June 1 - June 7, 2009

Greetings and welcome back to our end-of-the-month, start-of-the-next Tapers’ Section, where this week we’ll play music from 1970, 1974 and 1980.

As we don’t play too much acoustic Grateful Dead here at the Tapers’ Section, owing largely to its dearth in the Grateful Dead’s vault, it’s always a pleasure to bring you some good acoustic music. From 6/4/70, the first night of a four night run at the Fillmore West, we have the opening set consisting of Deep Elem Blues, Candyman, Silver Threads And Golden Needle, Friend Of The Devil, Black Peter, Cumberland Blues, Wake Up Little Susie, Swing Low Sweet Chariot, Uncle John's Band, a classic acoustic Dead set.

Next up, from two nights later at the same venue, we have some tasty electric Grateful Dead from 6/6/70, featuring Dire Wolf>Alligator>Drums>Lovelight>Not Fade Away>Lovelight>Uncle John's Band. It’s interesting to hear this electric Uncle John’s Band compared to the acoustic version from two nights earlier. There were a few songs from the era that the band could effortlessly shift from the acoustic sets to the electric sets and back, including Candyman and Dire Wolf.

From just a bit under 10 years later, in Minneapolis on 5/31/80, we have the second set opening sequence of Feel Like A Stranger, Ship, Lost Sailor>Saint of Circumstance>Jam>Wharf Rat>The Other One. I always love these pre-Drums versions of The Other One, and a pre-Drums Wharf Rat is a major rarity for the era.

Finally this week, to celebrate the anniversary of the theatrical release of The Grateful Dead Movie, which premiered at the Ziegfeld Theatre in New York on June 1, 1977, we have this majestic version of Playing In The Band from the Movie, recorded live on 10/16/74 at Winterland. This is the complete half hour version of the song.

We’ll see you next week here at the Tapers’ Section where we’ll have more great music drawn from the Grateful Dead’s recorded history. As always, we encourage you to write to the email address below with questions or comments.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net