Grateful Dead

Welcome back to the Tapers' Section, where this week we have music spanning 11 later years in the Grateful Dead's history, 1982-1993.

We'll start things out with music from the Spring Tour of 1982, which featured plenty of great playing (plus Bob and Jerry's first appearance on Letterman). From Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, NY on 4/11/82, we have the start of the second set featuring Bertha>Samson and Delilah, Never Trust A Woman, He's Gone>Truckin'.

From the Spring Tour of 1988 we now have the entire first set of 4/3/88, the first of a three night run in Hartford, CT. Jerry lost his voice at this show, with the signs of this appearing early in the show, and by the end of the show, during Black Peter, his voice was totally shot. It seems appropriate that they opened the show with two Bob songs: Promised Land>Greatest Story Ever Told, Althea, Little Red Rooster, Cold Rain and Snow, Stuck Inside Of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again, Box Of Rain, Don't Ease Me In.

From five years later, on 3/27/93 in Albany, NY, the first night of a three night run the Knickerbocker Arena, we have the start of the second set featuring Eyes Of The World>Estimated Prophet>Comes A Time>Corrina. It was in Albany on 3/25/90 that the Grateful Dead returned to the slower, more-1974-esque versions of Eyes Of The World, so it felt good when they played it in this arrangement again on their return three years later. Comes A Time had also become rare by the early/mid-1990s, so this was a real treat as well. I attended these shows and saw several songs that I'd only hear the Dead play once in concert (Comes A Time, Casey Jones, Here Comes Sunshine, Eternity).

Be sure to join us here next week for more tunes from the vault.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net