TIGDH: Closing Night of the Warfield Run 10/14/80

(TIGDH = Today in Grateful Dead History)

This post first appeared on the Phish.net forum on October 14, 2019.

No matter how you slice and dice Grateful Dead history, 1980's Warfield > Saenger > Radio City run will always stand alone. The three set affairs, beginning acoustic, produced the releases Dead Set and Reckoning, platters that set a new generation of Deadheads' palates and expectations for the concert experience. I didn't realize just how much this was true until I started collecting. 1980 pointed toward the future of the band.

Well, the Warfield run set that bar high, and there are many highlights to be had in that 15-show-run! Everything climaxed, though, in the full show that is 10/14/80. Each set is full to brimming with great material. If the first set, especially the closing run of China Doll, Heaven Help, Bird Song, and Ripple, doesn't float your boat, try a different genre.

The second and third sets are both above average, well above average, and even great, with generous portioning. Much like the closing run of the acoustic, it's as though the band was playing with more intention drawing closer to the finish line of the first electric set. The Tennessee Jed > Let It Grow > Wheel > Music Never Stopped run is testimony to this.

The third set is a cup that runneth over. I count 7 heavy hitters in one set from an era that is easily overshadowed (still) by that core reactor meltdown of May 77. But this is fuller in some ways than that reedier era a few years before. The sound is spare and open in 1980, and yet there is a density to the bottom boosted by Brent's organ and Phil's recently revamped Alembic rig that tickles some of our fancies in just the right way. Scarlet> Fire, Estimated-> Terrapin> Playin> Drums> Space> Miracle> Uncle John's> Morning Dew> Playin? Sign me up!

Give it a spin, and if you're feeling really ambitious, toast the crowd, the band, and the late-great Bill Graham for achieving the impossible: Sneaking 2,300 glasses of champagne out into the audience so that they could toast the band after an electrifying run! (I'm fairly certain that wasn't the only liquid in those glasses.)

Full show:

https://archive.org/details/gd80-10-14.sbd-aud.gardner.3828.sbeok.shnf/

Charlie Miller's electric mix:

https://archive.org/details/gd1980-10-14.137560.sbd.miller.flac1648

Decent downloadable FOB of the entire show:

https://archive.org/details/gd1980-10-14.fob-nak700.ellner-marino.gmb.89632.sbeok.flac16