Grateful Dead - 1981-03-10 - Madison Square Garden, NY, NY (SBD)

Grateful Dead

1981-03-10

Madison Square Garden

New York, NY

Soundboard Recording

320 kbps

Artwork Included

1st Set

01. Mississippi Half-Step >

02. Franklin's Tower >

03. Me & My Uncle

04. It Must Have Been the Roses >

05. Little Red Rooster

06. Don't Ease Me In

07. Lazy Lightnin' > Supplication

08. Brown-Eyed Women >

09. Looks Like Rain >

10. Deal

2nd Set

01. Crowd/Tuning

02. Scarlet Begonias >

03. Fire on the Mountain >

04. Lost Sailor > Saint of Circumstance >

05. Drums>

06. Space

07. The Wheel >

08. China Doll >

09. Truckin' >

10. Jam >

11. Sugar Magnolia

Encores:

01. Satisfaction >

02. Brokedown Palace

Grateful Dead - 1981-03-10 - Madison Square Garden, NY (SBD)

GD 1981 - Back To Back - #2: As promised yesterday, here's the 2nd half of our Back to Back set featuring the Grateful Dead at Madison Square Garden in 1981. I was winding down my senior year in college, so what better way to avoid going to class then to take a trip in New York to see the Grateful Dead! Four of us had tickets to see the Dead on March 10, 1981, 41 years ago this very day, at Madison Square Garden, but at the last minute, one of my buddies had to cancel. We didn’t realize how lucky we were that he did. You see, we intended to take the bus into the city, but for some unexplained reason (my buddies would say the explanation was my normal run of bad luck), neither the 4 pm or 5 pm buses arrived. Now panicked that we would miss the show, we ran back to our room (oh the days before cell phones!) and called everyone we knew who had a car, offering them the unused ticket for free if they drove us into NY! We finally got someone to take us up on the offer, and managed to get to the Garden about 5 minutes before show time. Maybe the Dead knew how hard we had to work to make the show, because they responded with a stellar performance, starting with the first of numerous great pairings throughout the night, a wonderful Mississippi Half Step which segued into Franklin’s Tower. Other great couplings that night included Lazy Lightning into Supplication, Scarlet Begonias and Fire On The Mountain and Lost Sailor into Saint of Circumstance. The Dead, however, saved the best 2 pairings for last. Near the end of the 2nd set, the band launched Truckin, which everyone expected would be the last son before encore. Inspired by the Garden crowd, however, the Dead segued out of Trucking into a short intense jam, which sounded like Smokestack Lightning, but instead became, much to everyone’s surprise and delight, a rip roaring version of Sugar Magnolia. According to Deadbase, its the last time those 2 songs were played back to back at the same show! More surprises were still in store for the 20,000 of us in attendance that night. For the encore, the band decided to borrow a Rolling Stones classic, with Bob Weir taking the lead on a raunchy version of Satisfaction, just the 3rd time the Dead had ever played that tune. Jerry’s guitar and Phil’s base caused the whole building to vibrate, to the point where it felt that they might really shake the roof off the place, Perhaps the Dead also sensed that the energy level was careening out of control, as they opted for a rare 2 song encore, with Satisfaction melting into Brokedown Palace, a beautiful, peaceful ballad, which made for one final perfect musical pair to close the night. This soundboard recording captures every note of what would be my last Dead show for over 2 years. Download this and you’ll be also most as lucky as the guy who got the free ticket to drive us!