Acoustic Dead Run

I could blabber on, blabber blabber blabber, but really all there is to say is my run this evening was just another great run!

69 minutes on the trail...

Running Time: 17 minutes & 50 seconds (up 19)

music...

(2 songs from)

Ellis Marsalis -- Ruminations in New York

A Moment Alone

When We First Met

Grateful Dead ~~ 12-6-80

Mill Valley Recreation Center

Mill Valley, California

Dire Wolf, On The Road Again, I've Been All Around This World,
Monkey & The Engineer, Jack-A-Roe, Cassidy, Bird Song,
Oh Babe It Ain't No Lie, Ripple

Holy cow! This little Dead show just might be an immensely overlooked gem that shined brighter than almost everything I've listened to for a good long time.

The venue in tiny Mill Valley was not an arena with seating upwards of or over 10,000. It wasn't a theater with seating for a thousand or two. Where this took place was probably just a large room and maybe even without a proper stage. The event may not even have been open to the public. More likely just a private Christmas party primarily for kids with Muscular Dystrophy. There were clowns and some dude named Santa Claus and of course a bunch of former acid-dropping hippies to provide some musical entertainment.

We're probably pretty lucky to have this recording. No soundboard exists but thanks to Betty Cantor-Jackson, we have this beautiful audience recording that she made of this rare "show."

A short acoustic set was all they played. Having just recently played a few dozen acoustic sets at the Warfield and Radio City Music Hall a month and a half earlier, this was sort of no big deal. But this was just a show for kids. No screaming crowd, no pot smoke wafting through the hall, no Otis... just entertaining for a bunch of brave children and perhaps some parents and other adults there that afternoon. We're even treated to one kid saying to Jerry that he wants to hear some rock n roll and someone walking around between songs giving out ice cream. I wondered, though, why didn't bust out a Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree or I Fought The Law or somethin'. Nothing like that, just a regular acoustic Dead set but for kids and how beautiful that was!