Grateful Dead
Date 1986-03-28
Cumberland County Civic Center
Portland ME

set I
d1t01 - tuning
d1t02 - Iko Iko
d1t03 - Beat It On Down The Line
d1t04 - Loser
d1t05 - Never Trust A Woman
d1t06 - Me And My Uncle >
d1t07 - Mexicali Blues
d1t08 - Althea    //
d1t09 - "We Want Phil" chant
d1t10 - Box Of Rain

Set II
d2t01 - Playing In The Band >
d2t02 - Franklin's Tower >
d2t03 - I Need A Miracle >
d2t04 - Playing In The Band Jam >
d2t05 - Drums > //
d2t06 - Space >
d2t07 - The Wheel >
d2t08 - Dear Mr. Fantasy >
d2t09 - Playing In The Band (reprise) >
d2t10 - Around And Around >
d2t11 - Good Lovin'
d2t12 - encore break
d2t13 - Encore	It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Recording Information:
//  tape flips
low frequency distortion throughout whole set.
speed corrected 1.75%
bass distortion from overloaded pre-amps/low 9v batteries at several points in recording
There is a grinding sound from the PA, thought to be Weir's rig distorting, throughout this entire spring tour. It is present only when they are playing, not during breaks.
I listened to several FOB audience sources from this tour and they all have this "noise".

Source: MAUD CA
Microphones: AKG c422 crossed figure 8's (X-Y at 90') head level|AKG B18
Recorder: Sony TC-D5M| Maxell MX 90's no Dolby (2nd in line)
Location: approximately 40 feet from stage; DFC
Transfer:  s1: Nakamichi CR-5A > Sonic AD2k @24/48 > Marantz PMD661|24/48 SD
           s2: Nakamichi 680ZX > Sonic AD2k @24/48 > Marantz PMD661|24/48 SD
Processing: SD| Audacity | cdwav editor | TLH | FLAC| foobar 2000 tagger
Recorded by: Executive Crew; Mike Davis, Kyle Holbrook, Tom Pinney, John Hance, Kenny Davis, Sean Murtha
Transferred: Kyle Holbrook
This Executive Crew AKG c422 recording is dedicated to Kenny Davis RIP
=============================================================================
the tour story
After doing these stories since summer 1982 tour, I am going to shift directions a bit. I am going to discuss the Grateful Dead scene overall in 1986, rather than focusing on the personal travel tales. In a large way Jerry's "health issues" were front and center to all of us "tourheads", having had a Mikel and several other flyers going around the parking lot discussing Jerry's "failing health". I am hoping to attach some of those if I can locate them in time. I would also like to dispel the notion seen so often in print about the band and the quality of their performances being terrible during this timeframe. This was simply untrue. Some nights Jerry or Bob were off and not fully there, but plenty of nights when they would just wail and put out some fine sets. Yes, most of 1986 has short sets, some first sets are barely one hour long. My premise here is that if you listen carefully enough to the entire seven months before Jerry's diabetic coma you will hear some of the weirdest, worst, and best the Grateful Dead had to offer.

In the "best" category might be the song selections. On this recording, the "Beat it on Down the Line" and "Never Trust a Woman" stand out as examples of both best and weird, or unusual at least (listed as "Good Times" in Deadbase V, the tune was only played twice in 1986). Of course, we know now, but did not in March 1986 that the band would announce the summer tour with Bob Dylan and Tom Petty as his backup band. That hindsight goes a long way toward understanding the emergence of so many Dylan tunes during fall 1985 and spring 1986. And back to the earlier point about vocal flubs, how in the hell could Bob and Jerry recite the lengthy lyrics to those songs but forget the words to Truckin'? Amazing and puzzling at the same time. Put the flubbed lyrics and short first sets in the worst category.

For this show the first set was the more cohesive of the night.  "Iko-Iko" gets lost as an opener as so often the band and Healy are getting dialed in. "Beat it on Down the Line" was so short it almost never happened. "Never Trust A Woman" (Good Times) has some nice Jerry blues alongside a super hot Brent B3 playing. Jerry sings and plays a very nice "Althea". The crowd chants "We Want Phil" ahead of "Box of Rain" and Phil steps up to the mic while Bobby says, "Here he is". Recording wise, the first set is very "pumped" sounding, like bad Dolby. For Set 2 the segue after "Franklins Tower" was screwy, the tune seemed like China Doll then took a 180 into "I Need A Miracle". Bobby stays on to jam with drummers pre drums. "Dear Mr. Fantasy" features excellent Brent vocals and Jerry leads with Jerry sharing the vocal for the last verse. They completed "Playing in the Band" in another unusual twist for this year, when often they would never finish the Playing reprise. "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" led us out having enjoyed another two days and musical nights in Maine.

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     7:43.31       81746156 B   ---   --   ---xx   flac  0.5796  gd1986-03-28akgc422-davis-16s1t05.flac
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     0:38.67        6860828 B   ---   --   ---xx   flac  0.5059  gd1986-03-28akgc422-davis-16s1t09.flac
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     8:37.27       91262348 B   ---   --   ---xx   flac  0.6821  gd1986-03-28akgc422-davis-16s2t01.flac
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     1:18.54       13886252 B   ---   --   ---xx   flac  0.5795  gd1986-03-28akgc422-davis-16s2t12.flac
     7:07.09       75344804 B   -b-   --   ---xx   flac  0.6568  gd1986-03-28akgc422-davis-16s2t13.flac
   124:15.69     1315225744 B                            0.6387  (23 files)


