Dumbek's Random Stuff

I was looking around over at dead.net this afternoon and I discovered that they posted a couple of tracks from a show I attended. In fact it was exactly 16 years ago tonight.

My roommate/tour-buddy Steve called me at work at around 3:30. "I can't go." Crap. We were supposed to be on the road at 6:00pm. I really don't want to drive for 12 hours by myself. After spending a few minutes of being annoyed, I decided to call one of my old college friends who lives in York, PA.



"Tom? It's Jim. What are you doing this weekend?"
"Not much."
"Wanna go see The Grateful Dead?"
"Where are they playing?"
"Chicago."
"When are you leaving?"
"When can you get here?"
"Around 7:00."
"OK - Hurry up."


By 7:30 he was here and we were on the road to Chicago.

We drove all night, stopping for a couple hours of sleep and arriving around 10:00am. A quick breakfast, a few more hours of sleep and we were primed and ready to go. The Soldier Field scene was huge. Lots going on. Plenty to see, do , eat and drink. I even ran into a couple of people from College Park who recognized my car, which was covered in stickers at the time - easily recognizable if you lived anywhere near me (I lived in Greenbelt at the time).

The show was great - which was the norm for '91. Dark Star, Playin', Shakedown and Let It Grow all in the same show. Yowza. Our seats were ridiculously close - 5th row - waaaaay to the left. So far left that Phil was waaaay to our right. It was my one and only time visiting Soldier Field. The Dead's final show would be performed here 4 years later.

After the show we made a dash for the car and headed east. Gotta get to the rest stop before it fills up, otherwise we'd be stuck driving for hours trying to find a place to sleep. A decent night's sleep later (as good as you can get with 2 people in a 1988 Celica) and we were on the road early Sunday morning. The drive sucked. My car basically brokedown on the PA Turnpike. Not really brokedown, but it was overheating every 30 miles or so. So we'd drive for about a half-hour, stop for a while, then start up again. I think it took us about 15 hours to get home. Ugh. We both made it to work on time the next day though. When people at work asked "What did you do this weekend?" I just smiled and said "Oh, the usual."

Anyway - What prompted that useless story was the fact that the folks at dead.net posted the opening Bucket and Shakedown from that show this week. Enjoy. (You can stream the whole show here.)

That was 16 years ago tonight. I also saw The Dead exactly 15 years ago tonight (6/22/92 Burgettstown, PA). Not quite as eventful, but a fun one too. (Stream this one here.)

Gone are the days...