"Phil's Earthquake Space"

https://archive.org/details/gd82-04-18.sbd.miller.18116.sbeok.shnf

This story/review was so well articulated by my friend Eli Polonsky on FB, I can't improve on it. I would just add that Candace Brightman's green lighting added to the creepiness of the weird-ass 'Phil's Earthquake Space' , which had a couple of the guys in the band pretending to "duck" from falling building debris, as I recall it. It happened to be the 76th Anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. I also seem to recall being seated next to Norman Rockwell's grandson at his first Dead show...
 

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"Where I was 38 years ago tonight, Grateful Dead for the second of two nights at the Hartford, CT Civic Center (now the XL Center), April 18, 1982. Full soundboard recording.
This was the night when bassist Phil Lesh decided to do an impromptu commemoration of the Great San Francisco Earthquake of April 18, 1906 on its 76th anniversary, in the improvised instrumental "Space" jam that regularly follows the drum duet in the second set. This one became known as "Phil's Earthquake Space" (Track #18).
Everyone was surprised to hear Phil even utter anything into a mic since he had stopped singing with the Dead in 1974, claiming that he had shot his voice.
His weird rambles here are something like: "The Barbary Coast, 1906, the wickedest place in the world, nothing but sin and no salvation no matter where you lived... whoo-hoo, lots of fun, hey!!" "San Francisco..., the pearl of the Pacific... hanging out and having fun..., until that one fateful day!...(scream)...", and he and the Dead responded with instrumental noise that shook the building, as close to an earthquake at they could create. This recording from the soundboard doesn't capture the ambient reverberations from the arena itself that they were creating and playing off of. It sounded for a moment like the building would fall apart!
The next night in Baltimore he did something similar quoting Poe's "The Raven" (I wasn't there), then I don't know of him going on mic again until about three years later when he felt he had recovered his voice enough to gradually begin singing backing vocals and occasional cover songs again. By 1986, he brought one of the few Dead songs he sang lead on, his great song "Box of Rain" (lyrics by the late Robert Hunter), back into the Dead's repertoire after a thirteen year absence.
This was otherwise a generally good sounding, well played show.

Bertha-> Promised Land, Friend Of The Devil-> CC Rider, Ramble On Rose, Me & My Uncle-> Mexicali Blues, Althea-> Looks Like Rain, Big Railroad Blues-> Let It..." ~ Eli Polonsky