5/19/2015

When May 19 showed up on the Deadstein calendar it made for a great excuse to the great May 19, 1977 Fox Theater show. This is a show/tape that was a strong influence on me in my early days as a Deadhead. Additionally, in the early 90's I had made a series of Windows Audio events from moments of the back into Playing in the Band jam, which I gave to Kevin and it remained a strong influence on his upbringing also.

We had played tribute to this show on previous May 19s, but for this night we decided to tackle the entire show. This meant trying to play a 1977 Dancing in the Streets. which we really don't know how to do, but this was a pretty good attempt. From a taping perspective it all sounds good, the double drummer thing is sounding good although Scott had a rough time staying awake for much of the later portion of the second set. During drums he took a little break while I played drums with lee. That was until he started going into the Wheel which made me put my guitar back on. For the China Doll, I overdubbed my lead at home playing a close rendition of the 1-round China Doll lead Jerry played on 5/19/77. I always loved that lead and it deserved putting a little more attention into it, and it paid off. It was really too late into the night to make too much of an effort with that great back into Playing in the Band to close the show, but we tried to give it something spacier than normal. It was a big fullfilling night of music when you think about the greatness of a show we were trying to emulate. It brought out the best in us. "Freak Out!"