Welcome back to the Tapers' Section, where we examine the Grateful Dead's recorded history. This week we have music from 1968 and some excellent June, 1990 Grateful Dead.

First stop this week is at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, where the Grateful Dead were playing a three night run. From the middle night, 8/21/68, we have the Pigpen show closing sequence of Lovelight, Midnight Hour. You may be familiar with the 8/24/68 show in LA, Two From The Vault, which took place just a few days later.

Speaking of LA, from the first night on 8/23/68, we have one of the strongest jams of a great jamming year, Alligator>Caution>Feedback. Just a big old bolt of electricity. There isn't a lot of 1968 material in the vault, but what is there is stellar for the most.

We're now going to step a little bit outside of our date-specific focus here at the Tapers' Section, going back to the excellent Cal Expo shows in June of 1990. From the first night, on 6/8/90, we have this kickass (can we say that here?) sequence from the second set, Uncle John's Band>China>Rider, Estimated>Foolish Heart. Very unique, with the Uncle John's into China>Rider, and the Estimated>Foolish wasn't all that common a combination.

From the same run of shows, from the third night on 6/10/90, we have another magnificent pre-Drums sequence of Box of Rain>Eyes>Playing>Crazy Fingers>Playing. They were on fire in June of 1990!

Stop by next week as we close out August with music from 1969, 1972 and 1980. Feel free to write to the email address below with questions and comments.

david lemieux
vault@dead.net