Red Rocks Ampitheater
Up in Ithaca for the summer in 1982, my friends there had caught some of the spring Grateful Dead shows but I didn’t. We all wanted to see more shows and decided it was high time to head to Colorado for the Red Rocks shows. We were able to stay up near Boulder at a friend’s house, a buddy that had just graduated with me, he was working in restaurants and he eventually became a co-founder of one of a well-known chain up in ski country - Prazzo’s pizza.
It was obviously always a great objective to see the Dead on consecutive nights, since they had enough material to play different stuff each night, and especially in a premier venue like Red Rocks. After the three Dead shows, I took about 35 years to get back to see another concert there.
Unusual for Denver, there were a lot of showers in the area for several days, and most of the time throughout the three nights. But the shows went on as planned at Red Rocks although McNichols Arena was listed as an alternate venue in case of rain.
The setlists featured lots of songs with allusions to the weather - including, during this first night, a true classic in a super rendition of “China ] Rider” to close the first set. “I’d shine my light through the cool Colorado rain…” - you can hear the crowd reaction on the tape.
I am not sure why no soundboard tapes are available (to my knowledge), but in most cases the audience recordings are quite clear and pleasant sounding. The second sets of the first two shows have killer setlists and overall there’s just a lot of top-notch music on these tapes. The first night has really tight, upbeat versions of so many tunes, and a unique jam section out of the Terrapin (during a Playin in the Band / Wheel sequence similar to one etched in our minds by a popular tape from 5/19/77). In the next two posts I mention the encores. Its a great assortment of tunes over three nights, and, as we expected, with no repeats.
Below: Taken in downtown Boulder, the day before the first show…
