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- [00:00]
Rich Mahan
Announcing Dogfish Head Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale Collaborating for over a decade now, Dogfish Head and Grateful Dead have crafted a light bodied pale ale brewed with sustainable kerns of grains, granola and heaps of good karma for a refreshing brew that's music to your taste buds. Check out dogfish.com for more details and to find some Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale in your neck of the woods. Dogfish Headcraft Brewery is located in Milton, Delaware. Please drink responsibly.
- [00:30]
Jesse Jarno
Foreign.
- [00:35]
Rich Mahan
The Good Old Grateful Dead Cast the Official Podcast of the Grateful Dead I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarno exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead for the committed and the curious. Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Deadheads, welcome to season 11 of the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast. I'm your co host Rich Mahan. Thank you so very much for tuning in. In this episode of the Good Old Grateful Dead Cast, we continue our exploration of the upcoming Grateful Dead box set. Enjoying the Ride Up Today we travel east back across the country to look at shows and enjoying the ride from the east coast. We want to extend a hearty thank you to everyone who pre ordered Enjoying the Ride. It is now officially sold out. Thank you very much. But you can still grab great music from the set by digging into the Music Never Stopped, which distills enjoying the ride into a shorter route through the band's Diamond Anniversary celebration. Featuring at least one song from every venue in the deluxe set, it offers a briefer but no less illuminating journey through the music that shaped the Grateful Dead's live legacy. It will be available on May 30 from rhino.com on three CDs, six LPs and digitally. Also recently announced is a brand new Grateful Dead Greatest Hits, a perfect entry point for the budding Deadhead in your life and a great single disc addition to your collection. Grateful Dead Greatest Hits will be available as a single CD or LP and comes out on June 13th. Make sure to visit dead.net for more info on both of these not to be missed releases. Head on over to dead.netdeadcast to check out all of our past episodes, including the complete seasons one through ten, and all of our episodes up through season eleven. At this point you can link through from there to your favorite podcasting platform so you can listen how, when and where you want to listen. Please help the good old Grateful Dead cast by subscribing, sharing an episode with your friends on social media, hitting that like button and leaving a review. Thank you very much. Do you have a great story you'd like to share, do it at stories.dead.net and record yourself telling about that epic road trip, the time you met your significant other, the funniest thing you ever saw while on tour. You may just hear yourself on a future episode of the Dead Cast. We have transcripts for many of your favorite Dead Cast episodes available for your reading and research pleasure. Head on over to dead.netdeadcast index and check them out those who have been to Dead shows on the east coast say they have a unique flavor all their own, much different from west coast shows. And in this episode, Part one of our look at the great east coast venues included in the new box set Enjoying the Ride, we dive into some of those epic shows that happened at six classic east coast venues the Dead frequented. Who better to walk us through these than East Coaster Jesse Giorno.
- [04:06]
David Lemieux
As any Dead freak can surely attest, the lyrics of Truckin represent the United States with 100% cartographical accuracy.
- [04:13]
Jesse Jarno
Heroes of neon, the flashing monkeys on the main street, Chicago, New York, Detroit on the same street, your typical city involved in a typical daydream. Make it up and see what you marry.
- [04:28]
David Lemieux
And if you hook a left from there you can head straight down the Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico. But the Grateful Dead most frequently barreled due east on the new Enjoying the Ride box. About half of the shows come from up and down the Eastern seaboard, so that's where we'll be heading for the next two episodes. We've been listening to the September 16, 1987 truckin from the new box. We've said it before and we'll say it again that the Grateful Dead were a Bay Area band. Deadhead fandom was almost certainly more intense in the Northeast and one place in particular. Next time Ramble On Rose comes on any version at all, listen to the cheer after this line.
- [05:21]
Jesse Jarno
Just like New York City. Just like Jericho.
- [05:28]
David Lemieux
That version was From Nassau Coliseum, March 16, 1973, part of the time honored tradition of fans cheering for their city or something close to it. But almost no matter where the Dead played Ramble On Rose, there were audible cheers for New York. Here they are at Winterland in March 1977, also from the new box, where New York gets cheers on the other side of the country. They're not as loud as they are on the east coast, but they're there.
- [05:56]
Jesse Jarno
Just like New York City. Just like Jericho.
- [06:05]
David Lemieux
By the time great fled archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux began catching the Dead in the later 1980s, the band was playing some of the biggest Places in which it was possible to perform live music. Welcome back, your friend and ours, David Lemieux.
- [06:19]
Howie Levine
Coming from where I come from, where we don't really have traffic or big stadiums, I remember some of the east coast stadiums. Foxborough, rfk, Buffalo, the main big stadiums. Giant Stadium. Giant Stadium actually wasn't too bad. But I remember the traffic getting into some of these places was excruciating. And as somebody who just wanted to be in the parking lot, who just wanted to be in line at the taper section to get in, it was terrible.
- [06:48]
Jesse Jarno
Just like New York City, just like Jericho.
- [06:56]
David Lemieux
That was the dead at the 76,000 capacity Giants Stadium in New Jersey in 1987. Now on the Giant Stadium box set. 20 years, 1 month and 11 days since their New York City debut for a considerably smaller crowd. That was probably the longest fragment of audio from the Grateful Dead's New York debut at the Tompkins Square Park Bandshell on June 1, 1967, before opening their week at the Cafe a Go Go. Even before they played New York, the Dead were greeted as liberators, welcomed with a parade down St Mark's Place, where they were presented with a key to the city made out of carnations. During their two week stay, they played a residency at the Cafe a Gogo as well as shows at the Cheetah on Long island, at SUNY Stony Brook, and the first of several free shows in Central Park. All the beginning of the Dead's New York strategy. That strategy being play New York frequently. They returned to New York twice more before the end of 1967, playing at the Village Theater over Christmas, where it snowed through the roof during our U.S. blues episode. We spoke with crew member Richie Pechner about that early New York trip.
- [08:12]
Ned Lagin
It was kind of mind blowing to see how the band resonated with the people on the other side of the country. At least for me. I mean, I think they'd been there one time before. They did some shows before that, but that one was pretty remarkable. One of the things I remember was it was pretty cold and we all had to go out and buy underwear because, of course, we were from the Haight Ashbury. We weren't wearing underwear at that point.
- [08:46]
David Lemieux
Over the previous few years, the Village Theater exhibited one of the most adventurous booking policies of any venue in the country, ranging from Chuck Berry to Lenny Bruce, the Bread and Puppet Theater to the Penny Whistlers, the Yardbirds, to some of John Coltrane's final New York performances. And in 1968, Bill Graham took over the joint.
- [09:04]
Gary Lambert
If you're puzzled by the hypnotic effect that today's rock musicians have on the young. Not just on their taste in music, but on their fashions, their manners and morals. Spend the next several minutes with us in New York's East Village at a place called Fillmore East.
- [09:19]
David Lemieux
By the time Bill Graham moved in, the Dead had played the short lived Palm Gardens, the Columbia campus, in solidarity with striking students and the Electric Circus.
- [09:28]
Gary Lambert
There are two performances on concert night at 8 and 11:30. The management calls this young 8 o' clock the bubblegum set.
- [09:36]
David Lemieux
We spent a lot of time hanging out at the Fillmore east during various episodes of the Dead Cast, especially on our Fillmore East Late show bonus episode in our third season, which we've linked to at dead.net deadcast here's what the Dead's tour manager and our late correspondent Sam Cutler told us in 2021.
- [09:53]
Ned Lagin
We did that many times in a year in New York and go to New York and play two dates in a year, you know what I mean? On the basis of like, oh yeah, scarcity is the. Is the way to promote a band. No, it's not. Availability is the way to promote a band in the Grateful Dead. Love New York, of course, because, you know, there's that certain kind of flash thing of New York that is different from we're so cool and we're so laid back, we can hardly speak. The kind of west coast thing, you.
- [10:23]
Tyler Roy Hart
Know what I mean?
- [10:24]
Ned Lagin
We're so windy. New York's yeah, man, this is us, the Big Apple. We're ready. Let's conquer it, you know what I mean? There's a whole other kind of mental gestalt going on in New York, you know, there was in those days, anyway.
- [10:40]
Gary Lambert
To the uninitiate, the Fillmore sound is deafening. The amplifiers turned up almost to infinity, the colored lights playing on the backdrop in psychedelic suggestion seem to stun the.
- [10:51]
David Lemieux
Young crowd, to mesmerize them.
- [10:55]
Gary Lambert
They sit quietly in uniform, dressed alike, haircut alike alike, in the anesthetized attention they give the performers tonight. The Grateful Dead and their rock and blues heroine, Janis Joplin.
- [11:07]
David Lemieux
It took the Dead about a year and a half to work their way up to a headlining slot at the 2600 capacity Fillmore east, taking over top billing by the end of 1969. In 1970, the Dead played the New York area, relentlessly headlining the Fillmore east in January, February, May, July, September and November. Here's Jerry Garcia Speaking to Dennis McNally now in the Jerry on Jerry audiobook, available from Hachette which we've linked to@dead.net deadcast when Bill opened the Fillmore east, then our fortunes took a turn for.
- [11:40]
Jesse Jarno
The better, you know, Then we started writing in limos and we were starting to do well. Not our records or anything, but our shows were doing well. And in New York, I mean, once you make a splash in New York, once you've got a New York audience there, it's like you own the town.
- [11:56]
David Lemieux
In New York, we could do any fucking thing. They bonded, especially with the Fillmore's stage crew, including Alan Arkish, who we've spoken to extensively over the years. This was like the lab for them.
- [12:07]
Ned Lagin
Because there was no time limit and.
- [12:10]
David Lemieux
They could play all they wanted. And it became a really common thing.
- [12:15]
Henry Kay
For Jerry to come early with acoustic guitar and hang out with the stage crew and play guitar, you know, and they just. Everyone could have a bunch of guitar players on the stage crew so that it became a very friendly give and take atmosphere.
- [12:31]
David Lemieux
The Dead earned a reputation for playing long and late, though Howie Levine adds an asterisk to this frequent anecdote for.
- [12:38]
Johnny Dwork
All of the the hype about how the band would play until 6 o' clock in the morning. The shows I were at, by the time the show ended, people had left. They had enough. It was four hours of music already. You turned around at the end of a show and it was half, two thirds full. People had left.
- [12:58]
David Lemieux
In early 1971, the dead began to record what became Skull and Roses by booking six nights at the Capitol Theatre in Portchester, a venue we'll discuss momentarily. But the recordings didn't go as planned.
- [13:12]
Jesse Jarno
Mickey's still under the weather in the.
- [13:15]
David Lemieux
End, most of Skull and Rose's was tracked at the Fillmore east over five nights. In April, Bob and Betty established a.
- [13:21]
Ned Lagin
Recording booth under the stage. The equipment crew struggle for the last time with three tons of shit that feels like 40 and the road manager's back at the hotel spewing his heart out and sure he's going to die. Behind all the changing plans everyone's dead on their feet but incredibly ready to play.
- [13:39]
Jesse Jarno
I had to move, really had to move that's why, if you please, I am on my family knees Words that don't you come around here anymore.
- [13:56]
David Lemieux
Grateful laid archivist David Lemire.
- [13:58]
Howie Levine
We've released a lot of Fillmore east music. Back in 2000, when we did the Ladies and Gentlemen, the Grateful Dead 4 CD set, we'd really considered doing all five nights as a box set. We had our package design company produce a cube that that held five digi packs of three of three CDs each and a booklet. And we really put a lot of thought into that. But the multi tracks had enough problems that we couldn't do it. There were some vocals that had been erased. There were some things, some cuts, some things like that. So we kind of decided to Instead do the four CD set. But every night, April 25th to the 29th is up there with the best of 71. So it's not like these are lesser nights.
- [14:43]
David Lemieux
April 25th, now on enjoying the Ride was opening night of what became the Dead's final run.
- [14:48]
Howie Levine
You very much get the Fillmore east sound and vibe and the band feeling extremely comfortable playing this place. I've listened, I think every recording that's known from the film or east and there is a certain sound. It's similar to the way the family dog in San Francisco has its own sound, just in terms of the way the band reacts to the audience.
- [15:10]
David Lemieux
In New York, the Dead could dish it right back, both musically and otherwise. This was one of Steve Silberman's favorite pieces of banter.
- [15:23]
Jesse Jarno
Where were all you dock stop people 2 years ago when we were playing it all the time? Too bad, man, too bad.
- [15:32]
David Lemieux
But where? Ladies and gentlemen, the Grateful Dead and obviously Skull N Roses come from the multi track reels. The April 25 and April 27 recordings on enjoying the ride come from the two track tapes recorded and mixed in real time by Betty Kanter, intended as work tapes for the band to review while picking highlights for the album.
- [15:50]
Howie Levine
We went to the Betty boards, which we felt, I mean, the Maltese do sound incredible. There are some recording problems and those were a couple of the nights that had a few things where there were a few vocals of songs that had been erased, I think in anticipation of overdubbing them for possible Fallen Roses release. So unfortunately, some of those tapes are not usable. But the Betty Boards sound incredible.
- [16:17]
Jesse Jarno
I know you are. Don't miss me when it don't miss your baby from rolling in your arms.
- [16:54]
David Lemieux
By early 1970, the New York Dead crowds were starting to catch on. As Gary Lambert told us in 2023.
- [17:00]
Henry Kay
When those tickets for Fillmore east went on sale, I remember two things distinctly. I was indignant that the Dead were getting big enough that I couldn't automatically wind up somewhere in the first 10 rows.
- [17:11]
David Lemieux
And by early 1971, they were absolutely ravenous. Please welcome back Howie Levine, who made sure he got tickets for the band's Fillmore shows when they went on sale earlier that month.
- [17:21]
Johnny Dwork
I go into School Monday morning, and I see my friend Adam and I said, hey, you know, you want to go see the Dead? They're playing the Fillmore. He goes, yeah, sure. I said, well, great. We should go down, wait for tickets. And we get to the Fillmore, and there's like, four people online in front of us. The box office opens, like, noon, and we're there at like, you know, 11 o' clock. Ticket starts going on sale for the next show, and we get to the front of the line and we turn around and we say to the people behind us, oh, you can go. And they say, you're not buying tickets. And we said, no, no, we're buying tickets. Well, why don't you want them? I said, no, no, we're buying tickets for Grateful Dead. These are tickets for Purple Harem that are going on sale now. And the Dead tickets go on sale on Wednesday.
- [18:07]
Jesse Jarno
And so it was la as the Minotaure, his tail let her face at first just go steep, turn the wider shade our face.
- [18:34]
Johnny Dwork
And I'm standing with Adam, who's going. You didn't tell me they're going on sale on Wednesday. I said, so what? I'll hang out. And we hung out for two days. The funny thing was, about 30 minutes later, there were people behind us waiting for Dead tickets. And we. And we wound up staying there for two nights. And my friend Artie luckily took us in so we could sit inside the lobby doors because it was freezing. And I was, you know, sometime in March, it was freezing at night, and we wound up playing bridge all night. Tickets, you know, went on sale on. On Wednesday. And of course there's, you know, this huge line around the block. Now. We bought first row center for Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. Bought for ourselves, bought for friends on Sunday. But for friends on Thursday, wound up buying the max.
- [19:24]
David Lemieux
There were 20 tickets, though Howie and his friends didn't know it yet. The April gigs would be the Dead's last shows at the Fillmore East. Bill Graham had decided to close the Fillmores east and west at the beginning of the summer of 1971. Here he is talking to KQED in 1974.
- [19:41]
Henry Kay
Fillmores took up all my life during.
- [19:43]
David Lemieux
The 65 to 71.
- [19:46]
Ned Lagin
I was married.
- [19:46]
David Lemieux
In 67. My work became my mistress. The marriage broke up simply because my love and adulation went to the work. And I found myself in 71, looking at the audience and looking at the.
- [19:58]
Ron Rackow
Stars and saying, this year, I made.
- [20:01]
David Lemieux
39 round trips to New York and back. The rock business was changing, and the Artists Bill Graham had been booking for the previous half decade were starting to graduate to bigger venues.
- [20:11]
Henry Kay
Sometimes you make major decisions not because.
- [20:13]
David Lemieux
Some major thing happened. It's like a balloon. You'll take this and that and then a little prick of the balloon, you break.
- [20:18]
Gary Lambert
Well, I broke.
- [20:19]
David Lemieux
And they were closed simply because I wasn't happy anymore. Bill Graham wouldn't announce his decision to the world until the final day of the Deads run. So only the crowd on Thursday the 29th knew it was the Dead's last time through. Unless they had some inside dope.
- [20:35]
Howie Levine
There was enough excellent material from 425 and 427 that hadn't been released. And so we put a lot of work into it. We listened to these shows and put a lot of work to find kind of a three and a half hour batch of incredible music from the first and third nights of this five night run. And put it together that way. Bertha. All these songs that they had debuted at the Portchester were really well developed by this point.
- [21:25]
Johnny Dwork
The opening night was. Was terrific. Literally. I had the dead center seats, those two in the front row. I had my head stuck between the monitors almost the entire night. Here's Jerry's and Bob's monitors. I said, this isn't.
- [21:47]
Jesse Jarno
You just keep turning. One playing.
- [22:02]
Howie Levine
There's a good amount of pig pen on these, on these three CDs. Listen to the Hard to Handle. I always feel that Hard to handle peaked from April 71 through August of 71. The ones in 70 I think are great, but they're a little more in your face rock and roll. Whereas these ones, I mean they perfected this jam. There's nothing better than when they land a Hard to handle in 70.
- [23:17]
Johnny Dwork
There was something different going on this first night. 425, they flashed on the screen, said Bob Dylan. I looked up and reasonably certain Dylan, who is in the box on the left side, got up and left at that point.
- [23:38]
David Lemieux
We got into this story on our Fillmore East Late show episode where Alan Arkish says it happened on the third night when the Beach Boys showed up. A night Dylan was confirmed to be watching from the balcony in a Rolling Stone report. It was still a busy week though.
- [23:51]
Jesse Jarno
We got a former member of the Grateful Dead hanging out here in New York, Tom Constantin, going to join us.
- [23:56]
Henry Kay
On this next team.
- [23:57]
David Lemieux
That was the Wednesday April 28th show where Tom Constantin joined them. A few days earlier on the 26th, Duane Allman appeared with the band for what would be the last time. In between those gigs, the Beach Boys Played. Maybe my favorite guest appearance of the week is when the band gathered their friends and extended family to sing the ending of Ripple from a backstage microphone.
- [24:29]
Jesse Jarno
LA.
- [24:53]
Johnny Dwork
Then the closing night. My father was in the hospital dying, and I left the hospital on Thursday to go to the Fillmore. I got there a few minutes late and the riders were on stage playing. And I'm walking down the aisle now and Garcia is right in front of me because he's playing the pedal steel right there. And he sees me and gives me a nod like, glad you made it. He's seen me a couple other times that week. I was right in front of him like, hey, where you been?
- [26:09]
David Lemieux
The band's popularity at the Fillmore east gave them a firm headquarters in the New York area, allowing them to continue to expand their territory and spread to other locales in the Northeast. It's not on the truckin map, but Westchester was home to the Dead's next stronghold. We now return to the Capitol Theater in portchester for the February 24, 1971 show. The topic of these episodes is the Grateful Dead and the Dead heads on the road. And the Capitol became one of the first tour like destinations for New York City Deadheads, even if it only required getting on the Metro north and walking across a parking lot. Gary Lambert the Grateful Dead had played.
- [26:46]
Henry Kay
New York City or its immediate suburbs something like 45 times in 1970. Already. They were on such a roll. And that was part of Sam cutler and John McIntyre's grand design to have the Grateful Dead come to the Northeast a lot, hit a lot of colleges, and that was so crucial to them building audience.
- [27:06]
David Lemieux
In March 1970, Howard Stein booked the Dead to be the first band at the Capitol Theatre in Portchester, another venue we spent quite some time hanging out at. Here's what Sam Cutler told us. In 2021, I did the first ever.
- [27:18]
Ned Lagin
Show that the Grateful Dead did in the Capitol Theatre. Up. They loved it. We loved it. There's a lot of theaters in America like that. What was happening in America was, you poor Americans are a bit slow sometimes. You didn't realize how good those rooms were. So people were turning them into warehouses.
- [27:39]
Tyler Roy Hart
I don't know.
- [27:40]
Ned Lagin
You know what I mean? There was like the fox Theater in St. Louis. Fantastic, beautiful. The fucking cinema, but what a room. Perfect.
- [27:50]
David Lemieux
Archivist David Lemieux.
- [27:52]
Howie Levine
This is a place where the Dead had a very short history. Although they did do 18 performances, they went there three separate visits in 70 March, June and November. And then the big six night run in 71. And I've met so many Deadheads who are not from Manhattan. They weren't from Brooklyn. They were from Westchester County. And that was where they saw their first Dead shows.
- [28:16]
David Lemieux
Like the film or east, the Dead made a deep bond with the local crew. Longtime roadie Big Steve Parrish and lighting director Candace Brightman connected with the Dead while working for promoter Howard Stein in 1970 and 1971.
- [28:29]
Howie Levine
Unfortunately, the March, June and November 70 shows, we don't have soundboard tapes in the vault. I've heard the same audience tapes that we've all heard. And they're. They're fun, they're good, but they're not to be released.
- [28:41]
David Lemieux
I don't think the vibe of the Cap was suited to Deadheads mostly, give or take. The fire marshal. Here's the late great taper Marty Weinberg interviewing an usher at the Capitol in November 1970.
- [28:52]
Jesse Jarno
Is there ever console you never have to hassle people? Yeah. Where? Besides. Besides the Dead? Oh, no. The Dead is the most. The worst one for hassling people. Why?
- [29:03]
David Lemieux
Because of the fire laws, the way.
- [29:04]
Jesse Jarno
They are when everybody smokes, you know, like it's a bum in.
- [29:09]
David Lemieux
Why do you have to keep people off the aisle?
- [29:11]
Howie Levine
Because that's another firewall.
- [29:14]
Jesse Jarno
See, there are people in Portugal, particularly the Fire commission, who wants to close down this theater. Don't smoke that joint.
- [29:21]
David Lemieux
Pass it around like the film or East. We've spent quite a bit of time at the Cap on the Dead cast. We've posted links to our Skull and roses episodes@dead.net deadcast. And maybe you spent some time there too. Unlike the Fillmore east, the venue reopened in the 90s, and then again under the auspices of Peter Shapiro in 2012 after the November 1970 shows. The Dead had planned to return just a month later.
- [29:47]
Jesse Jarno
Yeah. Hiya, folks. This is Jerry Garcia and this is Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead, here today to say to you that we're sorry. Sorry.
- [29:57]
David Lemieux
We're sorry.
- [29:58]
Jesse Jarno
Yes, we really are. But we're not the only ones that are sorry. There are lots of sorry people in this world that we're not playing. Tell them, Jer. On those days. Tell them the dates. Tell them the dates. I'm sorry.
- [30:14]
David Lemieux
For real. Effective messaging, dudes. No notes. That was Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart announcing the cancellation of the December 1970 gig. They rescheduled for February 1971 four nights, with two more tacked on after those sold out. Blair Jackson, who went on to co found the Golden Road, was there.
- [30:33]
Howie Levine
That's when I first got the notion.
- [30:35]
Johnny Dwork
To go to more than One show in a run.
- [30:38]
David Lemieux
I thought, well, you know, if they're playing five shows or whatever it was.
- [30:41]
Howie Levine
Six shows, you know, I should go.
- [30:42]
David Lemieux
To at least two.
- [30:43]
Howie Levine
And I remember very vividly that I.
- [30:47]
David Lemieux
Was playing intramural basketball.
- [30:48]
Johnny Dwork
I was a pretty good basketball player.
- [30:50]
Howie Levine
And we had made the playoffs whenever.
- [30:54]
David Lemieux
I guess it was late November or early December or something.
- [30:57]
Howie Levine
And when I heard that tickets were.
- [30:58]
Henry Kay
Going on sale up at the Capitol.
- [31:01]
Howie Levine
I missed a playoff game to go get in line and freeze my ass.
- [31:05]
David Lemieux
Off buying Grateful Dead tickets to the shows.
- [31:07]
Howie Levine
David lemieux but those 71 shows are interesting. They're unique. There's all that music. They debuted at these shows on the first couple of nights.
- [31:39]
David Lemieux
The February 1971 shows at the Capitol are candidates for the most eventful gigs in the band's history, by some metrics, all of which we explored in more Nuance. In season three, the band brought the recording team of Bob Matthews and Betty kanter and the Alembic 16 track, intending to record a live album of new songs. And they debuted a half dozen new originals. Ned Lagin performed with the band for the entirety of the first night, and following that show, Mickey Hart departed for nearly five years. And during all of those gigs, Dr. Stanley Krippner was performing his dream telepathy experiment.
- [32:14]
Henry Kay
He was correct four out of six times, which is pretty astonishing. But remember that three out of six times would have been due to chance alone. So we got one night above chance.
- [32:28]
Jesse Jarno
So that was not the statistic that.
- [32:30]
Henry Kay
Really yielded us the most dynamic results.
- [32:33]
David Lemieux
There's lots more with Stanley Krippner in season three. But despite multi tracking the six nights for their new album and making great tapes, the band decided they needed to keep recording.
- [32:43]
Howie Levine
We had these great quality tapes and we figured let's. Let's get another one of them out.
- [32:49]
David Lemieux
Actually two of them. The full show from February 24th and the second set from the 20th. Howie Levine went to the first and last night of the run, and he remembers part of this as being the first night. But based on the tapes and some other correspondence, I'm pretty sure it was the 24th. The show on the new box.
- [33:06]
Johnny Dwork
It was an interesting night from my perspective in high school, not 17 yet, but on a first date with a friend and his girlfriend. And we go up there and had some psychedelics and then there's a bomb scare and they empty the theater because people wanted to get in.
- [33:26]
David Lemieux
The capper to the eventful week was a bomb scare phoned in during the New Riders set.
- [33:30]
Jesse Jarno
Whoever it was Phoned in that bomb report.
- [33:32]
Howie Levine
Thanks a whole hell of a lot.
- [33:34]
Jesse Jarno
I know you're out there and you got in free and it ain't a good idea because it needs all the. He brought all his friends with him.
- [33:43]
David Lemieux
Jerry Garcia told our pal Erik Nelson about it in 1983. The Catholic in Portchester.
- [33:48]
Jesse Jarno
I remember that one real well. Yeah, that was a ticket scam. That was funny.
- [33:52]
Ned Lagin
Yeah.
- [33:52]
David Lemieux
Really.
- [33:53]
Jesse Jarno
It was so obvious too.
- [33:55]
Howie Levine
Was it?
- [33:56]
Jesse Jarno
Yeah, it was real obvious. We all went to this bar right next door with most of the audience.
- [34:00]
David Lemieux
You know, and I mean, it was just. It was obvious what was happening.
- [34:04]
Jesse Jarno
It was like a good, you know, like an hour and a half maybe of sort of a break in the evening.
- [34:08]
David Lemieux
And then it was, you know, back.
- [34:10]
Jesse Jarno
In with a whole lot of extra people.
- [34:14]
Johnny Dwork
It was the first night I could picture us sitting with our two girlfriends sitting in like a little booth on the corner luncheonette while we're waiting to go back in.
- [34:23]
David Lemieux
It's memories like this that provide the proof that slightly differing timelines are perfectly visible from our own and gives me hope that maybe we can figure out how to shift into alternative chronologies. Perhaps Dead tapes were the answer all along.
- [34:55]
Johnny Dwork
The Dead play this amazing set. And this is to 1871, which was all the new songs, which were amazingly great. Pigpen was off the charts. Terrific. And we're flying high.
- [35:11]
Jesse Jarno
Without a warning. You broke my heart taking it baby, torn it apart. You left me standing of dark cry send your love.
- [35:28]
Johnny Dwork
We were centered downstairs probably about 10, 12 rows out. And Pig was just hot. I mean, he was just great. The Love Light that night was just over the top where he picked out a couple people in the audience was going on him.
- [35:45]
Jesse Jarno
Wait a minute. I want to ask somebody a question. Do you have a young lady with you? Okay, she's with you. You fine man. You sit. What about you? Do you have a young lady with you?
- [36:09]
Johnny Dwork
I just remember the Love Light just ripping the place up and the place shaking, everybody on their feet, moving around, jumping. Everybody was in the same place. I remember Porchester. The whole place was with them. The whole place was right there. And that last night everybody was right there with him.
- [36:59]
David Lemieux
The bomb threat on the last night is part of what led to the venue's subsequent closure that spring Rolling Stone reported it under the headline Rock thumped in Westchester County. We've posted a link@dead.net deadcast we're taking.
- [37:12]
Johnny Dwork
The train back to the city and we get back to the city and it's probably 2:30 in the morning. And said, oh, you know, we're hungry. Let's, let's see. We can find something. We go outside Grand Central. Horn and harder. Automat was across the street on 42nd Street. And we go into the Automat. What I saw in the Automat, which was not to reoccur in my. My lifetime for probably seven or eight years, which was I walked into the Star Wars Cantina. I'm looking around and there's people with two heads and there's, there's hoses coming out of. It was like, where am I? It was one of the most surreal things I've ever been to in my life. My friends are looking around and we're totally freaked by this whole thing. The girl I was with this my first and last date because she didn't get home until 8 o' clock in the morning. It was a school night and her mother had called the police on me. It was a fun ending to the night. Years later, now I'm out at school in Oregon and I was doing some research paper and I was looking at the use of psychedelics to treat alcoholism. That's. That was the research. And I'm in the library and I have this obscure journal. And I'm reading the article and I turn the last page. What's the next page? It's an article published about the ESP experiments.
- [39:08]
David Lemieux
Howie would have been perusing a 1973 edition of the Journal of the American Society of Psychosomatic Dentistry and Medicine. We've posted links to the results of Dr. Krippner's dream telepathy experiment at dead.net deadcast in early 1971, the same season as the shows we've just been focusing on, the band found a place they loved a few hours up the road from the Capitol Theater in Boston.
- [39:31]
Howie Levine
The Boston Music Hall, a venue the Dead had a pretty important history. 71 to 78 today we're setting our.
- [39:38]
David Lemieux
Sights on the September 1972 gigs the band played there. Featured on the new Enjoying the ride.
- [39:44]
Jesse Jarno
I just jumped the watchman Right outside the fence with his rings for darks and change Ain't the heaven s Raise my ears to listen Shannon Burns my eyes to see Got down a man in Cobra Shannon might as well be.
- [40:16]
David Lemieux
The Dead didn't play in Boston nearly as much as they played in New York. But that only meant they came through two or three times a year instead of four or five. And they built a pretty heady Boston following. Ned Legend first saw the band at the psychedelic ballroom, the Boston Tea Party. As he told us on the Nedcast, which we've linked back to@dead.net deadcast I was going to MIT. I was going to music school, Berklee School of Music. And friends of mine in the dorm that I lived in were telling me as a jazz improviser, that I ought.
- [40:48]
Johnny Dwork
To listen in particular to the Grateful Dead.
- [40:51]
David Lemieux
And so they loaned me Anthem of.
- [40:53]
Johnny Dwork
The sun and a Oxa Moxwa and.
- [40:58]
David Lemieux
The Grateful Dead, their first album. And I was pretty inspired by all of it. And they talked me into going to a concert, a gig, and I forget whether the club was the Ark or the Boston Tea Party at the time. Boston Tea Party, Ned this was a club near Fenway Park. Go Red Sox. That club probably held two or 300 people to give you an idea of the size. And the Grateful Dead were an hour late in starting, and when they came out, they sat on their amplifiers for a while trying to get collected, and then played in a marvelous set. After writing the Dead a letter, Ned met the band on their spring 1970 trip to MIT and became a regular jamming partner during their trips through the region as they graduated from college gyms to the Music hall opened in 1925, the Boston Music hall was no discarded cinema like the Cap in the Fillmore east, but a proper 4200 capacity theater with a 3100 pipe Wurlitzer organization. They played there twice in 71 and by the end of 1972 were probably too big for the place already.
- [42:09]
Howie Levine
It really exemplifies a smaller place the Dead were playing when they very easily could have played a bigger place a year later. Six months later, they're playing Boston Garden 72. They started their fall tour there, the 15th and 16th, originally supposed to be at SPAC, and the Saratoga Town Council said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we don't want all these Deadheads.
- [42:31]
David Lemieux
By the end of 1972, the band's relentless Northeast gigging was beginning to pay dividends, and they were able to reschedule their tour opening shows on two weeks notice. In 1972 as well, Ron Rakow was cooling his heels, waiting for the Dead to make the decision about whether or not to start their own record company.
- [42:49]
Ned Lagin
In September of that year, we played at the Boston Music hall, and I was an equipment guy on that tour. We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in Boston, and I stayed in room 1234.
- [43:04]
David Lemieux
Welcome back, Rack. I'm pretty tickled that we have a reason to get into this very ridiculous Ron Rakow adventure. Before the Boston Music hall, the Dead had played two nights at the Hollywood Palladium, some of which is now on Dave's picks 40.
- [43:29]
Jesse Jarno
Went down to the mountain I was drinking some wine look up in the heaven on a somebody sign Written by cross of heaven Plainly black and white get prepared. Gonna be a Monday tonight. Hey, Saturday night. Yeah, one more.
- [43:51]
Ned Lagin
The guys left eight days before. That's four trucks with eight guys. And they're driving all our equipment caravan to Boston. We get to Boston and the trucks are not there yet. So. And we were concerned about it. So Jerry came to my room at The Sheraton, room 1, 2, 3, 4. And he said that, you know, the trucks aren't there. I said, I know. I said, I'm gonna call Teddy Kennedy and see if I can get a Sikorsky sky crane to meet the trucks and fly them, helicopter them from the road to the. Behind the theater. I don't know. You know what I mean? I don't know if that's even possible, but that sounds far out. So Jerry said, who's going to pay for that? I said, let's not worry about that now. Let the government pay for it. So he laughed. And I called Kennedy's office and they called me right back like 10 minutes later. He said it's not his thing that.
- [45:04]
David Lemieux
He could do because Ron Rackow is nothing if not persistent. He ended up on the line with Massachusetts Governor Francis Sargent.
- [45:11]
Ned Lagin
So I called and I got the governor of the state of Massachusetts, and he said, let's see if we can find out where the trucks are. I'll call you right back. So he called the state police and the state police called him back in about five minutes and said four trucks just entered the state of Massachusetts and they're on their way to Boston. So he said, we don't need Sikorsky sky cranes. You just will get a cordon of police cars to go pedal to the metal all the way down the freeway right to the theater. So I said, okay, that would be great. Okay. So they send off a phalanx of police cars to meet the 4 truck. And sure as the guys are sitting in the trucks and all these police cars come, you know, red lights on, sirens blaring, and they all started throwing their. Out the window. In about an hour and a half, they're in Boston behind the theater. Sonny heard, he comes roaring out of the truck. Where is that dude? I'm gonna break his neck, you know. So he said, I don't have any dope, man. We all threw our dope out the window.
- [47:02]
David Lemieux
I laughed Ron Rackow had a new assignment arrange for a fresh tour stash. We'll return to that story.
- [47:12]
Jesse Jarno
I left my home in Norfolk, Virginia, California on my mind Spent a lot Greyhound Road and passed riding on a cross.
- [47:23]
David Lemieux
David Lemieux the first night.
- [47:25]
Howie Levine
950 and probably would have come out a long time ago as part of the Dave's Pick series if we had the fifth reel. And so this is one of the few shows in the box set that isn't quite complete. The very end is missing. A couple of songs are missing at the end, but what is there? Including that huge other one amongst Birdsong. So much good music in here. It is a top notch fall 72 shot.
- [48:03]
Jesse Jarno
Don't you cry anymore.
- [48:14]
David Lemieux
The band had just finished mixing Europe. 72 though hadn't yet released it. But both Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir had put out their solo debut albums earlier that year. All five discs of material were well repped in Boston.
- [48:27]
Jesse Jarno
Black floated wind keeps on pouring in with its words of alive when nothing is new. Mother American night.
- [48:53]
Howie Levine
Because there was a little bit missing. What we've done is we've taken the big Dark Star jam from the next night at the Boston Music hall and we've included that. So you've got. It's the kind of rare release that has both a huge 72 other one and a huge 72 Darkstar it.
- [49:43]
David Lemieux
This is a show where Ned Lagin says he played Wurlitzer during Dark Star only, but he would have been only going through a stage amp and not heard on the soundboard and not necessarily heard even too far beyond the stage. It's hard to tell. It's a wonderful 1972 Dark Star. Whether you can hear Ned contributing or not. Some great episodic turns near the end where you might be able to hear that Whirly.
- [50:30]
Jesse Jarno
Sam.
- [51:07]
David Lemieux
It was on the second night that Ron Rakow solved the problem of the tour stash. The Persona of Cousin David came up during our wake of the flood season when the dead needed money to start their own record company. Rack is talking about cash here, but every word also applies to Boston.
- [51:22]
Ned Lagin
I got it from Cousin David. He's your cousin David. Also Cousin David was the head of a 7 airplane small airplane smuggling operation with about 12 people really tight that smuggled Mexican weed into the United States.
- [51:40]
David Lemieux
Problem solved. After the second show in Boston they met up back in room 1234 at the Sheridan.
- [51:47]
Ned Lagin
The next day he brings in a ball jar. But it's a five gallon ball jar. I never even heard of that before. I sat down next to the thing. And it was to the right to my eyes. The top of the thing was at my eyes. From my ass to my eyes. That's a big jar. And I put my arm around it like it was a person. The shoulder of the jaw was like the shoulder of a person.
- [52:15]
David Lemieux
New problem created. The band was already gone. They had a show the next night in Baltimore.
- [52:20]
Ned Lagin
Those guys were not even coming back to the hotel after the gig. We loaded up their shit before the gig on the buses. I had to stay over because I had to accept the jar and figure out how to get it to New York.
- [52:35]
David Lemieux
So I was alone with Sunday Morning coming down hard. Rakkow was sitting in room 1234 with a massive amount of weed meant to supply the Dead's east coast tour for the next six weeks maybe.
- [52:47]
Ned Lagin
So now I'm in Boston with a. A thing that I can't. No way can I take that on an airplane in any manner of form. There was just no way I'd be comfortable with a 5 gallon jar full of unpressed buds. Beautiful tops from Mexico. So that's when I looked out the window and saw Emily coming from the. From the streetcar into the hotel.
- [53:17]
David Lemieux
They'd met the day before. Quick flashback.
- [53:20]
Ned Lagin
The next morning, Saturday morning, I go down to eat breakfast with Jerry at 9:15 in the morning. And this waitress comes, is not our waitress, but she buzzes by the table and her back is to me. She's talking to Jerry and she said, hi Jerry, my name is Emily. And she has this button on her chest that says Emily. And I was at the show last night. It was terrific. I'm going to go tonight.
- [53:49]
David Lemieux
We're going to skip a few steps here and tell you that Emily safely got Rac out and the giant bell jar of Mexican weed to New York, where all three met up with the Dead in time for their gig at Roosevelt Stadium. There's a slight twist ending to this Grateful Dead tour story.
- [54:02]
Ned Lagin
Though she didn't go home for 11 months. That was pretty far out anyway, so I wound up marrying her.
- [54:09]
David Lemieux
That is indeed pretty far out. To hear the tale of Ron and Emily's wedding, check out our Unbroken Chain episode. We've posted a link, of course@dead.net deadcast we now return to our box set discussion in progress. The show at Roosevelt Stadium that Rack delivered the weed to was the band's second show there in three months alongside a run at the Stanley Theatre in Jersey City, a quick path train ride from Manhattan. Throughout the 70s especially, the dead tried.
- [54:36]
Howie Levine
To have it all, they would sometimes hit Boston for two nights or three at the Boston Music hall or one night at Boston Garden. In fall of 73, they're playing music hall. Summer of 74, they're playing Boston Garden. So they're, you know, able to do both. And I think that's just fascinating.
- [54:54]
David Lemieux
But after 1972, at least in the New York area, that became pretty impossible. For a few years, as we've been saying, New York was Grateful Dead country.
- [55:04]
Howie Levine
I can't tell you how many of my good Deadhead friends are Long Island Deadheads. Merrick Baldwin, Long beach all these people came from Long Island. I still to today meet Deadheads all the time who are from Long Island.
- [55:18]
David Lemieux
Sup, David?
- [55:19]
Howie Levine
I used to go on tour with Mike Finkelstein, another Merrick Baldwin kind of guy, and these guys used to talk about this huge steal your face on the way into the city. This is in the 70s, maybe one of your listeners will know. But there was somewhere on Long island that somebody had painted a giant steal your face. It was either on a highway overpass. This is in the 70s, maybe it was a cliff face as you drive into the city or take the train into the city. But Long Island Deadheads, it was like their artwork signaling, like you say, we're in Grateful Dead country now, whether they're older Deadheads my age or older or young people, it's like Long island really loved the Grateful dead. So a 17,000 seat venue to play there anytime they wanted was pretty cool.
- [56:04]
David Lemieux
The show on Enjoying the Ride is from the band's second ever gig at NASA Coliseum, May 16, 1973.
- [56:36]
Howie Levine
So this show in particular, it's the second tour of 1973 for the Dead. They did that February tour, and then a week after the February tour, Pigpen passed away. And then a week after that, the Dead hit the road with three nights at Nassau.
- [56:51]
David Lemieux
Kenny Schiff left us this story@stories.dead.net in March of 73. I was 14 and lived in Queens, not too far from the Nassau Coliseum.
- [57:00]
Henry Kay
I was already a serious Dead ahead.
- [57:02]
David Lemieux
Going back to 1970 when we got the first copies of Working Man's Dead. How our parents let myself and my buddy Jeff Mayer go with his older sister to the dance concert, general admission is beyond me.
- [57:17]
Ned Lagin
When they let us in, we ran.
- [57:19]
Henry Kay
Down the very, very steep arena stairs.
- [57:21]
Ron Rackow
To get down to the floor and.
- [57:22]
Henry Kay
Nearly got trampled in the stampede.
- [57:25]
David Lemieux
It was incredible.
- [57:26]
Ned Lagin
I am super glad that my mother.
- [57:28]
Ron Rackow
Was not a helicopter mom at that point, and I am able to talk.
- [57:33]
David Lemieux
About this 50 years later, with great appreciation, Howie Levine came down for the shows.
- [57:39]
Johnny Dwork
I came down from school in Buffalo to go to the 15th and 16th. The 15th is the first show after Pigpen died. Although Pig wasn't on tour a lot the last year and a half, it was in your mind he was not gonna be there, which was a little sad. But the band was great the first night.
- [57:57]
Howie Levine
I remember we've released a lot of music from this tour. We've released the 24th at the Spectrum. The 26th is coming out very soon from Baltimore. The 28th in Springfield. The 31st is the bonus disc this year for Dave's pick subscribers. The April 2nd at the Garden. Back to Boston Garden. So if you're following the Dead's releases, you'll know those shows and you'll know the quality of this time. And I find this Nassau show is right up there, the first set, I mean, China Rider.
- [58:26]
Jesse Jarno
Come on, San Francisco. The Grateful Dead. Sam.
- [59:00]
David Lemieux
It's actually the very first China Cat Sunflower. I know you Rider. To feature a fully developed version of what Tapirs call the Feelin Groovy Jam and sometimes erroneously label the Uncle John's Band Jam. You can hear Phil Lesh instigate it. The Feelin Groovy Jam had lived previously mostly in versions of Darkstar, like this classic February 13, 1970 take on Dix Picks 4 it. Starting with this NASA Coliseum version, the Feelin Groovy Jam lived in every version of the China Rider transition up through the band's road hiatus the next year.
- [60:43]
Howie Levine
It's a really, really top notch Dead show. And then you get a big dark.
- [61:07]
David Lemieux
It's super dreamy. Dig this Passage With Garcia on slide guitar. Bill Graham had advertised the shows with the Tag A Swell Dance Concert. And inside Nassau Coliseum, it was a pretty enormous party.
- [61:47]
Johnny Dwork
We, believe it or not, brought a small tank of nitrous in with us. We brought this tank in underneath a poncho. It was bigger than like a scuba diving tank. We wound up that night the tank was like at the last row in the top of the Coliseum. If you listen closely, you heard the every so often.
- [62:15]
David Lemieux
We told this story in our Watkins Glenn episode, but it might pertain to this show. Our pal Michael Simmons worked the door for the comedy troupe the Lemmings, who attended one of the Nassau shows collectively. Michael remembers it as the first night, but also remembers the New Riders opening, which would put us at this gig. Either way, imagine a full cast of freaks, including Chevy Chase and John Belushi, rolling up to the Coliseum.
- [62:39]
Ned Lagin
One of the Cast members. His girlfriend at the time was a high end drug dealer. And so we, we, the entire cast went to see the Dead and she gave everybody a hit of masculine and John did four. John being, you know, always taking it over the top. So in the middle of the show, I decided I was going to take a walk to a huge cavernous place where you can hear the music virtually anywhere you, you are.
- [63:12]
David Lemieux
There was a wide outer concourse at NASA Coliseum where you could circle the venue again and again and again and again and again and again and again, as teenage head Michael Simmons did.
- [63:23]
Ned Lagin
And so I wandered around and I'm tripping. It's circular. So I look up and I see John surrounded by six cops. I know John's tripping on four hits of mescaline and I'm only tripping on one hit of mescaline. And I'm really high, so I can only imagine how high John is. I'm staring at this spectacle of John talking to a bunch of cops, uniformed cops, and suddenly the cops all break out laughing. I can't hear what anybody's saying, but I can see that the cops are all laughing hysterically. Obviously John was entertaining them, doing some kind of bit or something, and absolutely had him in his pocket. And John looked down from a higher perch that he was on, looked down at me and gave me the infamous eyebrow that anyone who has seen Animal House would know what I'm talking about. The infamous eyebrow, as in, you and I know how high I am, and you and I know that they have no idea how high I am. It was fantastic. It was a work of art.
- [64:37]
David Lemieux
But hold on that image again and you'll realize that the venue was hopping with Long Island Cops. Belated thanks to John Belushi for keeping some of them distracted, because many, many people got busted over the course of the three nights.
- [64:50]
Johnny Dwork
The music was great. The Coliseum sucked. Always did. Still does. Still does. It's still there. It's terrible.
- [64:57]
David Lemieux
When the Dead returned in September, they made the venue promise not to hassle their fans as much, which the Cops did anyway. And the Dead didn't return for another six years. Despite the checkered relationship, there was no denying its central ish location for Long Island Dead freaks. And the band played there pretty consistently through the 80s and 90s, including the March 1990s show that began their fertile musical relationship with Branford Marsalis. While the Dead love their New York fan base, their investment in the city could be a little overwhelming sometimes, just even trying to find places to play. Famously, they played eight nights at Radio City Music hall in October 1980 that were mined for two live albums and a concert film, which you can hear about in detail in our Dead Dead Ahead episode. Linked@dead.net deadcast.
- [66:25]
Jesse Jarno
Fly the seabird Scattered like lost world we'll build a storm and fly.
- [66:48]
David Lemieux
But there was really only one venue they were circling. The fourth and current iteration of Madison Square Garden opened in February 1968. And it was suggested as early as 1971 that the dead could play there, but preferred to play in smaller places. But by the end of the 1970s, they were running out of options. Archivist David Lemieux.
- [67:09]
Howie Levine
They started playing the garden in 79, which is amazing. It took them 14 years to play here. Supposed to be 13, but then Jerry got sick in fall of 78. But January 79, they start playing the Garden. They were playing Nassau in 73. Same venue, same size venue. They were playing Roosevelt Stadium. So they were playing the New York City area and playing very big places. They just never played the Garden. So they finally played there in 79, played there quite a bit till 83, and then they took a four year hiatus.
- [67:37]
David Lemieux
We visited the Garden pretty extensively during our episodes about the in and out of the Garden box. When we spoke with John Scher, who promoted nearly all of the Dead's Garden appearances starting with their January 1979 debut.
- [67:49]
Johnny Dwork
We had a lot of dialogue.
- [67:51]
David Lemieux
That's the one thing. We had a lot of dialogue on.
- [67:54]
Jesse Jarno
Every move that we made.
- [67:55]
Johnny Dwork
And I basically said to him, guys, we can't play theaters anymore.
- [67:59]
David Lemieux
When we first played Madison Square Garden.
- [68:02]
Jesse Jarno
It was like me saying to them.
- [68:03]
Johnny Dwork
Guys, there's nowhere else to go. So as usual, technically they got into gear and thought left and right how.
- [68:13]
David Lemieux
They can make it sound better, how.
- [68:15]
Henry Kay
The lighting could be.
- [68:17]
Johnny Dwork
They had, for most of their career, brilliant lighting designer named Kansas Brightman, who.
- [68:23]
David Lemieux
Is as good as anybody ever in the world. So she, you know, the lighting, nothing special. No lasers, no.
- [68:30]
Johnny Dwork
But she was an artist and a magician.
- [68:34]
David Lemieux
We've linked to the episodes dead.net deadcast. They stayed completely on top of sound and lights. And I didn't have anything to do.
- [68:43]
Johnny Dwork
With it other than I made sure.
- [68:44]
David Lemieux
Those people got paid. Like I said, Candace and then Dan.
- [68:48]
Johnny Dwork
Healy, a couple of other people were intricately involved, always trying to make it better, better, better. But they cared that much about the audience and they weren't going to play arenas until they thought they could get it right.
- [69:01]
Howie Levine
They tried the Beacon, they tried the Palladium, they tried a bunch of places. They just didn't have a place to play until I think they finally accepted that, you know what? We can sell out three nights at the Garden. And this is what Deadheads want.
- [69:14]
David Lemieux
The Dead returned to the Garden for two nights just five months after playing Radio City. Now on in and out of the Garden.
- [69:21]
Jesse Jarno
Just like New York City, just like.
- [69:26]
David Lemieux
Jericho, the Dead built up a pretty wild reputation for their Garden shows. By the time of the 1981, 82 and 83 shows on the in and out of the Garden box, they clearly got plenty comfortable playing there, filling up the arena for multiple nights without a hit record or without a new album at all. Mid decade, they shifted to playing the newly opened Meadowlands in New Jersey. But then something extremely unexpected happened. They had a hit record.
- [69:58]
Jesse Jarno
We Will Get By. We'll Get By.
- [70:21]
David Lemieux
That was the dead on the second night of their five night run in 1987. September 16th, when they returned to the Garden as In the Dark and Touch of Gray stormed the top 10 album and single charts respectively. And the show included on the new box set David Lemieux.
- [70:36]
Howie Levine
I only saw the Dead at the garden once, two nights in 1987. I was 16.
- [70:42]
David Lemieux
Thank you for calling the Grateful Dead hotline number. This is a new Message as of October 10th.
- [70:49]
Henry Kay
Howdy, folks, this is Garcia.
- [70:52]
Ned Lagin
I'd like to thank you for all.
- [70:53]
Henry Kay
The cards and letters and well wishes.
- [70:56]
Jesse Jarno
And stuff while I was down.
- [70:59]
Henry Kay
Here's Eileen with pertinent information.
- [71:01]
Howie Levine
So I used to call the east coast hotline number, like daily. Sorry, mom, for your phone bill. I called them up and they had five nights at Madison Square Garden. I said, wow. It was my lady friend's. She was 15 and she was turning 16. The night of one of the shows, I thought, gotta go see the Dead. I remember mailing off for Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I wrote as we used to do on our little three by five index cards or any night available. And a couple weeks later I get back in the mail tickets for Tuesday, Wednesday shows. I was like, oh, this isn't going to go over well with my parents because I was 16 years old in high school, but they were cool, they let me go. So we bought some $89 airplane tickets from Ottawa to New York City and stayed down, stayed Midtown. We actually stayed right near Lincoln center and we went in 87. And I remember just being in awe, just being in awe of being in New York City and eating so much food and so much of the best food and so much of the most inexpensive food I'd ever had.
- [72:11]
David Lemieux
Also in town was our third Eye in the sky from the Dead Cast Traffic Copter, tyler Roy Hart, aka Mr. Completely.
- [72:18]
Ron Rackow
That was my first time in New York ever. Because to me, getting to New York, I was. First of all, I was dependent on people to stay with. And I was trading tapes with one of my friends that I stayed with. It was within like a 10 minute subway ride of the venue.
- [72:36]
Jesse Jarno
57Th street, step in. Watch the doors, please.
- [72:39]
Ron Rackow
There was no shakedown. There was just. There was chaos outside the venue, but there was no central location for it.
- [72:49]
David Lemieux
David Lemieux.
- [72:50]
Howie Levine
I'd only seen the Dead at that point four times. And when the Dead played these places, the whole city almost shut down. I remember in New York City, I didn't feel that way. I felt that, you know, around the Garden, sure, that the 18,000 of us, you know, is very visible that the Dead were in town, the circus was in town. But you go uptown or downtown and all of a sudden, not even a blip on the radar. There was a very good reason why a place like the Greek or the Kaiser or the Frost would maybe not welcome the Dead back, because it was overwhelming. New York is built for 20,000 deadheads showing up.
- [73:26]
David Lemieux
A goodly number of those Deadheads came from Long Island. Please welcome Henry Kay.
- [73:32]
Gary Lambert
Of course, being from Long Island, New York, Arden was our home turf. I had been to every venue between Virginia and New York, but there was never anything like a Madison Square Garden concert. And the great thing about the Garden is you didn't have to drive. So everybody would hop on the train in woodmere, you know, 3:34 o' clock, and it would be the last of the commuters of rush hour. So there'd be business suits on there and the tie dyes would slowly start getting on. And then Hewlett and then Lynbrook and then Valley Stream, more and more Deadheads. And by the time you got into Jamaica to switch to Penn Station, it was flooded with tie dyes. And you just knew. Everybody came from their little privileged Long island towns where we were all cast outs and misfits in this kind of 1980s conspicuous consumption age of Gordon Geckos. And everybody is into capitalism. And so we realized, oh, my God, we are not alone.
- [74:21]
David Lemieux
Mr. Completely.
- [74:22]
Ron Rackow
It was like everyone was really separate until all of a sudden we were there, right going into the venue like it wasn't really a crowd, wasn't really a big hangout scene of, like other Deadheads until you were right at the venue and then it was bedlam and awesome.
- [74:38]
Gary Lambert
That's what everybody was there for. That's the moment everybody was just like tuned into, coming from their jobs, coming off the tr, coming out of the city, just into the Garden.
- [74:47]
Jesse Jarno
Boom.
- [74:48]
Gary Lambert
It really was. It was like electricity. I just remember that moment when the light shut and there's that pause before the band kind of tunes up. And it's just incredible.
- [75:08]
Howie Levine
So I went to the first two shows of that run, September 15th and 16th and I love them. The first night was okay. The second night I thought was, I think one of the best shows in 1987. The show in our box set September 16th.
- [75:21]
David Lemieux
One contrast between the Fillmore east in 1971 and the Garden in 87 is how the Dead continued to act as a musical crossroads both on stage and off. The closing of the Filmorist had seen guest appearances by tc, the Beach Boys and Duane Allman, and a near miss with Bob Dylan. But there were different levels of intersectionality occurring at the garden in 87.
- [75:42]
Howie Levine
I remember walking in, show started at 7:30, I guess. I walk in at 6:30, get my seat and I notice there's this crazy stage setup. And Mickey comes out at 7:30. Hey, before we get started, my good friend Babatunje Olatunje and his drums of passion are gonna play a set. So they came out and played a 35 minute set unannounced.
- [76:01]
Jesse Jarno
Very good friends of mine.
- [76:04]
Howie Levine
First Baba from Nigeria. The Dead never had opening bands at a show like this ever. They play this incredible 35 minute opening set at the normal time. And so the Dead didn't come on till about 8:30. So it was a bit of a later show.
- [76:20]
David Lemieux
We actually have Gary Lambert to thank for this.
- [76:22]
Henry Kay
This was a byproduct of my promoting jazz and reggae and world music and all kinds of non rock shows for Bill Graham Presents specifically at our club called Wolfgangs. And we had Baba Olatunji coming in and I think it was the first time he played the Bay Area in quite a few years. And during the course of this promotion I had a weekend off and I went to see the Grateful. I flew east, saw my folks, went to see the Grateful Dead at the Nassau Coliseum and I brought along a flyer for the Olatunji show. I had some backstage passes. So I was walking around backstage and just before the second set started, I see Mickey with his drumsticks walking back toward the stage. Hey Mickey, if you're back home in the Bay Area in mid May, you might want to check this out. And I show him the flyer and he drops his drumsticks on the floor. And he says, that's my hero. He said, yeah, I saw Baba Olatunji at the New York World's Fair in 1964, and it changed my life, as had I. And he said, I don't only want to come to that show, I want to mix the sound. They had never met, apparently. And so it was at that show that Baba and Mickey got introduced.
- [77:34]
David Lemieux
Baba Olatunji opened for the Dead on New Year's 1985, and remained part of the Grateful Deads universe, surely playing to his biggest New York crowd in years. On September 16, 1987, just before the show on the new box.
- [78:00]
Howie Levine
One of my favorite first sets of all time. Maybe it was because I was there, but for whatever reason, I've listened to this916 show a lot and it is an amazing show. The fact that they open the show with Touch of Gray.
- [78:18]
Jesse Jarno
Must be getting early, not to running late.
- [78:30]
David Lemieux
Among other musical heavies attending shows at the Garden was the band's record company boss, Clive Davis, who'd courted the dead starting in 1970, signed them in 1976, and finally got a hit from them in 1987.
- [78:43]
Howie Levine
Famously, the Night before Clive Davis came to the show. And after the show, the band goes backstage, back to the dressing rooms, and Clive is there. And Jerry said, hey, Clive, what'd you think? What'd you think? He's, dude, how could you do this? You didn't play the hit single. It's your return to New York City. You didn't play the hit. And Jerry. Oh, we forgot. Hey, Weir. We forgot to play it. And so the next night, as I think, a bit of a gift to him. But Dennis McNally tells the story that Clive was like, he wasn't pissed, but he was shocked. It was like any band is going to open or encore with the big hit single that's made them famous. And the Dead didn't even play it. And they follow it up out of nowhere for no reason with Scarlet Begonias, with a massive jam coming out of Scarlet Begonias. But rather than going into Fire, they end it with the closing riff on On Scarlet. First time they'd done that since 1977. Early before fire joined a late standalone, Scarlet Goes Blew Me Away.
- [80:44]
David Lemieux
A few seasons back, we unpacked Scarlet Begonias and how in part, it was Jerry Garcia's attempt to channel an island groove right in that same window. It turned out Round Records briefly entertained the idea of actually signing Bob Marley. We've posted a link@dead.net dedcast the person we have to thank for turning us onto that connection is Henry Kay, who we've been speaking with and who also hosts the podcast Reggae's Untold Stories.
- [81:10]
Gary Lambert
I had just come back from Jamaica, where I had worked an internship for Mrs. Marley, Bob Marley's widow, at Tuff Gong Records that summer. So I was literally just back in the States after about three or four months in Kingston. With my summer break was this great internship, which I had hooked up from working at a reggae company in dc. They got me this incredible dream job in Kingston.
- [81:34]
David Lemieux
This was another way that Dead and Jerry Garcia band shows acted as a musical crossroads.
- [81:39]
Gary Lambert
Growing up, obviously a reggae fan and a Deadhead, I always loved these type of musics. I mean, the connection between reggae and the dead has always been the place where spirituality and musicality meets. Both are very strong, solid musicianship meets a spiritual element in lyrics and performance.
- [82:09]
Jesse Jarno
Stop that train I'm leaving and it won't be too long Whether I'm right.
- [82:18]
David Lemieux
Or wrong that was the Jerry Garcia band doing Peter Tosh's Stop that Train at the Greek in Berkeley in August 1987, around the time Henry returned to the States. And a week and change later, there was big news in the reggae world unfolding just after Henry came back from Kingston. The murder of Peter Tosh on September 11, 1987.
- [82:40]
Gary Lambert
It was very shocking and New York Times had a front page article the very next day. The story was out in the Times. The official narrative had always been the robbery gone wrong. They came up, they looked for money, there was no money there. They were angry, gunshots are fired and Peter ends up getting two in the head.
- [82:55]
David Lemieux
But the story is far more complicated and we encourage you to check out the new season of Henry K's podcast, Reggae's Untold Stories, which aims to unravel the still lingering mysteries behind Peter Tosh's death. We've posted a link to that as well as a petition to reopen the case@dead.net deadcast it happened literally the week.
- [83:14]
Gary Lambert
The Dead started at the 87 run at the Garden. For me and my friends, it was like, wow. Because we all had been to the city four years, five years earlier, seeing Peter Tosh just five blocks away at the pier. It was in the air and I was kind of hoping the dead would address it or mention it. They played Knocking on Heaven's Door every run, but I like to think that Knocking on Heaven's Door was maybe a shout out to Peter.
- [83:39]
Jesse Jarno
Sam.
- [84:06]
David Lemieux
That's from later in the run. They also played it in Landover on September 12, the day after the news broke. And of course, Stop that Train was back in the Garcia Band's repertoire as soon as they started playing again in October. But now back to the musical crossroads of Madison Square Garden.
- [84:22]
Howie Levine
We got an Esau in there and a High Time and a Let It Grow. It is a magnificent first set.
- [84:31]
Jesse Jarno
Easy. We'll be back in just a little bit.
- [84:47]
David Lemieux
One of the other features of the New York shows was simply that they were in New York, which allowed them to become a different kind of crossroads. This story takes place a few nights later on September 20, but it's too good not to include a set break entertainment while we're visiting these shows once again. Gary Lambert, Phil and I had just.
- [85:06]
Henry Kay
Recently started doing our radio show, then Rex Radio and later Eyes of Veil of Order. So we were kind of doing outreach to the gone world of music. We were getting in touch with people and soliciting their music and saying we'd love to play it on the air.
- [85:22]
David Lemieux
For more on Gary and Phil's adventures in radio, check out the second part of our recent Phil cast, which we've linked to@dead.net deadcast. One target of their outreach was jazz titan Ornette Coleman.
- [85:35]
Henry Kay
I had developed a relationship with Ornette and his son, drummer manager dinardo, because I had been involved in promoting a couple of their shows in the bay area in 1984 and 86. And we really hit it off and we developed a close friendship. Ornette and I shared a birthday of March 9, and so he called me his twin.
- [85:55]
David Lemieux
And.
- [85:58]
Henry Kay
When Phil and I were talking about what we wanted to do with this radio show and talking about outreach to that world, I said, hey, Ornette lives two blocks from Madison Square Garden. Wouldn't it be fun if we invited him to a show? And this was the fall run of 1987 coming up. And Phil said, oh, yes, let's do just that.
- [86:19]
David Lemieux
There were countless unusual sights at Grateful Dead shows over their 30 year history, all singular. And Gary Lambert was witness to more than his share. But what he saw on September 20, 1987, ranks up there.
- [86:31]
Henry Kay
Dan Hilly had actually set up chairs specifically for this, this group of guests. I was their greeter and, you know, got them to their seats and got them their passes and all of that stuff. And then through all kinds of cosmic synchronicities on the very same night, invited by someone completely separate, Cecil Taylor shows up at the same show. And I wind up being kind of their informal chaperone at the Soundboard When I saw Cecil, I just. That was just sort of the topper, you know, that. Oh, my God. We have two of the absolute founders of free jazz here to see the Grateful Dead at Madison Square Garden.
- [87:10]
David Lemieux
The someone who'd invited Cecil Taylor was none other than Calico, who we spoke about a bunch last episode. A member of the Hog Farm who operated the skeleton crew in dead parking lots, and in a previous life had been Elizabeth Vandermee, a very serious musicer on the 1960s New York jazz scene.
- [87:27]
Henry Kay
Calico had this amazing history in the New York jazz world. She was a jazz journalist, she was a jazz broadcaster. She was friends with Ornette and Cecil and all these people. And I think that Calico made the invitation and it just happened to have happened on that same night.
- [87:42]
David Lemieux
A rare sight indeed. And also at the gig that night, presumably crossing paths with Cecil and Ornette, somewhere in the bowels of the Garden was none other than Allen Ginsberg, who photographed Jerry Garcia backstage and made another significant connection. At the time, Alan was caretaker for the Alchemist and filmmaker Harry Smith, who'd curated the Anthology of American Folk Music and was fairly broke at the moment.
- [88:10]
Jesse Jarno
All the Cuckoo is pretty bird she wobbles as she flies she never hollers cuckoo till the 14th July.
- [88:24]
David Lemieux
Some versions of this story place it at the War Field in San Francisco, others at the Garden. Ginsburg was a regular at shows along with Allen. For at least some of the gigs was Raymond Foy.
- [88:35]
Ned Lagin
Alan used to go to Dead shows fairly regularly.
- [88:38]
David Lemieux
We went together and backstage.
- [88:41]
Ned Lagin
Jerry was not into hanging out, and.
- [88:44]
David Lemieux
He was kind of rushing away from Alan.
- [88:48]
Henry Kay
I don't remember if he's going on.
- [88:50]
David Lemieux
Stage or getting off stage or something.
- [88:52]
Ned Lagin
And Alan said, we need to help Harry Smith.
- [88:56]
David Lemieux
And Jerry said, is he still alive?
- [88:59]
Henry Kay
Alan said, yes, and he needs help.
- [89:01]
Ned Lagin
Jerry said, you know, I learned to.
- [89:03]
Henry Kay
Play the banjo from Harry Smith's anthology.
- [89:06]
David Lemieux
We used to slow those records down to 16 RPM to learn the solos. He said, sure, we'll give him $5,000 a month.
- [89:14]
Ned Lagin
And Alan said, 10,000.
- [89:16]
David Lemieux
And Jerry said, 10,000, whatever. And he just walked away, just rushed away. The Rex foundation supported Smith during the last years of his life, teaching at the Naropa Institute in Colorado and living at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. We've posted a link to Allen Ginsberg's photograph of jerry@dead.net deadcast. Talk about a crossroads. The Dead. Allen Ginsberg, Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor under the same big tent.
- [89:42]
Henry Kay
I didn't find out till much later, there was some weird tension between Ornett and Cecil at that point. There had been a disagreement between them over a collaborative project gone wrong. So there was sort of a real, like, sort of distant, awkward formality between them, but not hostility. It was just they didn't interact a whole lot with each other, and I didn't even give it a thought. They settled into their seats and out came the Grateful Dead and played a show, played a first set. And of course, I was spending half my time not looking at the band, but looking at those guys, looking at the band. Cecil and Ornette were very different people, temperamentally. Cecil was kind of bopping to the music, and he had his hair in these tight little dreadlocks, which were kind of bouncing up and down when he moved. And Ornette just had this beautiful, inscrutable smile on his face the whole time. And it looked like he was taking in everything. He was looking around at the crowd and just absorbing the whole atmosphere of things. And then set break came, and I got to escort them backstage and actually make the introductions. I mean, getting to say Jerry Garcia or Ned Coleman. Or Ned Coleman, Jerry Garcia, which is like Oscar Wilde, Socrates, they just immediately took to each other.
- [90:56]
David Lemieux
By the next year, Garcia was appearing with Ornette Coleman in primetime for three songs on their Virgin Beauty album. Ornette Coleman himself would play with the Dead twice in 1993 as well. Stories we don't have time to get.
- [91:26]
Henry Kay
Into today, Ornette said during the course one of the jams. When you've been playing together this long, you don't even have to listen to each other.
- [91:33]
David Lemieux
This might sound like a backhanded compliment at first, but from Ornette Coleman, it was actually deep jazz wisdom.
- [91:40]
Henry Kay
Ornette thought there was a place beyond listening, like he thought listening and reacting could stand in the way of music moving forward. Everyone being too deferential to one another. And I once heard him talking to the musician in his band. He said, well, don't be too worried about listening. Because if you listen to something and then respond to it, you're reacting to a moment that already happened. And what you should be thinking about is moving together toward the next moment.
- [92:06]
David Lemieux
Billy Kordzman's memoir Deal, includes a story about one of the 1993 gigs with Ornet, in which Kreutzman is informed that Coleman told someone he felt like the band wasn't listening to one another. Sometime after that, Garry was able to correct the record.
- [92:19]
Henry Kay
And then I told him the story of Ornette saying, when you've been playing together this long, you don't have to listen to each other because you get there through intuition and empathy. And Billy was thrilled. He said, oh, man, that makes so much more sense. I feel so much better.
- [92:34]
David Lemieux
Our jazz interlude concluded. Let's get back to the Garden. The vibe in Madison Square garden in the 80s and 90s was unmatched in part because of one of the venue's signature architectural elements, an inner concourse that allowed audience members to circle the entire space without exiting the performing area. It sometimes resembled a New York City street transported into the middle of the venue. Tragically, it was removed during the building's 21st century renovations. Mr. Completely.
- [93:02]
Ron Rackow
Everyone who still goes to shows now and went to shows then, really. Mr. The inner concourse. I can't remember a single venue that had that. And I also, I also don't remember a single venue that was that big where that much of the room sounded good to great. I don't know what it was. It was a better sounding room than Hampton over most of it. Like Hampton's longer. And so it gets those dead pockets in the back. Like you can find pockets in Hampton Coliseum that kind of suck, sound wise. And I was all over MSG with kind of bad seats for half those shows. And I never had something that I thought sounded terrible.
- [93:59]
Jesse Jarno
I pull my belly. Don't you come around here anymore.
- [94:09]
David Lemieux
The venue also had another special feature. New York Dead shows were always built on New York Dead freak energy. But inside Madison Square Garden, it occurred at a vaster scale.
- [94:19]
Ron Rackow
There's a different outlaw energy on the east coast where I don't want to call it performative, but because it's not performative. But there's an element of pushing it to see how much you can get away with. Like people relatively openly smoking weed. Sure, people may be getting away with doing a little other this and that, sure. But actually bringing in a tube that was not like. The only other places I had saw that were a couple of west coast places. By fall 87, you know, venues were more conscious of Deadheads for the most part, but people were still bringing in three and four foot graphics. And there were nitrous tanks in the building. Do you really need the four foot graphics? No, but you're gonna do it anyway just because you fucking can. Just a little more kind of you can't stop me sort of energy to it. That was fun. I enjoyed that a little more kind of actively anti authoritarian as opposed to on the west coast. It felt almost more like attempts at authority had been so thoroughly dissolved There was no act of rebellion necessary.
- [95:41]
David Lemieux
Honestly, I'm pretty sure Madison Square Garden in the 90s was the first place I ever personally laid eyes on a bomb. Another pair of Madison Square Garden's emergent features, sadly, are full facial recognition technology and a penchant for banning people from their properties, which also include the Vegas sphere and any other spheres that may develop harsh Coke. But in 1987, nobody was stopping the.
- [96:04]
Howie Levine
Party in the second set. Bertha Greatest, Devil with a Blue Dress. Gigali Miss Molly, Devil with a blue dress.
- [96:14]
Jesse Jarno
The ball. Good calling is a ball. When you're rocking and rolling, can't you hear your mama call? From the early, early morning to the early night, you can see Miss Bally rocking in the house of July. Good girl. And miss when you're rocking it or rolling, can't you hear your bum call?
- [96:47]
Ron Rackow
I only did five shows in spring of 87. The three Hamptons to start, and then the two Hartford shows. Those were so hyped energetically that they had that same feeling.
- [97:02]
David Lemieux
Those gigs were the first east coast shows since Jerry Garcia's miraculous recovery from his diabetic coma the previous year.
- [97:09]
Ron Rackow
But, like, by the middle of the second set, almost every MSG show got to that level.
- [97:16]
David Lemieux
David Lemieux.
- [97:17]
Howie Levine
And then he's gone, with Jerry doing one of the coolest vocal outros I've ever heard on he's gone. He's just like, he's playing this incredible blues riff and he's singing along to it. I mean, it's gotta be heard to be believed. It's that incredible. And then later in the show, I remember the. The war frat was just spectacular.
- [98:06]
Ron Rackow
The war frat from the night they're releasing is extremely special. It really elevates the show.
- [98:45]
Howie Levine
Also worth noting, before the encore, they do an instrumental, we bid you good night out of nowhere, which is pretty darn cool.
- [99:13]
David Lemieux
It comes out of the not fade away clap, a wink to the song's old time transition into going down the road feeling bad. Using Going down the road's coda, the instrumental version of we bid you good night, giving nice conceptual continuity to the encore and also acting as a prelude to black muddy River. I love the little half transition.
- [99:44]
Jesse Jarno
Sam.
- [100:22]
David Lemieux
After the show, the crowd drifted back into Midtown Manhattan. Mr. Completely.
- [100:27]
Ron Rackow
And the other thing that struck me about it, and this has only been the case with freak scenes in a couple of cities, was that when you leave and as soon as the crowd disperses into little subcomponents, it's like the city doesn't even know it's.
- [100:43]
David Lemieux
Happened that held mostly true. Debbie Rondo left us this story about a 90s dead gig at the Garden.
- [100:49]
Tyler Roy Hart
It was the early 1990s and we had gone to Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, New York. The show was great, of course, it was always great. After the show, we were walking back to our hotel and we heard sirens in the background, which of course is not unusual. And all of a sudden, the rapid pitter patter of feet whirled by us and it was a naked hippie. And I just. I could not believe what I was seeing. And there were police officers on foot chasing this guy, and they were just exhausted. You could tell that they had been chasing him for a little bit. And so these cop cars come squealing around the corner, and next thing I know, me and my boyfriend are up against a building wall, the cop cars are in front of us. And here they finally grab the guy because all he was wearing was a necklace. And they were able to grab the necklace, which slowed him down enough where they were able to grab him.
- [102:15]
David Lemieux
Teachable moment for aspiring naked people.
- [102:17]
Tyler Roy Hart
And so this poor hippie with his head on the ground and his butt in the air and dangling in the wind for all to say. And he was just. It was incredible. And I looked down at my feet and there was the necklace. And I have kept that necklace for over 30 years.
- [102:44]
David Lemieux
Others enjoy the discreetness New York offered.
- [102:47]
Ron Rackow
Even the first time I went to New York, I was already at the point where I was trying to change my profile to be a little lower on the road, not fly my freak flags quite so high, and not be the slowest antelope in the herd. And the fact that you could go to New York with all these crazy freaks and all this shit going on and no one cared was great. It was just a seamless part of the city. Very, very unique to me at that point. And welcome.
- [103:20]
David Lemieux
Just another freak in the freak kingdom. As Hunter S. Thompson once wrote about la, just don't be the naked guy or don't wear a necklace. There were post show options. After all, it was New York. Johnny Dwork told us this story during our in and out of the Garden episodes.
- [103:35]
Johnny Dwork
And then I should say that when you were done with the Dead show at Madison Square Garden, naturally you'd have the munchies. And there were a couple places in New York that were infamous for post Madison Square Garden food adventures. And one of them was Wo Hop Noodle Shop on, I think it was Mott street in Chinatown. And they were open late into the night and it was this greasy wok place that you had to walk downstairs into the basement too. But they stayed open late and they had really, really, really great chow fun. And sure enough, you, you'd like take.
- [104:26]
David Lemieux
A taxi from Madison Square Garden down.
- [104:29]
Johnny Dwork
To Chinatown and you would be completely surrounded by deadheads. And I remember being amazed because the first time that I went there after a Madison Square Garden show, Mickey Hart is sitting there.
- [104:43]
David Lemieux
And I like it.
- [104:43]
Johnny Dwork
You know, it was the sort of seating family style where like the seats are not separated, right? Everybody sort of sits together and so you like might have like there was just as good a chance that you'd be seated right next to Mickey Hart as not. And nobody made a big deal of it. And everybody was high and everybody was munching out on really good greasy Chinese food. And I think to this day, wo.
- [105:08]
David Lemieux
Hops still is a thing being Madison Square Garden shows ended pretty early, at least by Manhattan time. And you could always go see more music. Some years you might even run into a member of the Dead. Gary Lambert told us this story during one of our recent Phil cast episodes.
- [105:24]
Henry Kay
Twice on consecutive years. McCoy Tyner's yearly residency at the club called Sweet Basil occurred during a Dead Garden run. And Phil and I hopped in the car right after a Dead show and went down to catch McCoy's late set. One year with Brent and then sadly the next year Brent was gone. And the next year it was with Bruce and Vince. You know, I'd seen, seen these keyboard. It's just like with jaws dropping. Watching McCoy play was really a glorious thing to behold.
- [105:54]
David Lemieux
By the later 80s and 90s, heads could reliably escape to the wetlands preserve in Tribeca. A dead head, safe space if ever one existed. Peace to Larry Block. David Lemieux's first trip to Manhattan was pretty quick.
- [106:06]
Howie Levine
I returned home on the 17th, got home, watched the Dead. I watched Bob and Jerry on Letterman doing When I Paint my Masterpiece. Levitating Jerry, the whole bit.
- [106:16]
Jesse Jarno
Please don't hurt me, fella.
- [106:17]
Rich Mahan
Two fingers like this.
- [106:18]
Howie Levine
Two fingers. Do you hypnotize him or anything or.
- [106:21]
Jesse Jarno
No, lift him up. This is not gonna work.
- [106:22]
Henry Kay
Yeah, well, you see.
- [106:25]
Howie Levine
Okay, now put him down and bless Letterman said. So you guys are at the Garden, you're playing a five night run. You're too into it. How you playing?
- [106:31]
Jesse Jarno
How are you playing down there? Not bad.
- [106:34]
Howie Levine
Okay, good. And I was yelling at the tv. I said, what are you talking about? I just saw you last night. You played incredibly well. I was 16, but I mean, Gary would know better.
- [106:44]
David Lemieux
Boston Garden and Madison Square Garden had a lot of similarities. In fact, the original name of Boston Garden was Boston. Madison Square Garden, sorry, Bostonians. Conceived in 1928 as a sister garden for the New York venue's third iteration.
- [106:58]
Howie Levine
David Lemieux Boston Garden we thought about a lot of things. A lot of the best shows from earlier years have been released. 74, 77. In the 70s is when they were alternating between Boston Music hall and Boston Garden, sometimes in the same year. And then they took a big hiatus after 82. I guess they took nine years off and didn't return until 91 to the Boston Garden.
- [107:24]
David Lemieux
That was another parallel between the two gardens. Just as the Dead moved to the Meadowlands for a few years in the 80s, they also did time at the Worcester Centrum. But in the years after Touch of Gray, they were forced to take any big room they could get, especially in the Northeast.
- [107:39]
Howie Levine
Everybody who went, they said. What they loved about it was all the nooks and crannies. Because 90 the dead start playing the Knickerbocker in Albany, and it's a perfect bowl. Every seat is a perfect sight line to the hockey rink, just a perfect bowl. Whereas the Boston Garden is very angular and it's a lot of, like, little overhangs. And because of the overhangs, even though. And it was small, it was, I think 14,000 versus your normal 18. But because of the overhangs, it even felt smaller.
- [108:08]
David Lemieux
The shows there in 1991 especially, were memorable, with the September 25 gig making it to the original run of Dick's picks in 2000, only the second complete show from the 90s to be released.
- [108:26]
Jesse Jarno
Cut my deck to the Queen of Spades but the gods were all to say don't murder me my baker, you don't murder me.
- [108:44]
David Lemieux
The Boston Garden show on Enjoying the ride from October 3, 1994, is an even rarer bird in the Dead's catalog, marking only the second complete release from that year, along with a gig from earlier that same run.
- [108:56]
Howie Levine
David Lemieux this is a very accessible show. It's a very good listening experience, both in terms of the performance and the sound quality.
- [109:06]
Jesse Jarno
Maybe it's cause it's midnight the dark of the moon from inside maybe the dark is from your eyes maybe the darkness from your eyes maybe the darkness from your eyes maybe the darkness from your eyes maybe the darkness from your eyes Know you got such darkness.
- [109:31]
David Lemieux
Earlier in 1994, John Cutler replaced Dan Healy as the band's front of house engineer.
- [109:37]
Howie Levine
Cutler came on board in March of 94. Very different sound Slightly more mono at times, very stereo, but slightly more consolidated sound. But the clarity of John's mixes I find to be the best. I love Healy's mixes, but in terms of clarity, listening experience, I just love it.
- [110:04]
Jesse Jarno
SAM.
- [110:31]
David Lemieux
The tape offers a full spectrum of the best of the 1994 Grateful Dead, including the first officially released version of Childhood's End, with words and music by Phil Lesh, which they'd started playing in summer 1994, the final original Dead song to debut.
- [110:46]
Howie Levine
When I was hopping Fred Making payments.
- [110:50]
Jesse Jarno
On the farm here between the angels and the demons to see that you were running laughing girl and champing from the star.
- [111:12]
Howie Levine
I remember talking to him 20 years ago and I said, hey, you had this big flurry, like, flurry of new songs, three new songs at the. In the 90s. And he said he just was feeling very inspired again to write songs again. I remember him telling me, he said the one song he wish had developed more and was Childhood's End. So I'm happy to have that to be the one that's on here. It's such a good song.
- [111:56]
Jesse Jarno
Always gets to be round about this time of year.
- [112:06]
Howie Levine
I think everything Phil ever did was very different from anything Phil ever did.
- [112:10]
David Lemieux
For a whole lot more. Phil. Don't forget to check out our recent Phil cast. Phil actually gets two songs in the band's first set. Box of Rain had the same arrangement as the studio version, now with a bit more midi.
- [112:45]
Jesse Jarno
What do you want me to do to default you to see you through? A box of rain will ease the pain and love.
- [113:03]
Howie Levine
You get a little taste of Bobby playing the acoustic on this one. Bobby in 93, 94, 95. But generally every show played acoustic on something, so you never knew it would be Black Throated Wind. It could be El Paso. So we get a nice little dose of the weird country stuff here.
- [113:18]
Jesse Jarno
Black Throated Wind Whisper it sing Speaking of life the pass is like you forced me to see you done but better by me, Better by me I'm done by you.
- [113:41]
David Lemieux
Obviously, because, of course, Gary Lambert was there for some of the run.
- [113:45]
Henry Kay
I think I did go up to Boston for at least one or two of them. Shows at that point were a bit of a crapshoot, I guess you could say, you know, and. And how present Jerry was going to be and all that. But I remember some really spectacular moments from Boston. Even when Jerry was visibly struggling, the rest of the band was always very present and they were always ready to play. And then on the nights where Jerry was up to it, some pretty special stuff could happen.
- [114:14]
David Lemieux
There were some great flashes of late period Dead jamming, including a conversational bird song that gets pretty gnarly.
- [114:25]
Jesse Jarno
Sam.
- [114:51]
David Lemieux
The second set opens with a long shakedown street filled with gaudy Martian funk. When I'm listening to MIDI era Dead shows, my ears leap for the drums and space sections, which by the 1990s often sound like studio creations when listening to the soundboard tapes, and this tape is no exception. There are nearly 30 minutes of drums and space zones tonight. Another recent Dead development was the arrival of in ear monitors, which had a lovely effect on the band's vocals. I'll note as well that the teleprompters didn't come until slightly later.
- [116:35]
Jesse Jarno
When I had no wings to fly you through to me, you to me to be.
- [117:04]
David Lemieux
October 3, 1994, would be the Dead's last show at Boston Garden, and though the venue was already scheduled for demolition, they were scheduled to return in fall 1995. It was also the end of the road for what was unquestionably a classic Grateful Dead song and one that stretched all the way back.
- [117:21]
Jesse Jarno
Well, this job I got is a little too hard and talk about your money lotta need some pain Gotta get up in the morning pack my case gonna beat it on down the line.
- [117:42]
David Lemieux
Oftentimes, the Dead's drummers would count out the day of the month during the song's intro tonight for the last of 346 known versions, counting Mother McCree's Uptown Jug champions, but not counting studio takes or sound checks, according to Jerry Bass's most recent count, they opt for the traditional arrangement from their 1967 debut album 5 Beats, and then go sorta.
- [118:19]
Jesse Jarno
Wake up in the morning.
- [118:30]
David Lemieux
Which is how we're gonna go today too, with the Dead beating it on down the line. One final.
- [119:07]
Rich Mahan
Thank you very much for tuning in to this episode of the good old Grateful Dead cast. We would like to thank our guests in this episode David Lemieux, Ron Rackow, Sam Cutler, Richie Peckner, Alan Arkush, Ned Lagin, Gary Lambert, Blair Jackson, Stanley Krippner, Rebecca Adams, Johnny Dwark, John Scherer, Michael Simmons, Tyler Roy Hart, Henry K, Howie Levine, Kenny Schiff and Debbie Rondo. Extra special thanks to friend of the Dead cast David Ganz for your ongoing contributions of audio from your most excellent interview archive. Executive producer for the good old Grateful Dead cast, Mark Pincus, produced for Rhino Entertainment by Rich Mahan Promotions and Jesse Jarno. Special thanks to David Lemieux, Brian Dodd and Doron Tyson. All rights reserved.