Grateful Dead

Hey MKAV,
Thanks for taking the time to write. I feel I have a better sense of what went on.

I watched lots of YouTubes; some with better camera work than others, but on a BIG screen at home you get some feeling for it. And can hear the crowd all oooh and aaaah together. Interesting to me how often the visuals were so bright that it did not look resemble the darkened concert hall that we are all so used to.

Must be a very different experience for the performers to not have every eye locked on them. At times they appear to be playing accompaniment for the visual, as you have said.

As for the timing of the musical transitions: it is my impression that as the run went on, the band id more adjusting to the visual, and not the other way around. Clearly the technology is not yet there to be quite interactive (like different color swirlies reacting to individual instruments); my sense is that the band knew the plan for the big visual transitions and they could tread water a little as needed to make the music transition match the visual. Just my view from the free seats.

And PS: I just received a third contract offer for my book manuscript, Thanks for your support.

I'm wondering if any fellow SSDDers made it to Vegas and if so, I'd like to hear others' observations. I got to see one show 8/9.
It was maybe the 4th or 5th time I've seen D&Co. The band was definitely "on". Tight. Not overly meandering with slow, pointless noodling, (Dallas in May 2023 actually was pretty bad in that respect). Better tempo than previous shows. The pace on most songs and jams was spot-on IMO.
I have to imagine timing the ends of songs to coincide with the visuals' changing was a challenge, but it was seamless.
Going there was a hassle and expensive, but I'm really glad I went. The band was really good. Boy, that Johnny B. Mayer can play!
Having said that: the venue overshadowed the band IMO. Between the 168,000 speakers delivering pure, crisp sound to every seat, and the massive 3.7 acres worth of very cool visuals, it would have been hard to not put the venue as the highlight. YouTube videos are nice but really can't capture the magnitude.
We had seats in 4th level, right in the middle. I can't imagine a better seat for the visuals. The sound was perfect. A friend was in a lower section and he related the "experience" was cooler down in 100 level, but the visuals were much better higher up.

Anyway, IF they do it again, AND I can financially swing it next time, I'll definitely go again. If your circumstances allow it, I'd encourage you to go, too.
By the way: my "mind-altered" state was not dramatic at all, but the visuals were so large, so intense and just so cool, at times it felt like a hallucination...in a good way.
Las Vegas is and never was my thing, but the overall show made it worth it. Shakedown Street definitely had a "corporate" feel to it, but there a shroom sales lady there...very low key...so at least we had that going for us; which is nice. No veggie burritos, though.

I must have sung along to Tennessee Jed 1,000 times without it ever dawning on me that the first lines refer to an incarcerated person. “Listen to the whistle of the evenin' train” really evokes the character in Johnny Cash’s song who is stuck in Folsom Prison.

Saw 90 & 91
Enjoyed them all!
Really liked 91.
Still think a show or two from there could be part of a very nice fall 91 box.
Fond memories camping out with the GF at the time, getting down to the nearby whale cries from Sea World or what ever it was?

GOGD turned us onto the fine 92 shows, especially the stellar 6/8/92.
Haven’t heard 3/14/93 yet, recall the fall shows were so so
Haven’t heard 3/20/94 yet, but WTJ turned us onto the enjoyable 3/21/94.

Being from WNY it’s weird we never hit a Cleveland Dead show (Cleveland Rocks!) but saw everywhere else around there.

oops..sorry about the double-post.

Agree 100% on the first post-Brent shows (rather "show" as I only got to see the 2nd one).

I saw many shows in Richfield 1990 - 1994. Always a decent vibe IMO even for a Coliseum. I lived close by, my family included 2 little boys so could not travel but did make a point to see as many as I could in Richfield.

Agree 100% on the first post-Brent shows (rather "show" as I only got to see the 2nd one).

I saw many shows in Richfield 1990 - 1994. Always a decent vibe IMO even for a Coliseum. I lived close by, my family included 2 little boys so could not travel but did make a point to see as many as I could in Richfield.

This October will be the 50th anniversary of the first set of farewell concerts.

How many have there been since then?

Appropriate time for the Kennedy Center honor

That really moved things up a gear for me with The Dead. Not just the magazine, with it's great reviews, articles and news items, but also because through them I was able to access tapes. In fact, if I am a Deadhead, I would date it from about 1987, when this happened. Up to that point I had all the official albums and the odd bootleg, but from then on I was getting tapes delivered regularly. And once you discover one source, others seem to open up too. Great stuff!

I didn’t look up, but I think I mixed up the Pranksters trip.
Thanks for correcting and straightening out the ole synapses lol
Now that you mention about/for the millennium etc…and not in 90…

And also, now that mention, Brent’s passing probably would have added to the energy factor. We were at the first shows in Richfield with Vince after Brent’s much too early demise, and there most definitely was a lot of extra energy.
A lot of what now and uncertainty and ?
Will it suck? Will it be good? Things had been steadily improving the last couple years before so there was a lot of anxiety or uncertainty.
But man, once they started playing all that energy morphed into that big ole ball of “1” that everyone in the building became, and as the night progressed it was like you could feel 18K people all exhale in relief all at the same time, as we all realized that, “yeah, this is going to be different, but it’s gonna be alright” we will survive, we will get by!
So I’m sure that must have been a variable too.

Back to the bad actors thought. Again, I’m struggling to not be so ?
I feel I’ve painted an overemphasis or oversaturated picture of people?
Let’s think of it this way, it’s like BITD when grownups used to say “one bad apple spoils the barrel” meaning, most certainly most of the folks at shows were like the good apples, but now there were more and more bad ones getting into the barrel. And though there weren’t so many relatively, the bad ones were now a whole new kind of bad that spread the rot more prominently. ?
Hopefully that makes better sense?

Edit: Or lol
What BC just said ; )

And perhaps the biggest factor was just sheer size like BC said.
No matter what kind of head, there just were now too many for the scene to function healthy…

I saw almost all my 90s shows in the Pacific NW. Eugene 90, 93 and 94, Seattle 94 and 95, Portland 95. I think the scene was overall a lot healthier but the 94 Eugene shows still attracted enough fools clowns and jerks to kill the Dead's return there the next year which is why they ended up at a lame Portland race track in '95. By the third show in Eugene 94 (a huge show) it was clear that they wouldn't be allowed to return. The camp zone in the parking lot was a freaking trash dump (I was lucky enough to be staying on a "peacock farm" outside of town). Stories of messed up and disrespectful behavior throughout the town - and the locals being rightfully angered by that - were already circulating. By chance I was visiting family in the Midwest early July 95 and saw the last 2 shows in Soldier Field (brother had extra tickets he bought for friend who then changed his mind.) Wasn't there for the scene so didn't spend much time in the lot but do remember a young woman describing all the weird stuff that had gone down earlier on that summer tour and it was clear she was spooked by the vibe. The 12/89 shows at LA Forum (my only SoCal shows) were the only time I was offered "chiva" - what's that I had to ask and it was H - by a non-scene, just dealing, guy out in the lot. Politely turned down that offer.