OK, IWT and loved it all! So intense for many reasons: (1) Great jams from Dead to Dylan. (2) was there and stayed with a good friend who was a victim of a shooting in that very same stadium a few years before - yikes! (3) just love Ore., completely chill... (4) Just love everyone...,

All the Dead shows at Autzen were great.

The stadium was like a miniature Oakland Coliseum.

But better.

Anyone there, knows this.

The day before the concert there was a record rainfall. Concert day was a record high heat day. . . Humid and Hot with a California Bear flying from the U of O stage?

It felt like being under a magnifying glass.
I was amazed the Dead could even play in such conditions. Atmosphere was festive and sweaty, the portable showers set up near the back of the stadium got a fair amount of use.

The Dead played ho hum until Dylan came out(it had started to cool down and everyone re-hydrated) and from what I remember the only nine mile skid was from "Dylan and the Dead" twisting the throttle wide open,full speed ahead, the Smoking Rubber was on the ROAD. . . FINALLY IT HAPPENED!

Every song was great and cherished, what more could a Deadhead ask for?

I waited all my life to see this show and I was not Disappointed. . . Rain-Heat-Humidity,war drums beating during HE'S GONE, "IMPEACH RONALD REAGAN" in BIG BOLD LETTERS painted across the sky. Dylan and the Dead, "Alone and Together" a treasured memory for sure, whether you were dosed or not!

Into the Blue wagon and Back over the Mountains and across the Snake River.We missed the big shinny black car with colored balloons on the back window on the trip home.

Unfortunately OR perhaps more fortunately, this was the last Concert I attended of 6 Grateful Dead shows. Ain't that a bitch!

Welcome back to Reality

1st Set: Jerry's voice sounds fresh on "Iko"; I wish I could say the same about the music...where's the drummers? It's easy-going, beyond easy."Stranger" is also mellow, but since I'm listening to this tape about 75 minutes after waking up...I'm not minding the vibe. Jerry's work carries the tune. "Minglewood" is breezily mild. "Peggy" is rather tame. "Adams" is cute, but rather meekly pronounced. evidently, this music is Not of the compelling-must hear every second sort. "Masterpiece" is standard. "West" sounds stickier, and less vital than usual. "Let" is a good choice to end this underwhelming first set. It's not electric, but since their songs lack urgent purpose, might as well have the experts jam a bit.

2nd Set: Has "Gimme" ever opened a set before? this version is relatively spirited. Y'know guys, you could extend "Playin" past 7 minutes... it won't kill ya. Then again, the band's energy-set is perfectly suited to a slow-groovin' "He's Gone." Undoubtedly, the "Spoonful" was planned well in advance because there's really no segue jam attempted. It's a solemn, brooding version. "Drums/Space" quietly follow allowing for a minor re-awakening epitomized in "The Wheel." The guys just sound dehydrated and tired--as if they've spent far too much time indulging on laxatives while "Truckin." Smartly, they keep the construct of "Wharf" to a minimum, because they just can't seem to strike that 'power' button tonight. At least Brent up to the "Lovelight" challenge, as his energy musters up some spinning over in 'ese parts.

2 1/2 stars rounded down...

The Dylan set is at www.gdlive.com
http://www.gdlive.com/newshows/xtras/gd&bd87-07-19.shnf/
The encores are under http://www.gdlive.com/newshows/xtras/gd&bd87-07-Encore.shnf/
(see the txt file for the 7/19 files).

Does anyone know where I can get the Dead sets along with the set they did with Dylan? This show was on the night I was born, and being a huge fan of Dylan and of The Dead, I've been trying to find it everywhere. Luck has yet to be in my favor, if it's around let me know.

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. I remember and from my recordings I have in storage, this was the most interesting of the three west coast Dylan/Dead performances, although Oakland was probably best overall. I was particularly enthused about the rare numbers they played at each show, but this one especially !
Namely, "Heart of Mine" I just love that tune ! It has just a beautiful, although repetitive chord progression. Also, "Watchin' the River Flow" which, although only a blues, it has a is a maybe not completely unique, but a very elegant or novel, for lack of more appropriate adjectives, (I probably sound like I'm writing a scientific journal paper with words like that), approach to the turnaround; which was perfect for Garcia, in the same way Anaheim's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" was, since I always refered to Jerry as the "king of the turnaroud" !I say that because he could throw in a turnaroud virtually antway, I mean in places that were anything but blues or folk; so given "Rainy Day Women"'s obvious repetitive turnaround who more appropriate to play it but Garcia. So the same goes for "Watchin' the River Flow".
There are other things I like about that tine as well in the lyric, etc. but of course as most of you probably know if one doesn't already know the words from the studio release, it is difficult at a live Dylan performance to understand the lyrics often because Dylan deliberately accents or inflects his words differently on different beats and/or holds a syllable for a a different length of time as a way of improvising from one performance to another.
Moreover, "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" is another rare tune that I like, although kind of creepy but so are some Grateful Dead tunes, to which perhaps some may take exception to, in the same way I take exception to the person who though this Dead/Dylan performance was "uninteresting". Furthermore, they did a great version of "Tangled up in Blue" in Garcia's usual rousing approach to that tune, but not quite the same style as Garcia Band show ! The rest of it was more or less the same as the other two west coast shows.
I'll comment more on the first two sets later. My rating is directed at the third set.

I saw this one and I thought it was awful. I've tried over the years to get different tapes/discs from different sources and try to hear it from different angles but it doesn't work. The tunes are short, very little jamming, nice safe solos from Jerry. It was hot as hell, I've been told the temperature was nearly that of Veneta (the site of which was very near the stadium) in 1972. A skywriter wrote 'IMPEACH REAGAN' during He's Gone, that got the crowd going. That's part of it, the crowd was sooooo relaxed and mellow and catatonic, the band had nothing to feed on. I remember the Dylan set being very uninteresting at the time but the tapes show otherwise. If you can get your hands on it, do so! The Dylan set is the most energetic and inspired of any of the six sets they did together. All in all, the show wasn't that good but there are interesting bits and I'm glad to have it. The sound quality is very good. If you want a very solid show from 1987, try 08-13.

Looking at the third set list...thats the section thats going to smoke. Any DL's available?

The whole show is consistently pretty good. Nothing really rises to brilliance and nothing goes too far wrong. Some of the standard showpieces are perfunctory---e.g., "Playin'" is only about five mostly unremarkable minutes. "The Wheel" and "He's Gone" appear in nice relaxed versions, albeit sort of low-energy.

The sound is OK, a little bass-shy. There's a lot of crowd noise mixed in, which gets sort of peculiar in a few places; at the end of "Minglewood" we're treated to thirty seconds or so of dialogue about somebody named Tom being in Alaska and whether people are going to be able to meet in San Francisco for New Year's. Soundboard purists will probably be put off by things like that, but I think it's got a certain goofy appeal.

Quite worthwhile for completists and those who were there, probably not of much interest to others.