Dead of the Day: 08-28-1981
Long Beach Arena
Long Beach, California
There are some good shows, especially from the late 60s, on this day. But we have to go to the 1981 show at the Long Beach Arena for our Dead of the Day. What you have here is a little underappreciated show that is blissful throughout. Drown your ears in the sharp, fruity jams of the first set. They Love Each Other is achingly beautiful, and the Althea> Little Red Rooster is out of this world. Althea warms up the boys, allowing them to charge headlong into Rooster, driving the jam further and further in the second half of the song before finally ending in a long roll of the drum. A bit later, the Let It Grow smokes with nervous, fecund energy as everyone leads the jam along. Then the Dead bring it down alongside a babbling brook of percussion, keys, and guitar before launching into a sweet China Cat Sunflower that leads into an equally fine I Know You Rider to end the set.
The second set gets going with a ripping, funky Shakedown. Jerry does have some trouble with the vocals, but the entire band more than makes up for it with their playing, especially with the creepy, raspy computer jam around the eight-minute mark. They lose the momentum a little bit with the beginning of Lost Sailor, but by the end of the tune the band is again killing it, and they bring that momentum right along into Saint of Circumstance. The Wheel that comes out next basically turns into a jam all its own, heading way off The Wheel theme and into parts unknown before settling into Never Trust a Woman, which is a great Brent tune, highlighted this time by the excellent drum, bass, and keys jam at the end. From there, the drummers take over for a fun Drums. At the end of Space the boys start playing with the Spanish Jam theme before settling into it full force, teasing Dark Star just a touch. Then we get a whistled beginning to Truckin’ that, we imagine, could have only come from Mickey. The Truckin’ continues on, as you would expect from this show, to be really hot. Of course, Bobby completely flubs the lyrics at one point. And then we get a resplendent Wharf Rat that drops into Sugar Mags to see out the set.

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