"Great afternoon for a ballgame, Ladies & Gentlemen"

I can never seem to get a show posted when I want to. Today's selection was supposed to be yesterday's selection because yesterday this show would've been 35 years ago. Ah well. Of course, just because the dates matched yesterday, that doesn't mean I can't still get it up today.

Enjoy!

Grateful Dead -- June 8, 1974 Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Oakland, California

1st Set: Promised Land, Brown-Eyed Women, Me & Bobby McGee,
Scarlet Begonias, Mexicali Blues, It Must Have Been The Roses,
Me & My Uncle, Tennessee Jed, Greatest Story Ever Told,
China Cat Sunflower-» I Know You Rider, Around And Around

Set 2: U.S. Blues, Big River, Ship Of Fools,
Playing In The Band-» Wharf Rat-» Playing In The Band,
Eyes Of The World, Sugar Magnolia

Encore: Casey Jones-» One More Saturday Night

When pressing play on this show, you should notice some light hiss during the quieter moments. The first set sound quality is slightly not as good as set two. The mix isn't perfect as both Keith's piano and Bob's rhythm guitar are sometimes not the easiest to hear. For the most part everything's fine and it's pretty sweet and even with minor these faults, some people will still give this an A+.

One of the earliest ever Scarlet Begonias is a highlight in the first set. It's an exceptional piece of music for only the sixth time played out of over 300. Roses is also a standout here. So nice. Bob comedically follows that with a brief and aborted explanation at what the hot sun is doing to the band's guitar strings. Einstein Weir can't seem to figure out what he means so Lesh jumps in -- "He means they go flat." Bob should definitely not be attempting to explain such things with big words like "molecular."

Tennessee Jed is one of the smokinest songs in the set (along with the kicking butt Around and Around to close the set in the set while China Cat is played to perfection. The transition into Rider just melts on through from one to the other.

Starting the second set is the first of several full songs from the Front of Board audience source, seamlessly patched in presumably because the soundboard does not exist/is being withheld from us. The sound of the FOB Aud is actually just about as good as the SBD... it's actually better in that you can constantly and much more clearly hear Keith on piano.

What to listen for in set two? Playin'. End of story!

transcribed from: DeadBase IX [out of print] Yes, it was hot outside, we had to wait forever for the Beach Boys to show up, and the Dead's guitars kept going out of tune, but Playing In The Band was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. When it started I expected a repeat of the 11-10-73 and 03-23-74 jams, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear it gradually dissolve into total weirdness. Jerry hinted at the "Tiger" for a long time, and when they finally did it, it was the best I've ever heard. That went into a short feedback, leading into a strange, atonal jazz jam. The Eyes that followed Playin was good except for when they tried to take it into China Doll and couldn't since they'd gone out of tune. Show's like this make me realize how much I miss the Dead's "jazz" days. Mike Dolgushkin The great thing about the big '74 Dead jams is the way the band totally loses its identity as a bunch of hippies from Marin and turns itself (and the audience) into dinosaurs, galaxies, hurricanes, whirlpools, amoebas... Take, for instance, the Playin jam from the Day on the Green show with the Beach Boys (!). About two minutes into the jam, Garcia is already so far gone into his prehistoric condor jag that the rest of the band has no choice but to "boldly go where no man has gone before." So, what started out as a nice outdoor-fun-festival-picnic-type event has suddenly become some kind of cosmic frontier back about 400 million years ago. When these guys get into automatic pilot and just let it rip, every once in awhile they catch a VERY big wave, and that's exactly what happens here. (Check out the photo of Phil at this show on page 66 of Deadbase III -- that says it all!) Don't expect to comprehend this jam fully the very first time you hear it. Several listenings in a shamanistic frame of mind might be helpful. This is unquestionably one of the most powerful Playin jams in history. It culminates in a colossal giant-soundsystem roar that is probably still rattling windows at the center of the galaxy. All of this sandwiches in between a rip-roaring first set and tremendous versions of Wharf Rat and Eyes of the World make this one of the very best Dead shows of all time. Gary Ross

6/8/74 @ the Internet Archive: a Front of Board Aud for downloading and the Soundboard for Listening Only

Download The SBD Here Source: shnid=97268 ♦ Audio Quality: Lineage: Set 1 + Encores: SBD > Master Reel > Reel > Reel > Wavelab > FLAC Set 2: SBD > Master Reel > Dat > Wavelab > FLAC (the FOB Aud source supplies patches) 6/8/74 - Part 1 ♦ Part 2 - 6/8/74 Day On The Green - 6/8/74 - The End

6-8-74 a.k.a. 06-08-74 a.k.a. 6/8/74 a.k.a. 06/08/74 a.k.a. 74-06-08 mp3 download 320 kbps

The Music Never Stopped, 2009 -- Volume 57