Check this out.
This is the Grateful Dead playing today’s show in Park City, Utah, back in 1983.
It looks like a high school battle of the bands, in a heavenly locale. You don’t need a cool stage setup when you’ve got that background.
Now I was a little nervous about the Dead playing at altitude, because a couple years later, this happened.
But fear not – this is September, 1983, a time of good shows, and this is one of them, especially the first set.
The first set is a smoker – so much so that I had to check to make sure the tape wasn’t sped up. You’ll hear what I mean when you listen to Bertha roll right into The Promised Land. Or the set-ending China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider. In this version, the China Cat does not portend well for the Rider, but the boys pull off a great version. There are lots of other highlights in this first set – it just depends on your mood. Friend of the Devil is a good one. So is Althea. And if you like nascent Brother Esaus, we’ve got that too.
The second set is also good, but the setlist is not particularly inspiring. Things start off well with Scarlet Begonias into a really long Fire on the Mountain, but that’s followed by The Women Are Smarter, and while that’s true, the song sucks, even when it’s played well like it is tonight. The jam out of Space into The Wheel is about as astral as we are going to get here today, and The Other One is a pulsating monster, but the rest of the night is typical good 1983 Dead rockers + Wharf Rat.
The first set is really where things are at tonight – if you want a dose of early 80’s Grateful Dead “hits” played well, this is a good one for you.
Listen here: https://archive.org/details/gd1983-09-04.149229.fob.nak700.wagner.miller.clugston.flac2496
Daily Dose Of The Dead 