcia, arriving at great place before final climb, but also GS-1-ified, keyboards disappearing into the muck except at their most piercing. set closes with nice block where 4 of the 5 last songs are new & unrecorded, including weir’s increasingly confident MY BROTHER ESAU, mydland’s blustery MAYBE YOU KNOW, & garcia’s WEST LA FADEAWAY & hyper-speed set-closing TOUCH OF GREY. [2/5]
45-minute UNCLE JOHN’S BAND > TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > SPACE > BLACK QUEEN > IKO IKO. weir repeating “what a long strange trip it’s been” over TRUCKIN’ outro. stephen stills blows out for BLACK QUEEN, written for the dead & played once with them in 12/69. uh, high energy. stills takes well-emoted verse in IKO, mostly syllable-salad but a few words in there, too. IKO is way more appealing/ridiculous to me with lesh’s absurdist 6-string. [3/5]
after stills departs, garcia signals band into THE OTHER ONE, weir singing LITTLE STAR on top of the groove. not quite a song, not quite a rap, probably most accurately, 19-minute LITTLE STAR/THE OTHER ONE > THE OTHER ONE > BLACK PETER > ONE MORE SATURDAY MIGHT. doesn’t go far or long, but OTHER ONE conversation feels real for a flash. stills returns midway through BLACK PETER, adding appropriately scuzzed blooze-weave. [4/5]
@bourgwick Bob Star! Let’s keep our nomenclature straight.
@adamopp label your tapes however you'd like, i'm going with the official title.