Greetings, and a giant welcome back to the Tapers' Section, where this week we'll hear music from 1974 and 1982, two distinct yet excellent years in Grateful Dead history.

Our first stop this week is at Winterland on 2/23/74, the middle night of a three night stand at the band's then-Bay Area home. We've played some music from this show's big second set jam previously, but we're very pleased to have some of the music from earlier in the second set, specifically Weather Report Suite>Stella Blue. This is one of the longer WRS sequences I've heard, and it's really great, too.

Our next stop is in Reno, Nevada on 3/13/82, when the Grateful Dead were doing a super mini tour consisting of two cities, Reno and Davis, CA, the only two March shows in 1982 for the band. This sequence features the end of the second set, The Other One>Black Peter>Around and Around>Good Lovin'. Pay special attention to the transition between Other One and Black Peter for a definite tease of a very famous song. This sequence was drawn from the cassette master tapes, demonstrating that some cassette masters sound pretty darn good.

Next up, from the aforementioned Davis show on 3/14/82, we have the first part of the first set, consisting of One More Saturday Night>Sugaree, Me and My Uncle>Mexicali Blues, Bird Song>Little Red Rooster, followed by the second half of the first set, featuring Ramble On Rose, Looks Like Rain, Althea, Let It Grow. You can tell by the amazing guitar runs Jerry plays on the opening OMSN that this was going to be a first cabin concert, and the rest of the set shows this to be true. Killer Let It Grow to end it all.

Be sure to stop in next week for some tasty tunes from 1972, 1984 and 1987. As always, we welcome and encourage you to write to us at the email address below. Please put “Grateful Dead” in your subject line to make sure it breaks through the spam barriers.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net