Dosing on the Dead, SoCal Style

ressure... yup, 12 hours at work, there's plenty of that. All friggin' day. All afternoon. All evening. Part of the night. 12 hours. Missed most of Monday Night Football. Oh well. I guess since I only do 4 of these a week, sometimes 3, it ain't so bad. Then again, I'm ready to explode sometimes. Why do we need to work? It was built into us, I'm sure of that. Mostly sure. Some people can adapt to a life of laziness without work. I know I sure could. But I won't. I'll get out of being an EMT eventually, it's rewarding, it's something needed in the community, but I'm ready to get out... but not until I'm ready to dive into something else. Until then... there's more work but thankfully some rest, too. And some Dead, too...

Grateful Dead -- 5.11.69
Aztec Bowl, San Diego State University
San Diego, California

Morning Dew,
Cryptical Envelopment -> Drums ->
The Other One -> Cryptical Envelopment ->
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Me and My Uncle,
Alligator-> Drums*-> Jam*-> Drums*->
Turn On Your Lovelight*

* with members of Santana

The problem, if you wanna call it that, with having this blog and picking GD (and related) dates nearly completely at random, is that I'm never gonna score an A+ quality show every time out. That's the case here... but that don't mean it's a bad show, yo, and not worth listening to.

Right from the opening here I thought along the lines of -- "I'm gonna suffer through this one." But ya know what? It gets better... or my mind just adjusts, it learns to accept the noise (hiss) and slightly muddy sound, and just enjoy the music.

The opening Dew rolls along and picks up some steam setting the up what's to come. That was just the tip of the iceberg! As soon as they barrel into The Other One, it's on!! As far as blissful therapy to melt away stress, the 17 minutes here of O1-> Cryptical almost couldn't be topped. Simply amazing to just get lost in Garcia's fire. Oh, to have a dose or three or perhaps some magic shrooms right now... nah, not needed... the sound these guys are making is already coming alive in my brain like nothing else!

Pigpen stomps through a pretty cool Schoolgirl... definitely another highlight of this show. Yet another 9 minutes of juicy fun Dead goodness.

Post-Alligator is where some new sound is introduced and things get a little different. Apparently some dudes from Santana hop in on the action here. At one spot early in Lovelight, Pig's ready to start up the next verse but the music behind him is completely on another planet for a short time... Pig, he was lost there momentarily, but grooved with it. Kinda funny actually.

Like most shows, if this is in the vault, it really needs to see the light of day so we can feed our ears and our Dead souls with cleanliness, not something mildly muddy. But if this is all there is, well, that's too bad but the quality here's not so horrible that the mind can't filter it in order to be able to dig it just as much as any show.

"This has circulated as 5-29-69, though it seems much more likely to be from
the 11th. Deadbase lists Canned Heat & Santana as sharing the billing with
the Dead for the 11th. Deadlists.com lists a partial setlist for 5-11-69,
from Dew through Schoolgirl. A radio announcer can briefly be heard
speaking of Canned Heat during the Cryptical Reprise. The guests almost
certainly include multiple percussionists from Santana, their singer briefly
during Lovelight, and some guitar from Carlos Santana, though his
contributions seem low in the mix and infrequent.

The lineage is unknown, although the radio announcers would indicate this
being from a radio broadcast. There are probably several analog
generations, but quality improves towards the end and is listenable. There
is a brief dropout in volume level during the Cryptical Reprise. The first
few notes of Me & My Uncle have been clipped as radio announcers were
talking. The cut at the beginning of Alligator is minor."

The (fm) soundboard of 5/11/69 San Diego
is @ Archive.org for your listening pleasure...
- or -
download the show right here

GD 5/11/69 Aztec Bowl, San Diego

*up soon*
P&F 4/20/98 -- go grab it now!
GD spring 1991 (SBD)
a December GD flashback (SBD)

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