Garcia said “We were great for seconds on end.” I was lucky to see Jerry play for about 1,000,000 seconds exactly. Thanks for your 1,000,000 views here . Dave Davis wrote this blog for 500 posts and 5 years from 2015 to 2019. Contact me at twitter @gratefulseconds

Saturday, June 18, 2016

An Off Night in Carbondale, February 7, 1979



I saw 19 Grateful Dead concerts in 1979 but I missed this one.  History only captures 75 minutes of soundboard, and no audience tapes to date as the Keith and Donna era was in winding down.

Fare Thee Well was my only Midwest Dead experience, but there were certainly fans in Illinois, with 76 shows played between  the Electric Theater on April 25, 1969 and July 24, 1994 at Soldier Field. This was the only performance at the University of Southern Illinois, and the students were ecstatic.


I saw some fun shows in January 1979 (unfortunately none of the Dark Star shows), which I will review in time on this blog, and February Midwest dates include some great night  (See Dick's Pick18, Scarlet>Fire and the double-long Samson  oops  Ripple Earthdevil reminded me this was 1978, no official releases from 12/31/78 Winterland to 5/4/79 Hampton). But even Bobby says, "meh" to the student reporter here the day after the show. Tired? Maybe tired of the fighting? And touring Illinois in February is far less fun than the summer I am sure.


Rare that you can't find a full audience as late as 1979. Guess the tapers were as "dead tired" as theband.  The highlight was the first "Don't Ease Me In" since Roosevelt 8-6-74. In the spirit of incompleteness, it is missing the first minute.

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