rcd@opus.UUCP (Dick Dunn) (09/09/85)
Songlists for 9/7/85, third day at Red Rocks, CO:
Half-Step Mississippi Uptown Toodleoo
New* Minglewood Blues
Brown-Eyed Women
My Brother Esau
Loser
Dupree
One More Saturday Night
- - - -
Shakedown Street
Crazy Fingers
Samson & Delilah
Uncle John's Band
Playing in the Band ->
guitar jam ->
drums ->
space ->
Mr. Fantasy (?+Hey Jude???)
Trucking
Comes a Time
Lovelight
- - - -
Johnny B. Goode
Baby Blue
<== Objective | Subjective ==>
The first set started out a little unevenly. No, wait a minute, the START
of the first set was downright silly. The band came out to tune up and
discovered that there were equipment problems. Garcia left to get
something fixed. Weir decided to do something silly solo--a song about a
logger and a girl, to which he didn't quite remember the words. He spent a
lot of time clowning around, and the drummers were helping with horns (like
bicycle horns) and such. This was followed by a rendition (perhaps I
should say a rendering) of the Star Spangled Banner on what sounded like
kazoos and who knows what else, performed by Mickey (I think) and maybe
some of the crew--they were back behind the percussion so it was hard to
see, but it looked like Popick (sp?) was part of it. You may hear some of
this on tapes, but unless you were there it's going to be pretty weird. Oh
yeah, Healy was screwing around with some special effects throughout.
Having set the stage for some playing around, the first set went well, if a
little lacking in enthusiasm in some of the first numbers. (But then, slow
starts aren't unusual.) By the end of the first set, things were cookin'
along. The second set was great--I would have enjoyed it much more than
the Thursday show but for sound problems. The sound was OK in some areas,
bad in others. We were in one of the bad areas, where everything was a
little too loud and a little distorted, lacking in bass but blasting in the
high end, and the vocals overpowering everything. Checking around, the
problem was not everywhere. I wish that the sound crew had a better handle
on this. When the Dead's sound is at its best, it's so far above any other
band that it's silly to compare--but the troubles are too common.
The Saturday show was longer than Friday. The double encore was a nice
treat. (Given the mood of the band, it wasn't much more effort. Given the
mood of the crowd, it was almost necessary--after that second set, an
encore like Johnny B. Goode wasn't the sort of thing to make you want to
get up and go home.)
Partway through Mr. Fantasy, Jerry and Bobby launched into the "Na na na
na-na-na-na" part of Hey Jude. I heard someone say that this had happened
before, but Brent sure looked surprised by it, and J&B had a lot of fun
with it. That was sort of characteristic of the show--upbeat, party-time,
a little silly.
The parking situation was finally managed right on Saturday, so that if you
came in from the north you could park on the north and leave to the north
without a ten-mile detour. Security was a little more on top of the
keeping-people-off-the-rocks problems.
On the way out, we got treated to a real "back-to-reality, longhair" routine.
One of Denver's finest (Red Rocks is a City of Denver park) was directing
traffic out of the park; as we drove out onto the main road, he was
shouting, "...come on, get a move on, double-time it or I'll put your ass
in jail..." We were moving right about the speed limit; it's kind of an
awakening to find a pig (no, I won't call HIM a policeman, thank you) who
wants to consider obeying traffic laws and exercising reasonable caution a
crime. 'Twas an interesting illustration of why Denver periodically has
minor scandals with how their police treat people--remember that this
hothead gets to carry a gun.
Still, that was one minor event out of three beautiful days of music. In
spite of having moved the shows to the daytime--in fact, right into the
middle of prime thunderstorm time for September along the Colorado front
range--the weather was fine. Thrusday and Friday were beautifully clear
(but hot); Saturday threatened rain about break time but we only got a few
drops. Tapers were in abundance. Assuming they were able to deal with the
wind, there should be good tapes from all three shows; I recommend you look
for copies.
--
Dick Dunn {hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd (303)444-5710 x3086
...Relax...don't worry...have a homebrew.