Today in Grateful Dead History: September 19, 1988 – Madison Square Garden, New York, NY

terrapinOh 1988, you never disappoint me.  You always show up neatly dressed, ready for work, put in your eight hours and don’t mess anything up too badly.  Thanks for coming.

Today’s show is more of the same from the band on this particular run – nothing exciting, nothing in particular to describe in detail, several ridiculous breakdowns in the newer songs (like the very beginning of Foolish Heart).

As I’ve said before about some of these late-80’s shows, if you weren’t a real fan of the Dead and you came to this show, you probably drank a bunch of beers, hit a few nitrous balloons, wandered around the Garden and had a good time.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  But compared to where the Dead were even one year later in 1989, these fall ’88 shows are pretty lackluster.

Do I have to pick a highlight?  OK, let’s take Quinn the Eskimo as the encore and leave it at that.  I guess Drums is pretty hyped up tonight, although nothing interesting really happens during the song.  Touch of Grey opener?  First China Doll of 1988?  Anybody?

Listen here:  https://archive.org/details/gd1988-09-19.133319.mtx.tobin.flac16

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