Dust Off Those Rusty Strings

Today is the anniversary of the final show from 1975, which you can download a soundboard of HERE and HERE. After this show, the Grateful Dead went on their longest hiatus of their entire 30 year career. The hiatus was 9 months and is longer than the 86 Jerry coma and the 92 doctor orders time off the band later took.

"Let's have another party like this again sometime" Phil exclaims as the show comes to a close. If the band wasn't so high on LSD maybe they would have understood and not just heard what Phil was saying. After this show the Grateful Dead hiatus officially started. The two albums, "Blues for Allah" and "Steal Your Face," that the worked on after the 10/20/74 The Last One show were set to be released. They played 4 gigs in 1975 and this was the last one and there were no more tours or plans in the works. This is were Phil's Heineken years started. Phil didn't have solo projects on the horizon, because Phil and Ned had released "Seastones," and so he spent his time drinking. In his book he talks about going to the bar virtually all day and night long. He essentially was Norm from Cheers, a reference that some will have to look up. He saw the days of his life disappear through the green bottle and had no ability to stop or control his life till the the Grateful Dead came back into his life and he had a sense and direction again.

The special guest that sat if for the first time on stage, Matthew Kelly and he played on "Music" and "Beat It On Down The Line." A life long friend of Bobby, Matthew played makes an appearance on "Wake of the Flood" and at that time a member of Kingfish with Bobby. He later guested on the album "Shakedown Street" and appear with the band for the best version of "Miracle" turning the "Closing of Winterland" show. Kelly was also part of Bobby side projects like Bobby & The Midnights and Ratdog.

Help, Slip, Music*, TLEO, BIODTL*, Franklin's, Big River, Roses, Truckin', Eleven jam, Drums, Stronger Than Dirt, NFA, GDTRFB, Saturday Night