This week we'll be hitting some excellent summer Dead spanning the Grateful Dead's recorded history over the course of 19 years, 1970-1989.

Our first piece of music is something we played a little while back here, but due to popular demand, and because it's so darn good, we thought we'd play it again this week. From the Grateful Dead's famous trip across Canada, the Festival Express, as it was known, we have the show-closer from Winnipeg on 7/1/70, Lovelight. Pigpen is in fine form on this rendition, with a bit of raunchy bite that was common of Lovelights of the era. Wait until you hear the Lovelight in a couple of weeks here…

Next up, from exactly three years later, on 7/1/73 at Universal Amphitheatre in Universal City, California, we have the exquisite second set jam from that evening, featuring Truckin>Drums>The Other One>Wharf Rat>Me and Bobby McGee.This show capped the Grateful Dead's west coast swing in the summer of 1973, a run that featured shows in Vancouver, Portland, Seattle and three shows in Universal City. The summer of 1973 lacked a major tour by the Grateful Dead, but instead featured several massive events such as the two night stand at RFK Stadium with the Allmans and the Watkins Glen show (and soundcheck). Regardless of the fact that there was no big tour that summer, many of the shows they DID play were excellent.

We'll now jump forward fourteen years to the summer of 1987, to the Grateful Dead's wonderful show at Canada's Wonderland north of Toronto on 6/30/87. This show was very solid start-to-finish, and we're very pleased to play the second set's opening, Scarlet Begonias>Fire on the Mountain, Estimated Prophet>Eyes of the World. Evidently, Dan Healy was having a blast at the mixing board. A few things to listen for are the intro to Fire in which all instruments in the mix are seemingly muted aside from the bass, and you can really hear the crowd's reaction to that insane amount of Phil coming through the PA; also, this is some of the wackiest Weir vocally manipulation of the era during Estimated.

Finally this week, we'll play a selection from the magnificent 7/4/89 show in Buffalo, NY, which has been released, of course, asTruckin' Up To Buffalo on DVD. Today we'll play that awesomely powerful Morning Dew from toward the end of the second set. Mixed by Jeffrey Norman and mastered in HDCD (for the CD release of the video), it sounds incredible.

Be sure to check in next week for more great summer Dead. We'll look forward to seeing you and hearing your comments.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net