I'm kind of bored today so I'm going to pull up a show that I haven't listened to in years: 7/6/90 in Louisville Kentucky.

This was the first of 6 shows that I saw on that tour and the only China > Rider I got on the run. I don't remember that much about this night...

1) It was exceedingly difficult in the pre-Internet days to get an out of region ticket. I had to beg the Ticketmaster in Baltimore to pull up this show so I could buy it.

2) This was my first long drive to see music, at some 600 miles. I was really punch drunk at the end.

3) It was exceedingly hot in Louisville in July; go figure. I had a floor seat and I had to sneak my way off of it - they had these turf protecting blankets that radiated the heat back up - to survive the night. Summer tour in football stadiums...

The main shows I remember from my run were Raleigh (for the blackout in Promised Land), RFK (for, well, everything), and Buffalo. Maybe I can give Three Rivers a spin next if I want to check out my forgotten tour. In general I prefer 90 to 91, but my summer 91 run was better.

Show starts out strong with the ol' Helena Bucket > Sugaree combination. Pulling out my DeadBase 90, it looks like they started to separate those songs a bit. Sugaree was preceded by Stranger and Jack Straw as often as Bucket...

...bringing back Help on the Way > Slipknot! kind of confused things a bit. The Stranger > Franklin's combo was such a mid/late 80s tradition, but once Franklin's had another role, they had to figure out what to do with Stranger.

But I'm grooving on this Sugaree. No one will confuse it with a 1977 version, but it's chugging along quite nicely. Jerry's in good form vocally tonight.

Woah! Jerry just went off in the music break before "Shake it up now, Sugaree." Give this version a spin. It's really good.

I just saw that I have a review of this in DeadBase 90 but I refuse to read it before I react in real time. Yes, I'm live tweeting a 31 year old recording

Easy To Love You follows. The Dead played this Brent original for a few times in 1980 and then dropped it until the Cap Centre in spring of 1990; I don't know why the Cap Centre always got bustouts every single year. This was my first time seeing it.

To be honest, I kind of put Brent originals into two categories:

Just a Little Light and Songs That Aren't as Good as Just a Little Light. Easy to Love You is in the upper range of the second group for me, and it's a decent enough version I guess.

Heh. The recording I downloaded labeled the next song as "El Paso." I first thought, "Wow, this is a long Peggy-O tuning before El Paso." Song was completely mislabeled.

When Jerry was on in this era, he'd take a normal enough line and suddenly put all of his will into it and make it be the most important thing ever. It usually gets used in the ballads, but he belts out, "What would your mamma think, pretty Peggy-O?" like the world depends on it.

Heh, and then after a really great music break with some great phrasing, Jerry accidentally repeats the verse again. The thing about being a Deadhead in this era though, is that the Jerry lyrical flubs were always kind of part of the charm.

Ah, now it's time for Bobby to have that moment where he pretends that his last name is Dylan. 1990 Zzyzx never quite understood why they did Desolation Row. It just went on and on and on and I usually tuned out towards the end.

2021 Zzyzx is enjoying it today but I'll acknowledge that the 10 minute run time does take up a lot of real estate.

I wonder why Stuck Inside of Mobile was always a treat for me when it also has a ton of verses. I think it's because it had the reward of, "Oh mama!"

Bobby belted out this version. If you're going to do a 10 minute Dylan cover, you have to sell it and this night he did.

Huh, did not see the late first set West LA Fadeaway coming. Looking at its 1990 stats, the 2/3 part of the first set is where it was played...

Aside: why is there not the equivalent of http://www.ihoz.com/every.html  for the Dead?

If there is, someone let me know where it is. At some point I'm just going to have to make DeadStats, aren't I?

I'm trying not to look up the setlist ahead of time, so I just got blindsided by Picasso Moon. Fortunately this was a year after its debut and that's when new Bobby songs tended to find a new gear.

I never got "bigger than a drive in movie ooo-eee" but this version is rocking.

And it always is fun when you're going to the Warfield to look across the street and gravely intone, "South of Market in the land of ruin."

Not much of a cheer for "Just like New York City" in Ramble on Rose.

Sure the show was in Louisville, but that never stopped anyone before.

Brent is using a really weird synth effect starting with the "Just like Crazy Otto" line. His fills are kind of distracting but I think they mostly add to the version.

The set closing Music Never Stopped is a bit of a trainwreck in the mid song break, but it's been a pretty solid listen. This era of Dead was never about the long jams as much as the energy and cool fills and vocal arrangements. Most everything had a little extra so far.

OK we're back from the break. I looked for a while at the China Cat Sunflower but it didn't do any tricks.

The transition jam though is frantic. They're rushing through it in a good way with some really cool extra Jerry runs after you'd expect the drop into Rider.

The older I get, the more I've grown to appreciate a good China > Rider. The triumphant riff to announce the song switch, the Bobby/Jerry vocal off in verses 3-4, the drum fills under "I wish I was a HEADLIGHT..."

God I miss Jerry sometimes.

I was expecting the Looks Like Rain, but we're getting a lecturing about the gender differences in intelligence.

We got the Brent verse! Remember the Brent verse? Those were always better versions of Women Are Smarter.

Jerry's playing with his midi effects during the Women. He has a horn sound going that gives it a bit of a Mardi Gras feel. I don't know if I remember him doing this often but it's very cool, especially if it's a one off thing.

Brent is feigning laryngitis as a vocal effect at the end of Women. It's very cool.

Woah! Pre-drums Standing on the Moon. Where did that come from? This setlist is kind of all over the place but I'm enjoying it.

The outro jam of this Standing.

Seriously, Jerry just had a way of phrasing where he just could play a simple series of notes and it pierces my soul. When he first does that and then builds to a peak, well I'd drop everything and go on tour...

Drops into He's Gone. Now that I know about JerryBase, I can confirm that this is the first time those songs were played back to back and it was only done once more. Seems like an odd placing to have back to back slow-ish Jerrys but let's see how it goes.