music scene here now is limited to your memories.

I attended this show as a 15-year-old high school sophomore, and remember it mostly as a solid concert, which I attended with young friends, all of whom I eventually grew apart from, and one who died some years later, sadly. We were chaperoned by my one friend's pot-smoking aunt, who was a cool lady who kept us all together and got us there and back safely and responsibly, on a school night.

At the time, we felt the set list was a great cross-section of what the Dead were up to at the time. I remember Weir making a great entrance in "Greatest Story"; "Bird Song" was very nice. We all loved the sing-along at the end of "Not Fade Away" and talked about it for weeks afterward. We felt so special that it happened in Binghamton and we all thought the Dead had a special affection for our dismal post-industrial city.

I do remember though that Garcia seemed to be having a little bit of an off-night, not to say he played badly, though. He forgot the words entering "Help On the Way", and his time was lagging somewhat during the difficult parts of "Slipknot", even though we felt very fortunate to have heard the "Help On the Way" sequence played in concert; we all loved Blues For Allah and the more jazz-related Dead material. I read later on in posthumous biographies that Garcia was pretty into junk at the time and indeed, at this concert, he was obviously committed to performing but seemed somewhat aloof or separate from the others, or not in good humor, and certainly he has had better nights; his moments were truly good moments but Weir clearly carried the show, and it's obvious on any tape of this show that Weir's tunes had the most impact. I think Garcia may have just wanted to "sit in" with the Bob Weir Band and not be in the position of de facto leader on this particular night. The crowd left the concert chanting "Not Fade Away", continuing even outside. It's a sad thing, the passage of time, but this was a cherished memory from my youth.