Our final years with the Grateful Dead - Chapter 1

The years 1992-1995 have mostly been written off by deadheads for a good number of reasons.  The primary reasons that astute deadheads often cite are that the band not only had a 'compromised songbook' filled with weak material, but that the musical performances on most nights were not good either.  Of course on the other harder-to-quantify side of this equation, the 'deadhead scene' was simultaneously suffering from its own problems.   However, we'll leave that particular facet of the story for an entirely different set of articles in the future.

What I'd like to do in the here and now is at least salvage some of the performances by the band during 1992-1995 for (ir)regular listening sessions in my own living room.  That is my goal!  It goes without saying that the years 1965-1991 still kill it, though to be fair, there are still more than a few rough patches during that span of time too.  But I ask again, what shows can we cherry-pick from the twilight of the Grateful Dead's time with us?

The goal is to pick 5 shows from each of these final years (fully knowing that we may just come up short in 1995) that stand on their own as an isolated GD show.  The criteria that I am using was inspired by David Lemieux's methodology for selecting shows in the '30 Trips Around the Sun' box set; i.e. - not just "it was a great show for 1994", or "this was a great show except for the post-space material". but rather "this was a great show...period".

Can this list of 5 shows per year be done for the years 1992-1995?  There were 268 shows played from 1992 - 1995.  Your input and comments on what I should spend my time listening to would be appreciated.

On a more personal level, I was at many of these shows.  However I have not heard every show from each of the years under scrutiny, and there may even been some shows that I saw which I've overlooked as extremely hot numbers (though not likely, heh).  My first crack at building the list below was based on how the show looked 'on paper', other reviews that I've read, my own recollections, and/or anecdotes passed along to me by extremely well-schooled deadheads.  I'm gradually working my way through listening to these years on www.archive.org, but I could use your help on how to most efficiently use my time for this particular project.

By all means, please tell me if I should be removing OR adding more for consideration (and, for the moment, let us err on the side of removing more than we add).  My preliminary list so far....

55 shows played in 1992.  My keepers so far:
3/8/92 Cap Center
3/20/92 Copps Coliseum (selected for 30 trips box set)
5/30/92 Vegas
5/31/92 Vegas
6/18/92 Charlotte
6/22/92 Star Lake
6/28/92 Deer Creek
12/16/92 Oakland (selected for Dick's Picks)

81 shows played in 1993.  My keepers so far:
3/24/93 Dean Dome
3/27/93 Albany (selected for 30 Trips box set)
5/26/93 Cal Expo
9/13/93 Spectrum
12/12/93 San Diego

85 shows played in 1994.  My keepers so far:
3/16/94 Rosemont Horizon
3/21/94 Richfield (omg w/ Lovelight>Stella Blue>Lovelight)
3/28/94 Nassau
10/1/94 Boston (selected for 30 trips box set)
10/3/94 Boston
10/5/94 Spectrum
10/14/94 MSG
10/17/94 MSG (w/ Dylan for Rainy Day Women)
12/9/94 Oakland
12/18/94 LA Sports Arena
12/19/94 LA Sports Arena

47 shows played in 1995.  My keepers so far:
2/21/95 Salt Lake City (selected for 30 trips box set)
4/5/95 Birmingham
5/21/95 Vegas

Happy hunting...and Happy Trails!