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Hey all,

These are NOT the authorized liner notes -- I was at the show, it was my favorite show ever that I attended, and I wrote up the notes. Tried to submit them to Dave himself, but he must get a ton of email so who knows. Enjoy!

Liner Notes
4/15/78
Williamsburg, VA

We THOUGHT we had a brilliant, original, idea:

Instead of waiting for the Grateful Dead to come to our town… we could drive to where they were playing!

Yes, we really thought we invented this plan! Look -- this was spring of ’78. There was no internet. We were young. We had seen some shows, but we were still pretty new to all of this.

So we piled into cheap cars and drove all night to the show at William & Mary College in Williamsburg, VA.

Williamsburg is a tourist town that features re-creations of colonial times. Everywhere you look there are guys in tri-corner hats, ye olde candlemaker, and the village blacksmith. Wonderful and endlessly hokey. Both. In ‘78 bumping into a lot of fellow Deadheads in town still seemed like a surprise. You’re here for the show? WE’RE here for the show!

Oh yeah. It was also income tax day (April 15th) AND… if rumors are true… it was Parent Visitation Day at William & Mary College. Whee!

So we headed into ye olde colonial town, where friendly Deadheads had politely taken over the ice cream parlor, asking the staff to please create milk shakes with… uh... an extra dose of enlightenment along with the whipped cream topping.

By late afternoon we headed back to campus on a lovely early-spring day. We spotted a guy in a blazer, howling a solo acapella version of It Must Have Been the Roses. Geez Louise… what brought this on? We debated seriously among ourselves but the answer came soon enough when he happily fell to the ground and a pint of whiskey tumbled out of his pocket and onto the lawn. OK!

Right before the doors opened there was a small commotion in the parking lot, where large freshly-damp squares of paper appeared at very low prices. Who was the sponsor of this largesse? Mysterious-o!

We headed inside where things took a delightful turn toward the delirious. This was a college show and the ushers were all college students, wearing bright orange safety vests. Nice to know that no matter how wacky we were… they were even wackier.

The stage was VERY low to the floor. At some point John Scher (the east-coast’s answer to Bill Graham) came out to ask us to please step back away from the speaker towers so they wouldn’t fall over. Scher tried to calm us down while the college ushers with the flashlights waved the beams around wildly and tried to whip us into a frenzy.

My friend turned to me in panic. “This is... bad. We need to leave.”

“No… this is GOOD! We need to STAY!” I explained.

From my viewpoint at 40,000 feet I felt it vital to bring my sister out into the hallway right before the show started. “I just want to let you know that I’m FINE. But if anything weird happens to me, now you know that I DID mention that something MIGHT be wrong.” (Uh…. what?)

The show crackles from the beginning. I had seen a bunch of shows before, but never one where the whole band was ON like this. If you’ve ever had the privilege… it’s not like it was a good show or even a great show. It’s more like, “Who ARE these guys! This is completely different from every other show I’ve ever seen. Can they just turn this magic on and off like a light switch?” (The correct answer is, “No; it happens when it happens, and it is phenomenal,” but that is another story for another time.)

If the ‘60s were the psychedelic ranger years, and the early ‘70s the songwriting years (American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead) this stretch of the late ‘70s might have been the rock and roll years. Lots of big crescendos and racing each other gleefully through songs. No MIDI yet; no synthesizers. You can hear it jump in songs such as El Paso and Brown Eyed Women – everywhere there are extra guitar flourishes and bolts of lightning tossed off with abandon.

The set ends with a gospel-worthy Deal: Don’t you that that DEAL go down, and my occasionally wretched soul is saved once again. Hallelujah.

The lights stay low in the hall in between sets (oh how I miss that!). While we wait the lights on stage shift slowly from blue to red and back to blue… we think.

Back on Earth, we are in trouble. Apparently we are in the wrong seats, but don’t know it and we are in no condition for advanced reasoning. Down at the end of the row some VERY patient Deadheads have been trying all through the first set to get our attention while amazing music roars around us. During intermission they finally caught my sister’s eye: “Look at your ticket. What color is it? Blue. Now look at your seat… what color is it? Orange. The tickets and the seats are supposed to match. YOU’RE IN THE WRONG SEATS.” After much skepticism they saw the light come on in her. “You’ve got it! Now… explain it to your friends!”

My sister turned to me: “Let’s play a game!”

“What?”

“Let’s play a game. What color is your ticket?”

“Uh… blue,” I said, staring at a shredded soggy mess in my hand that was probably once a ticket.

“What color is your seat?”

“Orange.”

“OK… now YOU’VE got it! Now you explain it to Mark!”

Before the second set starts the drummers spin back and forth on their stools, looking like two wrestlers getting ready to grapple.

Check out that second-half setlist. Nothing really unusual here. It’s just all played so hard. No noodling; no searching; they know where they are going.

This tour might have been the first incarnation of the Rhythm Devils, and in this early version ALL of the band members come out and play percussion and it is just lovely. I do believe I see band members picking up small percussion instruments and tossing them into the air, over the top of the light truss… but I could be mistaken.

This is the ONLY Morning Dew of 1978 and it is sad and beautiful and memorable. Followed by my own wonderful Wile E. Coyote adventure. (I am way out over the edge of the cliff, and fail to notice that there is no longer ground under my feet) before reality appears in the form of Around and Around. I think, “ ‘They never stopped rockin’,”… they’re going to play all night!” Well… not exactly.

Encore time and Bobby says, “Guess what night it is?” and my very busy brain scrambles for an answer: “Uh… Halloween? Christmas? Billy’s birthday?” Nope – it’s SATURDAY NIGHT! OK!

But there’s still much more fun to be had, such as when the police very politely ask us to leave the parking lot after the show. (Um… why? Everyone is so much safer with us just standing right here…) We drive off hesitantly.

It was then that we wound up at, not our campground as hoped, but rather at Camp Peary Marine Base and CIA training ground, where the very nice guard with his shiny boots and great big gun showed remarkable mercy and restraint, pointing us gently in the right direction, as my friend freaks out and keeps making slow U-turns in the military base’s driveway before we head down the road.

OK.

Glen

I have an extra DP subscription this year (by mistake) and will sell individually or the buyer of DeKalb gets first right of refusal on any of the subsequent 3 releases (including bonus disc). Selling at dead.net cost, to another listener....no eBay flippers please. Be kind! Don't check back here that often so email me direct at markbayer@comcast.net

Great, thanks so much. Agreed great pub name. Seem to remember a beer called Dark Star many years ago....

Moo: https://web.archive.org/web/20170103113119/http://gdreferencesite.com/c…

السلام يا صديقي: https://web.archive.org/web/20170103052231/http://gdreferencesite.com/c…

edit: oi! with those prominent rosy-red links and Arabic print, this looks like textbook canned espam...worry not WilliamN, they're legit and gotsa whatta ya need. promise.

Help!
Catching up on releases I missed & having to buy second hand.
Can any kind soul help me with scanned copies of the liner note booklets for Rocking the Cradle Egypt '78 & Cow Palace New Years Eve '76.
CDs bought on-line, sellers not mentioning lack of complete package :(

Would be hugely grateful!

Yesterday I saw an advert for a vinyl box set being issued imminently of the 28th Feb '69 Fillmore West gig. Is this official? It certainly appears so - but there is no mention here on Dead.net

Long Strange Trip Blu-Ray bonus disc 2 from Dead.Net that I received today (11-19-18) is not recognized by my Blu-Ray player. Disc 1 with the entire documentary plays fine, as do all my other Blu-ray discs. Cleaning player and disc did not help. Is it just me or are others having the same problem?

Dave and Rhino , send it out !!!

Requesting "Comes Time" 1980 performance !!!!!

Requesting ~ 4.29.84

7.5.81

I believe many of the master tapes (of which there was a reportedly huge trove) were erased, reused, or impaired during/following the production of DSet & Reckoning.

Nonetheless...
https://themidnightcafe.org/2018/06/03/the-grateful-dead-the-entire-war…

The man even got his 80s' pix just exactly perfect! The Scar>Fire is a lovely 35-minute caprice from 11/1/79 amongst a spectacular second set, the capstone of which is that incredible Caution-Spanish themed jam out of He's Gone.