Dumbek's Random Stuff

9/17/93 - Grateful Dead - Madison Square Garden - New York, NY

I dug up an old Usenet review I wrote of this one 15 years ago:

I may be in the minority here, but I didn't care for this one. Most of set 1
was just pretty boring. Nothing really took off except Ramble On Rose, which
was great. Tom Thumb was fun, but everything else was just pretty dull. I've
only heard Easy Answers twice. It doesn't do anything for me yet. In my
opinion, the set wasn't too bad, it just wasn't too good. Set 2 - Foolish
Heart was nice. Great jamming. Haven't heard that one in a while. Ship of
Fools was boring, St. of Circumstance started off pretty sloppy, but jammed
well at the end, Drums/Space was really good. I was positive they were going
into The Other One, but they fell into Miracle instead. I was pretty excited
to hear That Would Be Something, but I was disappointed. As Barb pointed out,
it looked like Jerry was trying to show Bob the chords to the song. They never
seemed to get it together. The whole song seemed to be forced out. Very
sloppy. Finally, I think they gave up and went into Standing on the Moon,
which Jerry forgot a handful of words to. He really belted out the end though.
Lovelight was a crowd pleaser, if not much else. I'm really tired of I Fought
the Law. The novelty of this one is definitely wearing thin. Highlights:
Ramble On Rose, Foolish Heart, Drums/Space.

Listening to this one again last week, my previous review may have been a little harsh, but no too far off the mark. "St. Of Circumstance" is actually much better than my review implies though. I remember being really annoyed with the "I Fought The Law" closer. They were playing it way too much and it was getting on my nerves. We actually walked out as soon as they started it. That's something I rarely did at Dead shows, because you never know what could happen. Tonight I decided I'd rather miss something than sit through this song again.



9/17/2000 - Furthur 2000 - Bryce Jordan Center (Penn State), University Park, PA

No big surprise to hear that I was excited about seeing The Other Ones at Penn State. I went by myself to this one, because Dinger wanted to stay in Philly with his buddy, Bob, for the weekend. I remember getting a room at the Hotel State College - directly above my favorite bar and right on College Avenue in the middle of downtown. Talk about perfect.

The show wasn't all that great. The setlist was pretty lame (including "Baba Jingo", "Easy Answers", "Preacher In The Ring" and "Victim"....ugh). The lack of Phil probably makes this the least interesting of the post-Jerry tours. But none of that really matters, because something would happen tonight that would forever include this show on my "OMG you won't believe what happened!" list.

Hanson showed up and sat-in. Really. THAT Hanson. "mmmBop" Hanson. Teenage-heartthrobs Hanson. All three of them came out and sang on "I Know You Rider" and "The Weight." Depending on who you asked, it was either the greatest collaboration in the history of music, or a coming sign of the apocalypse. I loved every second of it. Awesome.

OMG - I just realized Hanson is playing in State College the weekend of the Dead gig. I may have to go to that. Maybe.



9/17/06 - Rustbuckit/Vampyre Bunnies - Black Cat Backstage

I think this was the first time I had seen Rustbuckit. In fact - I'm not sure they had been playing much (at all?) before this one. Very impressive old-school DC punk-type stuff. Not surprising, considering their Black Market Baby roots. Great band. Fun show. They're taking pre-orders for their new CD on their website. Hopefully, that means it's coming out soon.

Update: I found my setlist for the Rustbuckit show.