Grateful Dead
Date 1984-12-29
S.F. Civic Center
San Francisco CA

Set 1
d1t01 - One More Saturday Night
d1t02 - Friend Of The Devil
d1t03 - My Brother Esau
d1t04 - Big Railroad Blues
d1t05 - Cassidy
d1t06 - Althea
d1t07 - Let It Grow

Set 2
d2t01 - Tuning
d2t02 - Samson And Delilah
d2t03 - Terrapin Station >
d2t04 - Playing In The Band >
d2t05 - Drums >     //
d2t06 - Space >
d2t07 - Truckin' >
d2t08 - Stella Blue   #
d2t09 - Not Fade Away #
d2t10 - Not Fade Away Bop bop >
d2t11 - Brokedown Palace

Recording Information:
Set 2 liner notes mention the mics plugged into a "multi-box" then the Sony TCD5M. This was a box which took one pair of mic inputs having either 4 or 6 stereo pair arranged in parallel so everyone got the same output signal in order to get as many "lead decks" as it had outputs.
# From end of Stella Blue through Not Fade Away, batteries were running out so tape speed slowed, so playback got faster until it sounds like Mickey Mouse toward the end. The Not Fade Away track borrowed from the below cite.
# Substituted shnid: 95694, track d3t04 NFA (Kirshner|Miller AUD (FOB) Sony ECM-220T) for damaged NFA t09

Source: Master AUDCA: Sennheiser MKE2002 Binaurals headworn > lead Sony TCD5M >
        s1:maxell UDXLIIS90 No Dolby; s2:Maxell MX90 No Dolby -lead deck run by CK.
Source 2: # MAUDCA (FOB) Sony ECM-220T -> Cassette Master (Sony TC-D5M) Kirshner|Miller
Location: 40-50 feet from stage DFC on Kyle's head
Transfer: Nakamichi MR-2 > Marantz PMD661|24/48 SD
Processing: SD| Audacity | cdwav editor | TLH | FLAC
Recorded by: Executive Crew: Chris Kidwell; Tom Pinney; Kyle Holbrook; JJ Hance; Mike Davis; Johnny B Goode
=========================================================================================================================
The tour story:
Where to begin. JJ had an asthma attack during set 1 and shut off the lead deck momentarily by passing out on it. Johnny was in his second GD show and acting as if it was his 50th. Mike and Howard had to be the support team and oh my, Howard hasn't come into any of these stories. Damn, that dude loved his Dead, and his knowledge of the Bay area, in terms of touristy stuff was unparalelled to us at the time. Howard bought two crates of oranges which he gave out after the show standing on the street corner near the park. Bill Graham came around and asked us if we were selling the fruit. Howard said "no Bill, I'm giving it away like you used to at the Fillmore West". Bill turned to him, stared him in the eyes and said, "That's a good man, let me have one". This would mark my first real world encounter with the famous promoter. Friggin One O'CLock in the morning on a street corner in San Francisco with a crate of Oranges and Howard Terry and I meet Bill Graham!

By showtime everyone knew about Big Steve's family loss the previous night; that energy in the crowd mixed with the band's obvious pain made this show so energy draining to be at. We had a close up view being 40-50 feet from the stage, dead center with the binaural microphones, 6 tape decks and someone's Sennheiser 421's next to us. We had at least 6 people on the floor at all times with another 3-4 roaming and being backups bringing refreshments etc. The liner notes indicate Kyle wore the binaurals, but I must have been spelled for some time in the second set as I do not recall wearing them the entire show. In case anyone wonders, wearing them while trying to stand stock still is stressful on one's physical and mental condition; we had more than one case of the binaural "human mic stand" passing out wearing them. In set 2 there is a phase shift around 32 minute mark which is probably the swapping of the mics from one head to another. Looking, listening back, I'm so glad Chris bought the Sennheiser binaurals; the digitized playback results all these years later are so much more pleasing than we heard on our stereos back in the day. Add to that, the tonality is unlike most of the audience recordings of the era.

The show recap is certainly shaped by the deaths in the family. The relatively short seven song Set 1 opened with a not unexpected One More Saturday Night which led into a Friend of the Devil. Which had a very quiet vocal sequence leading into a pretty juiced up Jerry solo garnering crowd approval. A nice Easau into a quick Big RR Blues with Garcia shouting lyrics and punching out the leads. Next up Bobby's Cassidy led into an Althea with some cool Bobby Chords backing up Jerry's vocals. They closed out with a lengthy reading of Looks Like Rain with the poignant words
"Awoke today, felt your side of the bed;
 The covers were still warm where you been layin'.
 You were gone, oh gone, my heart was filled with dread;
 You might not be sleeping here again"

Set 2 opening half was short but soulful. The Samson opener was a bit sluggish but the Terrapin > Playing jam was calling back to 1977 with haunting lyrical presentation from Jerry and Bob. After space, the battery issue starts showing up with some left-right channel shifting; this may not be the finest mke2002 recording ever for that reason. We did get the baterries swapped out before The NFA bop bop's began. The Truckin' was perfunctory, missing it's usual high energy and you can tangibly hear Jerry's sadness through his vocals in Stella Blue. The entire band's extra tasty treatment of Stella Blue comes through in the weeping guitar and bass lines, Brent's keys adding melancholy. Note the playing of One More Saturday Night AND Samson and Delilah in the same Saturday show. By the mid Eighties Bobby had typically only played Saturday Night on Saturdays and Samson on Sundays. However, we got them both in the same show as there was to be no Sunday show in this 3 night, four day run.

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   150:21.871    2598299532 B                            0.7213  (18 files)


