favorite favorite favorite favorite

Well-captured bit of '82 lore. Ah, the good ol' Oregon Country Fair...



This show is certainly energetic - no questioning the band's decision, as they did often this year, to trade off precision for sheer firepower. Some lyrics aren't dialed in well, but it really doesn't matter a whole lot; that China Cat > Rider to end the first set is an absolutely *blistering* cumulation of everything they worked through in the first hour.



Second set goes into D>S fairly early on; even though Playin' has a nice jazzy ambience, the real heart of this show comes post-Space (about 45 minutes of music here to the end of the encore). Wheel > Other One > Truckin' is the goods and gives this show some real serious posterity - they begin to get tighter and tighter as it goes along.



So yeah, it ain't no 8/27/72, but a solid, decent, hyper-excited few hours of music here. Too bad they couldn't return in '92.



Robert Hunter on 'Day Job': "This song was dropped from the Grateful Dead repertoire at the request of fans. Seriously."



Hey, I hear you, brother - it *is* a good song. But remember - you're not going to sell that one in front of a crowd that looks the way the OCF crowd does. If you've been to the fair, you know what I mean...

- August 22, 2013--