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Dead of the Day: 09-03-1977

Raceway Park

Englishtown, New Jersey

★ ★ ★ ★ ★
★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Today we have a classic: Englishtown. Promised Land spills forth to open the show, giving way eventually to a sweet They Love Each Other. After Me And My Uncle, probably the best Mississippi Half Step ever rolls out with a heady jam in the middle of it. The next couple songs are all great, especially that Looks Like Rain, but the last two of the set take it to another level altogether. FOTD is dreamy and luscious with its creamy slow pace, jam by Keith, and great backing vocals by Donna. Then, the Music Never Stopped that closes out the first half is extraordinary itself with a heavy, rocking jam to end it. The second set begins on a strong note with Bertha, but things really begin to take off with the Estimated> Eyes. Anytime people are arguing about the best Eyes Of The World, this version is sure to come up, and it is, undoubtedly, top notch. But, in our opinion, it is the run from Samson through Not Fade Away that is the true highlight of the show with a powerful, tight Samson heading into the deep and mournful He’s Gone, and then taking it to a phenomenal, extended Not Fade Away. The encore has the Dead doing “a little ditty from our newest album, at your record stores currently,” Terrapin Station.

Recording info
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Identifier:
gd1977-09-03.131317.mtx.dusborne.flac16
Source:
2 Source Matrix by Dusborne; Soundboard (shnid:000276) Source: Two-track Pre-FM reel > DAT > CD-R, except for (terrapin), which is unknown AUD and Audience (shnid:91650) 2 Sony ECM 270s> Sony TC-158; Transfer and FLAC encoding by David Minches: Master audience cassette played back on Nak Dragon > Grace Lunatec V3 (24/96) > Digital Audio Labs Card Deluxe> Adobe Audition> (dither/downsample)> FLAC encoding
Notes:
Matrix by dusborne 09-08-2014 ——————————————————————————- Tagging notes: Show information is embedded within the header of each flac file. It will display on any player capable of directly playing flac files. If converted to wav during processing, all tags will be stripped, however audio data will remain unaffected. If you must transcode to a lossy format, do so directly Flac > Lossy. Use ffp to validate audio integrity. Md5 values will change if tagging is altered. Dave Usborne 09-08-2014
Description:
Set 1 Promised Land, They Love Each Other, Me & My Uncle, Mississippi Half Step, Looks Like Rain, Peggy-O, Minglewood Blues, Friend Of The Devil, The Music Never Stopped Set 2 Bertha-> Good Lovin’, Loser, Estimated Prophet-> Eyes Of The World-> Samson & Delilah*, He’s Gone-> Not Fade Away-> Truckin’, E: Terrapin Station *Dead left the stage for a few minutes after Sampson. FM Broadcast WNEW New York. Other artist(s): Marshal Tucker, NRPS. This date is featured on Dick’s Picks 15.
Lineage:
Transferrer:
Matrix by Dave Usborne
Play
Pause
Back
Forw.
Volume
00:00
1
Tuning *
00:34
2
Promised Land *
06:50
3
They Love Each Other
10:01
4
Me & My Uncle
05:18
5
Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo
13:33
6
Looks Like Rain
08:15
7
Peggy-O
10:36
8
New Minglewood Blues
05:43
9
Friend of the Devil
08:13
10
The Music Never Stopped
06:52
11
Tuning
00:35
12
Bertha ->
08:28
13
Good Lovin’
06:33
14
Loser
10:55
15
Estimated Prophet ->
09:29
16
Eyes Of The World ->
17:15
17
Samson & Delilah
09:26
18
He’s Gone ->
16:43
19
Not Fade Away ->
19:43
20
Truckin’
13:12
21
Terrapin Station *
11:04
Choose recording

Englishtown is a legendary Dead show, not least because there were about 150,000 heads who attended. There are so many great stories from the show out there on the internet, but we will just give you Jen’s, which is fairly representative of the way the good times and phenomenal music of Englishtown proved to be the gateway for many to get on the bus.

This was my first Dead show. I was 13 and I told my mom I was going to the mall and then sleeping at my friend’s. Anyway, my boyfriend passed out as soon as we set out our tapestry blanket. The people behind us(sensing my concern) asked if I knew what he had taken. I didn’t, but I reached into his pocket and found some little red pills. I showed them to my new friends and one guy said, “hey man – don’t worry – he’ll be fine by the time The Dead come on”. I trusted that they knew their stuff, so I just enjoyed Marshall Tucker and The New Riders and they shared their weed and water the whole time. Dave arose just as The Dead were jammin’ to the Promised Land!! The music, the people and the whole experience made me a Deadhead, gratefully.

The Dead released this show as Dick’s Picks Volume 15.

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Comments

8 responses to “09-03-1977”

  1. joeseddit Avatar
    joeseddit

    Best “Eyes” ever, bar none. Some of Jerry’s finest guitar work. The Dick’s Picks version doesn’t do it justice, though. Jerry’s guitar is buried too deep in the mix. That or the drums and bass is mixed up too strong. Back in the vinyl days there was an album with a light blue cover labeled as a “fan club” album; had only four songs on it, all from this show –He’s Gone, Loser, Estimated and Eyes. The mix was much better as Jerry’s guitar was more prominent. Loved that album.http://joetopic.blogspot.co…

    Reply
  2. PodcastSteve Avatar
    PodcastSteve

    I covered this concert for the Asbury Park Press. One of the best experiences I had as a music writer.

    Reply
  3. Paul L Kleiman Avatar
    Paul L Kleiman

    Loved this show. Went with 2 friends and had a blast. Terrapin encore? Whoa. I think they were going to play it in the set but Phil had to pee. Anyway, this “raceway” was a dirt field/track surrounded by shipping containers. That was the whole thing. Some Port-o-Potties and when it got hot in the afternoon during Marshall Tucker, they sprayed us down with hoses. The Dead played a great show, as you can hear.There were only a few exits, and 150,000 people, so some of us decided to climb over the containers. There, I ran into my high school pal at the show from Penn, who had a broken leg and was walking with a cast. Well, he managed to climb over as well, with everyone helping and passing the crutches over.Once outside, we lost our friend Fred who had the car key and the weed, and it was getting cold. We broke into our own car so we could at least get out of the cold. No one could leave anyway because the roads out were blocked and people just parked and went to sleep. When the sun started to come up, we saw Fred about 20 yards away sitting at a fire smoking a joint with some new buddies. We almost killed him.Anyway, we finally got out in the morning, drove back to Long Island, and a few hours later I was on a plane up to Buffalo (where I went to college), with a whole bunch of new Dead stories to tell my pals once I got there.Maybe not my personal fave of shows I saw (Cornell ’77), but overall perhaps the most fun Dead concert experience ever!

    Reply
  4. jimminynix Avatar
    jimminynix

    Did you EVER see Jerry and Bobby face off like some guitar dueling boys from down south!!!?? Did you ever see Jerry and Bobby side by side strutting across the stage strumming like madmen and then reaching the end of their strut face off again – This was so insanely fun and outrageously stereotype busting that many fellow trippers who were so worn out by the heat and lack of ANY amenities at all (couple of port o potties for 150,000 people!!??) probably thought they were hallucinating it… I sure wasn’t though because it was my first show and I was in clarity orbit. Many of these over the top pleasures were during the extended jamming of Not Fade Away and of Trucking. The pale blue vinyl album was awesome as the gentleman mentioned, and the other monster-huge aspect of this show was that thousands of people taped WNEW’s live broadcast that rocked the entire New York City Metro Area with so many New Jersey people blossoming into newly minted curious about the Grateful Dead folks…

    Reply
  5. jimminynix Avatar
    jimminynix

    We arrived about 8pm the night before and as we loitered around the strange gate/fence type muck-up they were re-inforcing – the opportunitists seized the day and began pushing and then more began pushing and then suddenly we were running (I was 15 years old) andf by the time the sun came up we were still 70 people thick away from the huge stage – we had such nice real estate though that we didn’t press closer until Marshall Tucker lit a fire that many did not expect! Before NRPS many people were walking around with a semi palsied wrist impairment and strange slow gait of stepping over eacvh individual supine body.. it was supposedly “the strychnine” everybody older than me was saying – I had no clue.. I could write a whole book of many chapters about this one show – no kidding – more so than almost any single other show that I ever saw(over 100+ counting Jerry’s Bands)

    Reply
    1. Colleen Avatar
      Colleen

      Hi! This is long shot but I’m a novelist and one of the scenes of the next book I’m working on takes place at this show (fictional characters, real event). I’ve been searching for someone to interview who was actually there and would love to chat with you about your memories so I can get a sense of what it was like. If this sounds like fun, my email is colleenoakley@gmail.com. Thank you!

      Reply
  6. trippin n dreamin Avatar
    trippin n dreamin

    to the left of the stage there was a “street’ of people. one goup going in, one coming out. The line went to the fence in front of the stage. It was there the whole show. It allowed me to get close to the stage and leave when I had to. Love the
    vibrant playing on every song. Dare it be said- a perfect show

    Reply
  7. Ancient Hippie Avatar
    Ancient Hippie

    I was there. I parked miles away and somehow found my car at the end. I remember in between Marshall Tucker Band sets a helicopter came in to evacuate a pregnant woman. Huge crowd they said 125k. Dead were great the day was hot but all in all maybe the best show I’ve been to (out of around 100 give or take).

    Reply

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A guy wearing a shirt that says "Have you hugged a taper today?"
Young guy meditating with a Heads' Tales tshirt on.