The band played at Alpine Valley as their primary Midwest summer stop for the entirety of the 80s, with one year being an exception - in 1983 they played 2 shows at nearby Poplar Creek in Hoffman Estates, Il. My circle of friends all came of age during the final years that they played at Alpine, and we always had a quite a time when 'the circus came to town'. The sole exception being my friends, Rico and Gumball, who both attended one of the Poplar Creek shows at the ripe old age of 10 years old. They were those seasoned vets among my contemporaries that had seen the Keep On Growing at Alpine in 1985, etc.
The band and crew would typically stay at one or two of the fancier resorts on nearby Lake Geneva (one of those resorts was actually a former Playboy Club) and so it was not uncommon for the more well-heeled deadheads that did not camp with the rest of the hoi polloi to hoist a few drinks with band and crew after the shows in those posh resort bars. Everybody seems to have an Alpine Valley 'story'. A few that come to mind:
* This is where they played Blackbird for the first time
* This is where Texas Dave taught Duke how to drive
* This is where they opened the show Music Never Stopped > Sugaree > Music Never Stopped
* The is where an ant crawled up Bennet's dickhole, while he was on acid (Imagined?)
* This is where they broke out the first 'We Bid You Goodnight' in 11 years
* This is where Bobby and Mickey wore disguises and wandered around in the parking lot
The venue tolerated camping and so the parties that went on in empty fields for those that stayed for 2, 3, or 4 days got pretty wild. Of course the vending was brought to a new level outside of the venue, given that the deadhead bazaar would stay open 24/7 for days on end with no authorities to shut it down. The nearby townspeople loved it too! The injection of cash into their smaller towns was a huge part of the local summer economy. By the end of a run, there was no ice, no beer, no soda, no chips, no candy, and no cigarettes left to be found in any of the neighboring towns.
And so all these fond memories seem to culminate and converge in the officially released "Downhill From Here" DVD (7/17/89) that marks the last year that GD played at this venue. It was a wonderful run to cap off many other wonderful Alpine Valley runs. But indeed, it is one of these prior and early runs that I want to focus on in this article; specifically the Dick's Picks 32 release that celebrates their appearance at Alpine Valley on 8/7/82.
- Disc One
- First set:
- "The Music Never Stopped" > (Bob Weir, John Barlow) – 4:19
- "Sugaree" > (Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter) – 9:51
- "The Music Never Stopped" reprise (Weir, Barlow) – 4:00
- "Me and My Uncle" > (John Phillips) – 3:02
- "Big River" (Johnny Cash) – 6:12
- "It Must Have Been the Roses" (Hunter) – 5:51
- "C.C. Rider" (traditional, arranged by the Grateful Dead) – 7:34
- "Ramble On Rose" (Garcia, Hunter) – 7:31
- "Beat It On Down the Line" > (Jesse Fuller) – 3:11
- "On the Road Again" (traditional, arranged by the Grateful Dead) – 3:04
- "Althea" (Garcia, Hunter) – 7:56
- "Let It Grow" (Weir, Barlow) – 11:39
- Encore:
- "U.S. Blues" (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:16
- Disc Two
- Second set:
- "China Cat Sunflower" (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:42
- "I Know You Rider" (traditional, arranged by the Grateful Dead) – 7:43
- "Man Smart, Woman Smarter" (Span) – 8:29
- "Ship of Fools" (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:39
- "Playing in the Band" > (Weir, Mickey Hart, Hunter) – 11:15
- "Drums" > (Hart, Bill Kreutzmann) – 5:31
- "Space" > (Garcia, Phil Lesh, Weir) – 5:31
- "The Wheel" > (Garcia, Kreutzmann, Hunter) – 5:51
- "Playing in the Band" > reprise (Weir, Mickey Hart, Hunter) – 4:09
- "Morning Dew" > (Bonnie Dobson, Tim Rose) – 10:11
- "One More Saturday Night" (Weir) – 4:59
The master for 8/7/82 is a cassette...yes, the lowly, forgotten cassette. It is quite well preserved, but it is a sonically limited cassette none-the-less.
My own personal opinion on this subject is that deadheads are accustomed to poor audio quality, and we'll take what we can get. However, when I listen to material that stems from 24 track analog tapes that were the sources used on the Spring 90 box sets, or other official releases that came off of Betty Cantor's Nagra IV-S, I have to shake my head at what GD and Dan Healy were doing around 1982 at Alpine Valley.
Incidentally, my aural disdain on this particular subject first started when I christened my copy of the Hampton '79 vinyl release, which also happened to have used cassette masters. So with these major sonic whiffs in mind, I find that there is another rant brewing within me concerning GD's sometimes clumsy approach to family solidarity and audio foresight. To illustrate that 'it is not just me', I'll leave you with this article for now:
http://www.relix.com/articles/detail/whats_become_of_the_bettys
Does that get your blood boiling, or what? Ok - back to the performance at Alpine! Audio quality aside, let us immediately acknowledge the first scorching alert around this show - an 11-song first set. Not uncommon for the era, but still something to note. Next, let us note that there is only one new song (for that time), 'Women are Smarter', so the crowd was treated to some very classic GD. With the exception of Althea and CC Rider (both introduced at the tail end of the 70s), the most recent song is Music Never Stopped, which was first played in 1975. So yeah, if you were a deadhead at this show you saw chestnut after chestnut, and old war-horses trotted out throughout the evening.
BTW - I think hearing 'new songs' are great. Just like the GD members themselves, I never considered the songbook closed. But during the last few years that GD would take the stage, we'd take it in the teeth with how much new stuff was played (but I suspect that similar complaints probably emanated from deadheads in 1977, late 1982, and other eras too). Not this crowd at Alpine Valley that night though. They still got a recent awesome song like Althea, but only received one other 'new song' to interrupt a blissful night of the familiar...and for the record, I happen to like Women Are Smarter.
The opener of Music Never Stopped > Sugaree > Music Never Stopped probably seems more thrilling as an idea than it ever sounded in real life. I saw the one other time that they did this at the Shoreline ampitheater (7/2/94), and even though the air was out of the balloon at that point, I dare share the opinion that the Shoreline combo is better (Sacrilege???). This Alpine version is a good representation of those two songs from that time period, although in my mind the Alpine Sugaree has a bit less of of a jam that it normally did during that era. Still, to be in the audience that evening during the Summer of 1982, with the sun just beginning to sink, and those two songs starting off your evening....well, I cant think of a place I'd rather be. It was a simpler time; when GD killed it nearly every night, and the doses were real. NOTE - they do not actually sing any Music Never Stopped lyrics when they go back into it after finishing Sugaree on either the Alpine or Shoreline version, just in case you're curios about that.
Cowboy songs are sometimes considered throw-away tunes or just fun little diddys by deadheads. I never considered them throw-aways, given how they represented a fixture of the songbook (especially Me and My Uncle). And to my mind, Big River always opened up a huge high-speed playing opportunity for Jerry, This version at Alpine contains shades of his banjo technique revealing themselves. I would posit that this cover of a Johnny Cash song (and even this particular version) should be used at all times as a subtle vehicle to torpedo naysayers of Jerry Garcia's technique whenever you encounter them.
Both CC Rider and Ramble on Rose are played elegantly and adequately, but it is the BIODTL > On the Road Again (as well as the set closing Let It Grow) that represent the crown jewels of the set. However, I'll admit to MUCH preferring the inverse of that particular combo, On the Road Again > BIODTL, that they played 3 nights later at the University of Iowa Fieldhouse (8/10/82). Anyway, back to this Let It Grow for a second. The Althea preceding it was just average, but like Deal and some other exciting first set closers, they can really turn Let It Grow into a monster. A superb version without a a flubbed note to be heard was played that evening. Listening to Brent and Jerry's interplay during Let it Grow is especially interesting.
Catch your breath because the China > Rider to open the 2nd set is just as epic as the one from Alpine 7/17/89. In fact, I'd say this version is better. It is probably is the highlight of the show, which is saying a lot considering that I have not even covered the Playing in the Band or Morning Dew yet (which are both very very good). But I do have to say that the Ship of Fools is kind of depressing given how trashed Jerry's voice is at that particular point in the evening. The Dew that comes later in the evening (following a good Wheel and nice Playing Reprise) does not sound nearly as hoarse, but even if it was hurting vocally, his playing is wonderful. Sidenote - Weir's accompanying notes to Jerry's Dew solo, especially during the slower and more quiet parts are so tasteful and gentle that it pleases me to no end that he could actually, as a rhythm player, 'add' to Jerry's Dew solo that night without being the slightest bit disruptive.
This One More Saturday Night that closes out the 2nd set is good by any standard, but Bobby's extra vocal flourishes in the song ("Right Now", "Right Now", "One more Saturday Night NOW", "One more time", "Right Now", "Right Now") are just the dose this song needs to continually keep it fresh. The MVP award actually goes to Mr. Weir this evening for his singing that night. Very rarely does he let us down vocally, but when he steps up it up to another level, he needs to be recognized. And so I'd like the opportunity to pin a medal on his chest for his vocal contributions on this night at Alpine Valley.
The US Blues encore is fun as usual...but seriously folks, get this one for the China > Rider. Everything is right-on about this show, and those particular songs that dont have the momentum of some of the others are still mistake-free. In fact, I'd say the only tough one is Ship of Fools, and that is because you can hear Jerry's voice really croaking (fortunately, the other Jerry tunes dont suffer the vocal lows of this one). His guitar playing is beyond reproach though.
I'd like say a quick word about the drummers and Phil's bass playing on this release. More and more I like to listen very carefully to these contributors, but the cassette source sonics that I mentioned earlier do not let me fully appreciate the details. When I can pick them up very clearly, I enjoyed what I heard, but alas, it is a bit of a sonic mess. Weir and Brent are clearly picked out in an instant (and Jerry too), but this listener had to seriously focus in order to pick out clear bass notes and differentiate between the two drummers. It does not take nearly as much work to do the same on other official GD live releases. Oh well - such is life.
All in all it was a great night at Alpine Valley and although I'd recommend that Dick's Picks #32 be picked up only by completists, I think that newcomers should start with crisp audience tapes from the era in order to get a better 'feel' for what this band could do at the time. I know that particular opinion is very hard to substantiate and quantify, but it is the best way I know how to summarize my findings at the moment. Happy Trails!
