Bring Out Your Dead

I had all sorts of ideas for today. First I was gonna do a whole Kent State shootings anniversary post, with a series of CSNY concerts in NYC from June of 1970, debuting Neil Young's "Ohio" song. One of the dead students -- Jeffrey Miller, subject of the infamous "screaming woman" photo -- went to my high school in NY and his mom used to come lecture about it in the big LGI auditorium, which I think stood for Large Group Instruction. 

Then I said to myself, nahhh.... that's too morbid and death-oriented for the weekend. If it was Monday, perhaps, but let's avoid dwelling upon dead young people killed by a conscienceless, militarized power structure run amok with violence today, OK? We all know America eats its young... no need to obsess over it on a beautiful spring Sunday.

Then I settled on a compilation of songs in 5/4 time, given today's date and that I never do stuff like that on here. But I feel asleep last night before getting to put such a thing together, so "River Man" by Nick Drake and "English Roundabout" by XTC will have to wait until another May 4th.

I finally decided that the best possibility was this crisp pair of sets that wrapped up a Grateful Dead residency on this day in 1977 at NYC's Palladium (formerly the Academy of Music). This is perhaps the most legendary season in the long history of Dead tours, with the Spring of 1977 held up by Deadheads and non-Deadheads (like me) alike as representative of as good as these guys ever played over a consistent period of weeks.

This recording is a soundboard/audience matrix and sounds pretty darn spiffy... not that the Dead aren't pretty famous for their very prolific taping community and literally hundreds of extremely-well-recorded shows. Someday David Gans is gonna kick down the complete mixing desk source for the preceding night of May 3rd, which I heard part of on the GD Sirius/XM channel once a few years ago and whose "Terrapin Station" blew me away. But that time is not yet.

Grateful Dead
The Palladium
New York, NY
5.4.1977

--Set 1--
01 Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo ->
02 Big River
03 They Love Each Other
04 New Minglewood Blues
05 It Must Have Been the Roses
06 Cassidy
07 Deal
08 Looks Like Rain
09 Brown Eyed Women
10 Dancing In the Streets

--Set 2--
01 tuning
02 Estimated Prophet
03 Scarlet Begonias ->
04 Fire On the Mountain
05 Terrapin Station ->
06 Playing In the Band ->
07 Comes a Time ->
08 Playing In the Band (reprise)

Total time: 2:55:11

disc breaks can be after Set 1, track 06 and Set 2, track 02

Jerry Garcia - lead guitar, vocals
Donna Jean Godchaux - vocals
Keith Godchaux - keyboards
Mickey Hart - drums
Bill Kreutzmann - drums
Phil Lesh - electric bass, vocals
Bob Weir - rhythm guitar, vocals

soundboard/audience matrix by Hunter Seamons

939 MB FLAC/May 2014 archive link

So please enjoy this New York City excursion by a band at the peak of their jamming and improvising powers, on this, the 37th anniversary of its birth. I'll get to work on this tape of songs about tragic days in history, all by bands from Ohio and all in 5/4 time ;/--J.