On The Day That I Was Born

Forty years ago, the Grateful Dead played a birthday show for Jerry Garcia that was one for the ages. All the aura and mystic of the Grateful Dead was a ship that docked itself at Roosevelt Stadium. After The Band opened the festivities, the Grateful Dead stepped on to stage and fill that sail with wind enough to sail the seven seas. Download a matrix of this show HERE, HERE, and HERE.

There is a lot to groove to in the first set. The "Sugaree" is magnificently clear, the "Race" most definitely is on, and "You Ain't Woman Enough" is still Joe Greg's favorite Donna cover. The "Bird Song" pals in comparison to the Watkins Glen one from four days earlier and is one of the last one's until the 1980 acoustic sets. There is the rare first set "Stella Blue," which is highly dramatic. Then there is "Casey Jones" closer, which is the band seems to almost lose the handle on before kicking it into high gear for a fierce end of the set.
The second set features dreamy combo of "Dark Star/El Paso/Eyes/Dew." The "Dark Star" starts like your surfing and beautiful cumulus cloud. Floating on the golden cloud steers us over the skies building steam as Garcia sings the lone verse. Then the music like joining clouds turn from tranquility to that of thunderous roars. When the storm passes, Bobby transitions into the a song that they played more than any other song in 1973, "El Paso." The song was tapped as a very versital song because it work, because of Garcia's playing, out of mega jams or as first set song. There is a few second trasition jam, where the band debates moving back in to "Dark Star," where Jerry rips into a massive 20 minute "Eyes." Listen to Keith rock the grand piano on the final verses. He is playing it so hard that you think that he had to move to the electric piano for the jam because he broke the grand. In the finale jam Jerry methodically takes the band down the steps to a haunting "Morning Dew." This song is like a fog stretching out over a graveyard. Magnificent as it is hurtingly romantic. Though it isn't listed as it, the "Going Down the Road/One More Saturday Night" sounds like it was meant as encore for the weekend's events.

Although it is listed in the poster, there no record of there being a show on July 30th in Deadbase or recording on Bit Torrent or Archive. Otherwise these three shows would make a stupendous future box set if it exist in the vault.

I: Promised, Sugaree, Race is on, You Ain't Woman Enough, Bird Song Mexicali, TLEO, Straw, Stella, Big River, Casey

II: Around, Half Step, Uncle, Row Jimmy, Dark Star, El Paso, Eyes, Dew, Sugar Mags, GDTRFB, Saturday Night

Tonight, after my niece's birthday party, I'll be heading to the movies. Even if you show up late, I say do anything possible to get to the movies, because these shows haven't been put out on DVD afterwards.
I've also decided what I'm doing for these Days Between, I'm going to feature a show outside of the dates and anniversary and mostly Jerry stuff away from the Grateful Dead, except for the one GD show because it is part of my themed year featuring a special guest. And wouldn't you know it, jerrygarcia.com just got an overhaul and should be a more interactive website, so feel free to dork out on it with me.