GD 86 pre coma

Last show I saw pre coma was Rich Stadium on 7/4. Thought it was fine. Didn't realize it was Farm Aid broadcast at the time 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-afFOI898hY

Lots of good shows on the Spring 86 tour back east. I was at Philly, Portland, Providence, and Hartford, and I don't recall a clunker in the bunch.

Only saw the two Cal Expo shows in 86 pre-coma.- they were both pretty good, esp. the Sunday show.

I caught the NYE 85/86 shows, then Greek a few months later...  the eve of NYE was a good show, the rest...  suppose I should give another listen, but at the time meh...  

6/30/86 Cincinnati, OH, Riverbend

7/2/86 Akron, OH, Rubber Bowl, (Tom Petty and HB + Dylan/TPHB opened)

^ My first Box Of Rain

I enjoyed the first show of that year. Jerry sang & played well, the 1st set was fun & especially the pre-drums 2nd set was really good...

https://archive.org/details/gd1986-02-08.142380.mtx.tobin.flac1644/gd198...

The other show of that run I saw was also really fun, the Mardi Gras show with the Neville Brothers opening & jamming with the band. I believe that was the first Mardi Gras show? That was a good idea. I don't think I saw a Mardi Gras show I didn't really enjoy, even when I wasn't really enjoying the band.

https://archive.org/details/gd1986-02-11.mtx.seamons.117798.flac24/gd86-...

^^^Video of 2/8, you can see Garcia is really on for this show^^^

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMvOS_bbOyc

Here's the 11th, Garcia looks focused this night, also.

Maybe the best 1st set of '86  Rare, maybe last China>Rider to open, Birdsong>Music>MA Well to close.

Encore with Brian Stoltz on guitar, Weir on tamborine, Art Neville & Brent, Willie Green, Phil sits out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks9kVAhDh8g

Also rumors of both groups doing a late night set have been going around.

3/28/86 was my first show, and it was a good one. 

The Portland ME show with Revolution Hamstrung Blues was the one and only show I taped. Must have gone to the to the Providence shows too but don't remember them.

Providence was Easter weekend, and the run started with a Sunday show, which was the one time I saw them do Why Don't We Do It In The Road. The Monday show had some rarities, like Roadrunner, Willie and The Hand Jive, and a Comes a Time. Tuesday I don't really remember, and the setlist is short and looks perfunctory.

https://archive.org/details/gd86-03-30.fob-schoeps.miller.25526.sbeok.shnf

https://archive.org/details/gd86-03-31.fob-schoeps-pasternak.miller.2552...

https://archive.org/details/gd86-04-01.naks-porter.braverman.7342.sbefix...

And that 3/38 show was a good one too, BK. Not the standard fare, for sure

https://archive.org/details/gd86-03-28.neumann-hogan.hogan.5004.sbeok.shnf

^ Nino I also attended RHB Portland ME Show.

One and Only performance of that Tune.  I happened to be by the Soundboard,  and some person knew the Name of the Song.

So we were probably within a few Linear feet of each other.

the Irvine shows were the only ones i saw in '86 (my 2nd & 3rd shows)

had tickets for Ventura, but you know...

I loved the '86 shows I saw in the Bay Area. First, all of the ones at the Kaiser pre-coma, and then the first come-back show, the JGB show 10/19/86 at the Stone in SF. Might be my heaviest, most emotional show ever. Link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6zHuH8PFAE

>>>^ Nino I also attended RHB Portland ME Show.

Yeah it would be nice if there was some sort of magic diorama to be able to see all the ways we ran into each other. I was also standing near Lance when he got yelled at by Bill Graham in Oakland. So there are at least two instances for me, but I'm sure many more. 

And Mike it's the Comes a Time that confuses me about the Providence run because I always chalked that song up to one I never caught so it's possible I didn't go but also possible I saw it and don't remember that either.  I do remember at least one Easter show but I think that was in Hartford. Shitty downtown east coast arena neighborhoods all look the same in my memory. 

If I had advice for the kids it would be write it down, but as long as they keep paying their cloud storage fees they will have photo and video documentation of everything and I'm also glad I don't have that.

I'm just remembering that the second Providence show got cut short because some knucklehead threw a bottle at the drummers right after the big crescendo in Truckin'. It sounded like they might have been headed into a Spoonful jam, but then they just stopped playing. They did come back out for a Johnny B. Goode though.

dr. doolittle, I can't remember the ticket situation to the JGB show. I remember going on my own, not knowing which of my friends would be there before I got there. It was a short time in advance, but long enough for me to get a train ticket with a sleeper for part of the distance, both ways.

If you've ever taken the train between Eugene and the Bay Area (I think it was Emeryville, even then) you know that you're traveling much of the way in the night, and in October (p.s.t. then) it was a beautiful dark black/blue sky when the moon wasn't up. While looking out the window of the sleeper I figured out how to create the color of the sky using the colors of ink I had for rubber stamping. That color, so dark but not black, was dynamic with other colors and gorgeous on its own. Spectacular, actually.

The moment when Jerry walked out on stage. Well, that was one of the most deeply emotional, happy and relieved, tear-causing moments ever.

I think I read once that Nancy might have been there, maybe she can tell you more about the ticket situation.

I would have gone to Hampton and probably Philly, but I took an insane trip to the USSR instead. I was sorry to miss the Box of Rain breakout

and other good shows, but that trip was a real different deal.

I went to the last 5 shows of the summer tour:

Riverbend Music Center    6-30-86

Akron Rubber Bowl    7-2-86

Orchard Park  7-4-86

RFK    7-6-86

RFK   7-7-86

Notes/Observations:

----Riverbend was the best, very strong show, whole band into it and in good form, great fun venue and scene. Everything you want a Dead show to be.

And then, the stadiums hit. Even though they were playing stadiums this tour, I literally couldn't 

give away the extras I had to this show. No one outside wanted them...what a difference a year would make....

---Dylan's first time playin' with the band, and my first time seeing him. Let's just say I found him a bit rough that tour...

(Weir did do Truckin' in a nod to the next show in (near) Buffalo.)

--Buffalo, one hour west of my hometown; The only Cold Rain--->Fire On The Mountain ever; that was the highlight of this show for me. 

(this was the first Rich Stadium show; I somehow wound up going to all 5 they played there...weird).

RFK---Night one---normal-ish show.

RFK--Night two---Not normal. First Ramble On Rose to open a show since that incredible Jai-Alai Fronton show in '74.

This show was not that. That first set had 13 songs. This one had 5, and one of them was a Baby Blue with Bob Dylan

that couldn't have been sung worse....Garcia had his way of singing it and Dylan had his; let's just say they didn't mesh well.

---Then comes the second set, where Jerry disappears and is apparently trying to piss in a garbage can right behind his amp, delaying 

the beginning of Terrapin. He finally comes in to start after a bit....

----I was right in the front, quite high for the Satisfaction encore where Weir introduces the band to end the tour. It was late and still hot as fuck

and people had left and they just ripped into one of the best versions ever. When Weir introduced Garcia, he started doing these dissonant 

power chords as I've never heard him do before or since. And the look on his face was priceless. 

"One of my best friends in the whole world, Mr. Bob Weir!!"

What a way to end the tour.

Three days later, Jerry is in Marin General.

 

Judit that is amazing that you got to be there. That's one I'm really sorry I couldn't make; the vibe must have been incredibly heavy.

Doolittle, from everything I've read and heard from people, these comeback JGB shows at the Stone (like many others) were announced on KFOG, basically 

"Tickets on sale now at BASS," or maybe sometimes they said "noon" or something, someone here knows. (Woz was probably there).

Either way, a tough ticket to be sure; I'm glad you got in there Judit!!!!

didn't nelson help him start to play/remember songs again? i guess we are all lucky jerry was around as long as he could be here.

I believe the story is that Merl Saunders was the one who worked with Jerry every day and brought him back, but I would imagine that Nelson was around as well.

>>>i guess we are all lucky jerry was around as long as he could be here<<<

No guessing about it. Those of us old enough to have seen him are luckiest, but think about how many people have been and continue to be influenced by Jerry more than 25 years after he died.

Fucking amazing luck for all of us.

It was Merl. It was a beautiful thing.

I had friends in the Bay Area who had friends who knew what was happening. Maybe that's how I heard about the show at the Stone.

I saw the 5 shows at the Kaiser, most of the Spring Tour, and all of the Summer Tour.  Then Jerry almost died, and there were no shows for a while.  I bought my girlfriend and myself plane tickets and tickets for the Halloween show at the Kaiser where JGB opened for Kingfish.   First time I saw It Stoned Me.   I was kind of a mess then, and passed out during the Kingfish set.  My girlfriend was a Bobby girl, so she loved it.  By the next Spring, I'd had a reckoning with myself, quit dealing for a regular day job, stopped using hard drugs,  and by Summer, was putting myself through school, which caused me to miss the '87 Dylan & The Dead shows.  The girlfriend and I parted ways, but I was in a much better headspace.

As far as best of '86 that I saw, most have already been mentioned:  The Kaiser run was pretty good, but the 2nd Set on Mardi Gras was the biggest train wreck I ever saw.  The next night's 2nd Set, on Ash Wednesday, was light years better, as was the Valentine's Day show to end the run.  
 

The 2nd Set on the last night of the Greek Theatre run was really good.  They opened with Fire On The Mountain, played a jammy set and played a double encore.  
 

The Ohio shows were both really good.  I preferred Akron myself (the only Playin>Desolation Row), but I think the rugs were just getting to me in Cincy, because everyone else was raving about that show.  Earlier in the tour, I found the single mega-set at the Metrodome interesting, and was mostly underwhelmed at Alpine.  I'm glad I went back there in '88 and '89.

Of course, Hampton, and the Box breakout was memorable, and I also liked the Portland, Maine shows.  Providence was going really well too, until that arse threw a bottle at the stage.  As I recall, they did not play an encore that night, and the word was put out in the lot that the band wanted to know who'd thrown the bottle, and they were banned from future shows.

A big transition year for the 21 year old kid I was.

1985 was a really interesting year with a few really unique shows and several break-out songs. There were a few clunkers also, but you can almost not go wrong in 1985, almost. I recommend Portland 3/31, River Bend, Blossom, SPAC, Hershey & Merriweather (both), Ventura, Hollywood FL. and Richmond (both). 

Jerry in red, trouble ahead.

I was at the comeback show at the Stone. The show was announced shortly before on a weekday. A friend called and tipped me off (he heard it on KFOG) and I ran right to BASS and was lucky to get a ticket. It was indeed an emotional event even more powerful than the first  one back Dead show....  and that was intense!

pre-coma i hit Philly, Hartford, Alpine and Buffalo. Alpine was pretty rough but the rest were pretty good.

>>>Providence was going really well too, until that arse threw a bottle at the stage.  As I recall, they did not play an encore that night, and the word was put out in the lot that the band wanted to know who'd thrown the bottle, and they were banned from future shows.

LOL in Providence it was probably a drunk cop, or his mobster son. It was pretty common for them to just go back and forth from one generation to the next. 

Only attended RFK, which was pretty weak.

It obviously was nationwide news when he got busted at the beginning of '85, when he had the coma and hospitalization in 

July of '86, and when he came back in October.