Being There Vs. The Tapes Afterwards--What Surprises You More?

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So, all shows are in the eye of the beholder.  Your, that was the best "Dew" ever could be my B- "Dew" and vis versa. That is the beauty of a Dead Show. The question is, what happens to you more often.  You go to a show and think that was just fuckin killer, then listen to the tapes and go-yikes, that was like a C+.  Or, you thought the show was average, listen to the tapes at a later point and go" holy shit, that smoked"

My theory is when you go to the show with your buds, the hang and all, and the being there aspect of it tends to more often obscure, obfuscate the mediocre music. For me, of the shows I have been to over the years, when my initial opinion or view of the gig tends to change, it is more often on the "that wasn't as hot as I remember it" then say, having a mediocre show and then listening to the tape and thinking, "how could I have read that so wrong when I was there?"  I would say 90% of the time, my original opinion of the show was reaffirmed when I hear the tape later.  But perhaps, 10% of the time, the take is different than originally thought and more common, not as hot or consistently solid as I thought.  Also the distance of the time (years) that has passed tends to perhaps color my perception towards that was better than I remember--perhaps nostalgia, being an older fuck, and walking down memory lane tends to put more of a rose colored glasses view than how I originally called it.

How about you?

 

 

 

 

Being There is one of my favorite all time movies. Otiel was the young man telling Chauncey Gardner 'if you see Rafael..'

More or less the same, except sometimes I'm super impressed with an old show because I simply forgot how good it was when I was there.

Remember when you left the venue after the show and it was already being played on cassette tape in the parking lot? That was like magic back then.  
 

The tapes don't lie. 

The tapes don't lie, but they also don't tell the whole story.

It can go both ways. I can think of shows that I thought were so-so in person, but they turned out to be smoking hot on tape. A lot of that has to do with the mindset of the concert attendee, or even what was going on around that person.

^ Or the acoustics in the room/building. A lot of times your seat location meant a ton for sound. Then you get a SB and can't believe you were there for that.  ;-)

The acoustics at Portland memorial coliseum sucked, always enjoyed listening to the tapes afterwards (never saw a board tape from the 83 show, would be cool to hear the board version of Let it Grow, Scarlet / Fire, and space).

I don't remember any of the Hult Center shows for some reason, should give a relisten.  The greek 86 show were definitely better on tape than I remember live, while NYE just before that I liked the show better (NYE pageantry, dosing, excitement, etc) than the tape (ugh, mediocre show, day before better).  

I have noticed that most shows I have seen during the 2000's do not age well on tape, but I always enjoy the shows 

 

probably me, post 2000 I do not go back again and again like Jerry shows on tape

 

i stopped see GD related shows after 90 or 91 Orlando show

There are definitely shows I attended that I thought were OK when I was there but sounded way better on tape . 

I listen to recordings of Grateful Dead concerts all the time.

I find that the post-GD bands don't get replayed much, if at all.

Except the Q.