5-14 ShorelineAmphitheatre

Venue History

Show Recap

Shoreline Amphitheater

venue information

During the Grateful Dead’s performing history, they had several hometown venues. The main ones that come to mind are the Matrix, the Avalon, the Carousel/Fillmore West, the Fillmore Auditorium, Winterland, the Oakland Coliseum Arena, the Oakland Auditorium Arena/Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, and, toward the end of their performing career, Bill Graham’s Shoreline Amphitheatre, where the Grateful Dead performed 39 concerts from 1987 to 1995, including many mighty fine shows. From the first shows there in October, 1987, you could just sense how comfortable the band was at Shoreline.

I’ll run through a few of the highlights, both musical and historical, at Shoreline. In 1987, some of the first set has been included as part of the View From The Vault Vol. 3 DVD, so check that out for some excellent Shoreline footage. That DVD’s main feature is from the magnificent 6/16/90 show at Shoreline, which featured a stunning first set and some terrific, deeeeep jamming in the second set, including a monster China>Rider, and a jam out of Terrapin that goes so far that it goes right into Space, foregoing the usual Rhythm Devils segment for the most part. In 1989, on 9/29/89, the Grateful Dead broke out Death Don’t Have No Mercy for the first time in almost 20 years, and played it with a stunning intensity. Check it out on the So Many Roads boxed set. Bobby, Jerry and Brent each take a verse, and Jerry’s solo is as haunting as any he did on that song in 1969. I get chills just thinking about it. In 1991, the band played two three-night runs of shows at Shoreline, both runs with Bruce as a member of the band, and both with exceptional music at all three shows. In 1995, at the Grateful Dead’s last-ever Bay Area concerts, they invited out some very special guests, the Guyto Monks, to sit in during the second set jam on 6/2/95.

Welcome home, boys!

We'll update this page shortly after the show with the setlist and to recap each performance by The Dead as it relates to the context of the Grateful Dead's history at this venue or city.

Set 1

This is such a bizarre show in that it was scheduled four full days after the previous the show here. Split runs weren’t entirely unheard of for the Grateful Dead, with two shows at the Philadelphia Spectrum in January, 1979 split by a week coming to mind, but they were pretty rare. This second Shoreline show starts out with five pre-1975 songs, always a good sign to these ears. The opening Jack Straw was followed by US Blues, with an appearance by none other than Hippie Bill waving the flag. Way to go Bill!!!! Mason’s Children was a real standout at its first appearance on the tour in Charlottesville (I think…), so it’s nice to see it pop again for its third appearance of the tour. A couple of earliesh Garcia-Hunter tunes in Ship o Fools and Friend of the Devil are followed up by a later era Garcia-Hunter medley of Standing On The Moon-Terrapin-Standing On The Moon. Pretty cool. By all indications, they’re ready to pull out all the stops for the last Bay Area set of the tour.

Set 2

I think I mentioned here that Estimated Prophet to open a second set, although somewhat rare for the Grateful Dead, was always a great opener. This is one of my favourite Weir tunes, so it’s been good to see it appear on this tour. Following this was a classic 1968 sequence of New Potato Caboose and Born Cross-Eyed, two tunes dropped by the Grateful Dead by 1969, so this has been a good tour for this type of song. One song I saw early on in the tour, in Worcester, was Cream Puff War, unfortunately played only that time on the tour. Not only is it a great little song, but it was played really well in its one and only performance in Worcester. I have really come to appreciate the entire alternate chorus of this song (both words and melody) that was included on the Rare Cuts and Oddities 1966 CD a few years ago. Check it out if you haven’t heard that album. Aside from that really cool Cream Puff War, there are 18 or so really good rare cuts. And oddities. From 1966. Dear Mr. Fantasy next has always been a good Shoreline song, as the venue, to me, is always associated with Brent’s era. Yes, they played loads of non-Brent shows 1991-1995, but the GD started playing here in 1987, and it was their outdoor Bay Area home during some very good Brent years. Another cool Rhythm Devils and Space sequence leads into the tour’s second Morning Dew, likely one of the most-desired songs to hear on this tour. Going back to the 1968 well as they’d done earlier in the set, China Cat Sunflower comes out of Dew. I’ve heard a few people seeing shows on this tour say “I hope they play stuff from Anthem and Aoxomoxoa,” and for those of you who were hoping for that type of stuff, this is a good set. Add to that a Dew from the first album in 1967, and you have some dyn-o-mite! (hey, I saw Good Times on TV the other night…) older Grateful Dead stuff. Add to that I Know You Rider, and you have an always-great way to end a set. After the encore on Sunday at the first Shoreline show, a few people were speculating if they’d try to do something extended for this encore, or would they do a more standard one song encore then head north. The former guess won out, with a triptych of great songs, Scarlet>Fire>Deal. Add the last two encores up and you pretty much have an entire set of great songs. Pretty darn cool. Safe travels as you go north…