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This is a nice audience with full sound. Not the ultimate but nice enough. This show gets lost in the shuffle of all the break-outs and stars that shone all during this tour. There is very high energy in this show. I re-read my tour book from this tour and had noted then that there was higher energy at this show than at the Byrne.



A very meaty first set with a tremendous Bird Song. The 2nd set really pumps and has a pretty amazing Black Peter, which is not typically one of my faves, but this one has got a nice bluesy feel. Don't let the set list fool you.



For some historical background: Philly was THE party place to see the Dead during the late 80s. There was always some edge and carnival sideshow, whether it was Hulko-mania or Eagles games next door. I did this entire tour, and it was really the heart of the whole thing. There was no camping or vending, but there was overnight parking. Go figure. Things were getting a little noidy on the tours at this point, but they still had the wonderful 'in our own world' element that made it so enjoyable.



Increased enforcement even had its advantages at times. In the lot before this show we were hanging out in the back of my '85 Subaru wagon with the gate up. The cops rolled up with a Ryder rental truck with about a dozen 200lb nitrous tanks in the back. They set the tanks down in the lot behind our car and opened the valves on each and every one of them, flooding our vehicle with nitrous for quite a while to the extent that it got freezing cold in there. I don't remember putting in a call for a nitrous delivery, but I do remember that after a while we actually had to leave or we would have passed out. I don't remember any of those guys ever even looking at us as they flooded the region with hippy crack.



Not too many people today would get it when you said that you missed hanging out in South Philly in the Pantry Pride lot for 3 days and had the time of your life. Thanks for the memories!

- November 17, 2011Just gotta pokaround