Wilkes Barre, PA - Set 1

This venue is the smallest arena on the tour, at less than 10,000 seats, and they opened the show with a tune that is mostly associated with another small venue tour, Europe ’72, breaking into the Pigpen classic Mr. Charlie as the show opener. Warren on vocals. A big thanks to DR and JM on the road for the frequent reports from out there. Next are a couple of Garcia-Hunter tunes that have this show spanning 20 years in its first three tunes, with Stagger Lee from 1978 and Liberty from 1993. Once again, it’s amazing the depth of tunes from which the band is drawing on this tour. Evidently, they’ve been doing their homework. They follow this with another Garcia-Hunter song, this one from 1970, Candyman. I’m really enjoying watching the years they are hopping around in selecting their songs. We called Sunday a 1968-ish show, and last night in Buffalo was a 1973-ish show, but tonight is all over the place, which is equally cool. They follow this with Me and My Uncle, the most-played Grateful Dead song. With the exception of 1976, this tune was part of every era of Grateful Dead music. Next is another mighty fine Garcia-Hunter song, Built To Last, jumping through time again to 1989. Well, ok, the debut was in October, 1988, but the song is mostly associated with the album of the same title that came out on 10/31/89; of the 18 times this song was played, 16 were in 1989, with one each in 1988 and 1990. As a journalist friend commented earlier tonight, they really are playing everything. Back to 1971-1972 with Tennessee Jed, yet another Garcia-Hunter tune. In continuing this trend in Wilkes Barre, along comes Dire Wolf. This is quite a run of songs, and considering we’re on show #8 and they have just done a batch of first cabin songs that have not been played on this tour before tonight. Cool!

Set 2

They just keep pulling rabbits out of their hat, opening the second set with The Golden Road, the band’s first song on their first album, and what a great song it is! This is the song that hooked me around May, 1984. Thanks Jason! Next is Revolution, always a great song when the Grateful Dead played it. Next was a huge surprise, Weather Report Suite Part 1, a surprise because they’d just played Let It Grow on Sunday in Worcester. But then came another surprise, no Let It Grow! I didn’t see that coming, as the Grateful Dead had never played WRS Part 1 without Let It Grow. And after this, they went into the all-time-best Grateful Dead party song, Iko Iko. Hey now! This segued into Rhythm Devils, always fun on this tour, with Mickey and Bill playing some inspired duets. Then comes Space, which then flows into the tour’s second Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks). Hey, if this is the type of song they want to repeat, be my guest. They follow this with another late-era Grateful Dead song, So Many Roads, often a highlight of GD shows in the last three years of their concerts, 1993-1995. Then comes Midnight Hour, a song I always think of fondly as it was the first live Grateful Dead song I saw them perform. There’s been a heck of variety tonight, with a solid mixture of 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s Grateful Dead. And to cap it all with a Box of Rain encore just seems so perfect. By all accounts, a great night of music.

Thanks again to David Raffarin and JM for all of the reports from the field.

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