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

Friday, August 24, 2018

Two More Saturday Nights: May 1966 in Berkeley


Little information exists for these shows, but we do know the Grateful Dead (probably) debuted in Berkeley in May 1966 with two consecutive Saturday Night shows on May 7 and May 14. $3.99 would get you into both shows.


May 7 (Happy real Bill birthday #20)

The UC Student Daily Cal ad on May 6 is so much more "mainstream: than


The Berkeley Barb ad




and May 14 at the Vets Memorial down at Grove and Milvia


No tapes no setlists but plenty of cool info and ancillary information from such sources as the Berkeley Barb and the San Francisco Examiner.

Here are some tunes from May 19. you might know


The Dead had practiced in town at the Questing Beast on San Pablo in Feb 1966 and there was a rumored cancelled show (see http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=588003 for tunes), but these two were the first advertised and known shows. According to http://berkeleyfolk.blogspot.com/2009/08/cabale-creamery-2504-san-pablo-avenue.html,

When the Cabale finally folded, probably sometime in the summer of 1965, the 2504 San Pablo premises briefly became The Good Buddy then Caverns West before being taken over, by Terry Sullivan and Tony Sage, and re-opened as the Questing Beast on November 19. Subsequently it became Tito's and the Longbranch. 











"Canceled" Feb show in Deadlists may have been rehersal


























More on 1966 shows:

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/01/deads-1966-songs.html

http://www.deadlistening.com/2008/10/1966-july-16-fillmore-auditorium.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_29_1966,_P.N.E._Garden_Aud.,_Vancouver_Canada


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