The Grateful Dead Return to the Garden

The Grateful Dead return to the Boston Garden after a 10 year hiatus. In September of 1991, the Dead were one of the most successful touring Rock bands in America. Boston was hoping for a potential $10 million  economic boost from their six night run  between 9/20 to 9/26. These are sweet shows for this time period. Click on mvyradio.com this week another episode of Shakedown Stream™ featuring the Dead back at the Garden. Plus, you can check out some past episodes from this month by clicking these links. 

Boston Garden 9/20/91

Boston Garden 9/22/91

February Fillmore

The Grateful Dead shows from the Fillmore East of February 1970 are considered the best damn Dead shows - ever. A strong statement for sure, especially coming from a DeadHead who does not subscribe to these type of proclamations, but, these shows from February 11th, 13th & 14th, 1970 are quite good. We are already familiar with this run of shows from the "Bear's Choice" album released in 1973 or even Dicks Picks #4. Each night has a  Dark Star or Turn on Your Lovelight or new songs from "Workingman's Dead." On the 11th, the band are joined by the Allman Brothers, Peter Green and other musicians for a monster jam of Lovelight. The 13th and 14th shows treat us to the first acoustic Dead with Dark Hollow, Monkey & the Engineer, Little Sadie, Wake Up Little Suzie>Black Peter and Pigs' vintage Katie Mae. I now appreciate the quality of these recordings more now than ever. The sound engineering and recording of Owsley Stanley or the Bear are exquisite. Also, it should be noted that the Grateful Dead and Bear were busted 2 weeks earlier down on Bourbon Street, New Orleans before this run of shows at the Fillmore East, New York City. Bear would eventually be jailed on Feb 27th, 1970 for violating his bail conditions, and yet, it was still important to him to be at the Board for these shows on 2/11, 2/13 & 2/14 and Thank God he did. 

"Close Encounters" - 1978

Some very precious Betty Boards Tapes have been returned to the Grateful Dead's Vault (it's a long story). And one of those shows is one that I always treasured as a teenager - the 1/22/78 Eugene, Oregon show. Jerry Garcia  plays with the "Close Encounters" melody from Stephen Spielberg's movie. Ya know, the one where these 5 notes allow the Earth people to communicate with the Aliens or vice versa. Anyway, apparently Garcia saw the movie a couple of times when it came out in the Fall of 1977 and Jerry played the melody during >>space>> right before he went into St. Stephen; a totally splendid Dead moment! In honor of the 40th anniversary of this amazing show we featured in Shakedown Stream last week on mvyradio.com. You can enjoy it for yourself CLICK 01/23/18. 

Also, this week's episode will feature more of the Grateful Dead from 40 years ago at the Uptown Theatre in Chicago, IL.