(LOOTPRESS) – The Grateful Dead were a band whose members arguably spent more time on the road than not. Thus, it stands to reason that listeners can often find multiple performances from the band which took place on a given day during different years. On this day, October 15th, for example, the Dead played to crowds in 1977, 1983, and 1994, and likely other years as well. But on this day in 1981, the band played a particularly unique set at an Amsterdam club.
The story goes that the band had picked up a couple of dates in the Netherlands in lieu of some overseas dates which were canceled. For one reason or another, this led to the Dead taking on a pair of shows at the Netherlands’ Club Melkweg in Amsterdam using what are said to have been primarily borrowed instruments.
This peculiar set of circumstances made for one of the most unique, if not necessarily the most fascinating, shows the band would play throughout the decade. Though it would be another half-decade or so before the band would become a global draw on the strength of the earworm single, “Touch of Grey,” the guys were attracting sizable audiences on the strength of their own legend – a legend built independently by the band from the ground up.
As such, a 500-seater venue such as Club Melkweg was much more akin to a show the group may have played in their very early days – at least in terms of crowd size. Another distinct feature of the show is that the band are performing on instruments with which they are not intimately familiar. The vague disconnect is noticeable mostly in terms of tone and the sounds coming from the instruments not lining up precisely with those which had been dedicatedly dialed in by this time. Of course, all existing audio of the performance is serviceable at best, rendering it impossible to draw any certain conclusions with regard to the sound itself.
Bob Weir is in full rockstar mode on this night as he positions himself at the head of the stage like a figurehead – flanked closely by his musical cohorts on what was almost certainly a much smaller stage area than that to which the band had become accustomed by the early 80s. Dedicated renditions of faithful standbys like “New Minglewood Blues” and “Promised Land” occupy much of the show’s first set, while Set 2 peaks with a rollicking “The Other One: into a triumphant and emotive “Wharf Rat.”
The Grateful Dead would return to the same venue the very next night – on Bob Weir’s birthday, nonetheless – where they notably would perform what may have been the band’s very last acoustic set.
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