Dead of the Day: 04-19-1982
Baltimore Civic Center
Baltimore, Maryland
Our Dead of the Day takes us to Baltimore for an epic end to the spring ’82 East Coast tour. The Dead open with a tight Jack Straw, and the first set keeps delivering from there. The They Love Each Other is one of the sweetest versions, with a nice, long early Brent solo. Then, in the middle of the set, the boys set off on a rapturous Peggy-O, follow up with a lovely Cassidy, and then go on to a wonderful It Must Have Been the Roses, keeping the same intense, lilting aura throughout each while they jam off on different trajectories. The Rooster and Cumberland are both also hot, but the first set is really defined by those three sumptuous middle tunes.
They Love Each Other
On The Road Again
Peggy-O
Cassidy
It Must Have Been The Roses
Little Red Rooster
Cumberland Blues >
Man Smart (Woman Smarter) >
Might As Well
Franklin’s Tower >
Estimated Prophet >
Terrapin Station >
Drums >
Space > *
The Wheel >
Truckin’ >
Stella Blue >
Around & Around >
Good Lovin’
Encore:
Brokedown Palace
Jerry Garcia – Guitar
Bob Weir – Guitar
Brent Mydland – Keyboards
Phil Lesh – Bass
Bill Kreutzmann – Drums
Mickey Hart – Drums
Stranger starts them back on the path in the second set, entering into some wild exploration at the end before setting off on a monstrous Franklin’s Tower. From there, Bobby takes us into Estimated, which itself heads off into some splendid terrain before transitioning to Terrapin. Uncharacteristically, the Terrapin is just good, not stratospheric, but it does send the drummers right off into a frenzy once the rest of the band leaves the stage. Before long, the beam makes an appearance and then not too much later, the boys come back together for one of the more memorable Spaces: Phil’s trippy Raven Space, going off on Poe in the writer’s hometown. Out of the horror, though, comes the exquisite rising of a resplendent Wheel. Then Truckin’ – with Weir’s “sex change” lyrics – serves as a hot interlude before a stunning Stella. The boys put away the night and the tour with a fabulous, yet haunting Brokedown.
Mickey had been using the beam since 1979, when Mickey first created it for the Apocalypse Now Sessions. After Francis Ford Coppola attended a Dead show, he asked Billy and Mickey if they would record for his movie. For the session, the two drummers collected percussion instruments from around the world and also crafted a few new ones, including the beam. While screening an early cut of the film, the Rhythm Devils – which included Phil on bass, guitarist Mike Hinton, vocalist Flora Purim, the Brazilian drummer Airto Moreira, Sly and the Family Stone drummer Greg Errico, and percussionists Jim Loveless and Jordan Amarantha – played along, morphing through every emotion, intensity, and exploration imaginable. Some of the music made it into Apocalypse Now, and the Rhythm Devils released the recording as an album, which Smithsonian Folkways re-released in the early 90s. After the session, Mickey and Billy incorporated the beam – along with a massive series of bass drums called the beast – into their Dead setup.
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