Welcome back to the Tapers’ Section, where this week we have music from 1970, 1978 and 1989, three great, and very different, years in Grateful Dead history.
Our first selection this week is the start of the show from 2/8/70, the final night of a four night run at the Fillmore West: Smokestack Lightnin' ; Morning Dew ; Dire Wolf ; Me And My Uncle, Sittin' On Top Of The World ; China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider. Just a few days later, on 2/13 and 2/14, the Dead would play what are widely considered two of their finest shows ever.
Next is music from 2/1/78 in Chicago, where we have the end of the show, featuring Space>Other One>Wharf Rat>Sugar Magnolia. This is the final night of a three night run in Chicago, as part of a short and excellent six show Midwest tour that ran 1/30 to 2/5/78.
From 11 years later, we’ve got the entire first set from the middle night of the last-ever Kaiser run in Oakland, on 2/6/89. I was fortunate to attend these shows, and recall technical issues lasted quite a while at the start of this show, so the band just kicked into Not Fade Away to get things rolling: Beer Barrell Polka > Not Fade Away ; Sugaree > Wang Dang Doodle ; Jack-A-Roe ; Queen Jane Approximately ; Brown Eyed Women ; Cassidy ; Tennessee Jed.
Be sure to join us here next week for more tunes from the vault.
David Lemieux
vault@dead.net