1979-01-07 The Grateful Dead

Madison Square Garden

This was the very first show ever played by the Dead at MSG .... the shows had been rescheduled from the Fall of 1978 when Jerry was ill. 

I sat in the row directly behind the soundboard and - very coincidentally - met members of the Dead's crew, including Dan Healy, before the show and at the break.  I say “coincidentally” because it was a particularly bad night for them as they had some bad sound problems that caused a lot of aggravation to the crew. In the second set an awful loud screeching feedback suddenly came from the PA - and provoked a mad scramble by everyone at the soundboard to try to find the source of the problem; they were running around and checking all of the wire connections that ran along the floors even. They were just frantically scrambling, trying to find the problem, as the Dead played on through NFA and then Black Peter.  I am not sure what the culprit was but it was a level 1 emergency for the sound crew that night.