Jam – 2012-03-28 – Carroll’s | my Steal Your Space book

Deadstein jammed on Wednesday, March 28, 2012. Our intent of the evening was to replicate the set list played by the Grateful Dead 31 years to-the-day ago inGermany. March 28, 1981 is a pretty famous show in Dead lore in that it is the night Pete Townsend joined Jerry and the boys for jamming after drums. Not that he did too much musically, but you can tell he had quite an impact on the night. Having the video coverage of the entire show posted on YouTube for years has made this show pretty familiar to many people. For these reasons we decided to tackle this show for the night and we called it “Essen of Gruga Dead.”

It is a long, meaty setlist from 1981 and early on, there was some feel as if we would not be able to complete the show. What helped us get going was the opening power trio of Getaway, Greatest Story into Sugaree. This put three healthy songs behind us early on and signified that we were serious in doing this show. There were several excuses we could have made for not doing the entire setlist. We did a few of these songs last week, including the Alabama Getaway opener and a post drums Not Fade Away. The setlist had many songs in it that I would sing in a row, including Jerry songs, like Getaway and Althea that would leave large gaps in the set where you wouldn’t hear Rich sing. Nevertheless, we persevered and stuck to the plan and felt the ghosts of 3-28-81 in our presence. This all pulled together for a serious night of playing lots of music. I find the pre-defined setlist a great energizer for all of us and we all landed on our feet.

As far as people, this was our third week in a row where Lee Staggered into the percussive hot seat and provided Deadstein with our now normal 2-drummer backline. I am really enjoying this new ear with the possibilities it provides. It has to be mentioned that he really enjoys the maple drum kit.

The rest of the normal Deadstein-5 joined with Lee to form the ensemble. Guests included the two pairs of Stevie and Lindsey and Meg Ryan. We almost had a full house as Scott Bayer eventually made his way in there with a few other people. It was getting crispy and freaky in the room as we got into our second set.

It turned out to be a nice night of music. The mix of the band is pretty good and the tape sounds good. I like the stereo separation between drum kits and guitars. Piano and vocals could of course be more pronounced and it was tough to get the full piano mix especially since they did not have the PZM to use to mic the piano. If you want to hear what we did, go to the MP3s below.

http://www.deadstein.com/audio/03-28-12/