Stage Banter

Phil at the Glen " this is only a test,,,  you'll forgive us anything tonight folks won't you "

Can't remember dates but there's many many shows over the years of Phil playing the heavy bitching at the crowd to behave better like some crotchety old grandpa with gout. Yeah he was quite the pitbull at times, I always laugh whenever I hear it.

http://www.kazart.com/bus_stop/banter_x.htm

Saturday 1995 Vegas - it went something like

Garcia - If anybody passes out just pass em forward and we'll stack off to the side

Weir - Excuse me did you say something

"Did I hear someone say 'fuck the Christian right'?"  - Bob Weir, 5/29/95

"This is so weird."  - Donna looking over at faux Bob the first time she sat in with DSO.

Is Bobs continuing story of Yeller Dog considered stage banter ? 

Phil 10/29/77 "I just want to say this is the happiest day of my life"

Phil 4/7/85

"Hiya hiya hiya kids

Hiya hiya hiya kids

Can you hear me?

Robyn Hitchcock is my go to for stage banter.  

4:54 min mark;
https://relisten.net/grateful-dead/1972/04/14/cumberland-blues?source=33...

Lots of stage banter at this show:
https://relisten.net/grateful-dead/1970/06/05/stage-banter?source=335777

"It's a bullshit lie!"

https://archive.org/details/gd1990-06-10.152180.nakcp702.flac2496/gd1990-06-10.cp702s1t04.flac

"On the count of three, everybody say, Hey Phil! What's Happenin'???"

"One, two, three...."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

^^Sounds like a Saturday night in Berkeley 9/12/81, waiting to start a 2nd encore^^

Bobby Ace: London 5/26/72.....

Of course by now, I don't have to tell you, this next number rose straight to the top of the charts in Turlock, Ca, numero uno, and stayed there for about a week or two. 

They love us in Turlock, and we love them for that.

Kind of interesting to ponder why I consider typical GD stage banter to be acceptable, yet cringe if ever see a "regular band" twice in a row and hear the same stories repeated?

Robby Osborne before I Know You Rider:

"Well folks, we're about to play you a folk song"

Sonny:

"That means we don't really know which folk wrote it, so we're just gonna rip it off."

>>>>cringe if ever see a "regular band" twice in a row and hear the same stories repeated?

Many years ago, I went to a run of David Grisman shows at Jazz Alley in Seattle.  Two shows a night over several days.   He told the same "off the cuff" jokes and stories at every show.

I've seen Steve Earle and Mavis Staples do the same thing.  I appreciate that te Grateful Dead kept the banter to a minimum, and it always felt genuine.

This place has got mice.

Bob Weir at The Hult Center, Eugene, Oregon, April 8, 1984

>>>Kind of interesting to ponder why I consider typical GD stage banter to be acceptable, yet cringe if ever see a "regular band" twice in a row and hear the same stories repeated?

Saw the Dead repeat the banter from the Oxford ME shows a week later at the Greek shows in Berkeley -  and yes it was cringe. 

Weir (looking down at me and everyone front-row center)

"You need to take a step back because these people up front are looking kind of bug-eyed."

Garcia "This is what the entire surface of the planet is going to look like in 20 years. Learn to love it now."

Buffalo '92

4/7/84

"We gotta take a moment because we gotta nail Mickey's other foot to the floor."

Who fucked up?  Who fucked up?  Was it you that did that fucking up?

Mickey to Bobby during the Prankster Space at Riverbend, 1985.

Weir- Mickey's got a broken drum and you can't beat that.

(can't remember)

  Phil--Bob's guitar is broken, his hands are frozen, and my mind is blown!

So we're not going to do an encore tonight. We'll see you all tomorrow.

Cal-Expo '86

>>>>He told the same "off the cuff" jokes and stories at every show.

I figured out that was a thing early on in my concert going career @ Van Halen

Dave had the same lines every evening.."This is the biggest mother-fucking joint I've ever seen"

I  heard lots of stage banter from the Grateful Dead since the first night in the hall on June 9, 1977.

Mostly funny stuff, and it made the crowd feel more "inside" with the band.

One New Year's Eve on the radio on KFOG, Ben Fong-Torres brought on Paul Grushkin who played about a half hour mash up of Grateful Dead rarities and stage raps.

Good stuff. And somewhere around here there's a cassette.

Providence RI " where's Phil?"  always gets me......

The whole rap between Phil and Bob while they were waiting for the doofus to get off the ledge on the balcony at SPAC in 1985 was pretty fun.

>>>>>"So we're not going to do an encore tonight. We'll see you all tomorrow."

They did the encore - OMSN - at the start of next day's show, also at Cal Expo.

9/9/72

Jerry:  "We'd like to play some more but some of the boy's are already in Tijuana. You know how it is.

Weir "We have a bass player that was last seen heading out the back door with some cute little filly so that's about it. See you tomorrow.

https://archive.org/details/gd1972-09-09.149458.sbd.boswell.smith.miller...

04/04/88

Bob: "And now from our album, Touch of Grey, the hit single."

Phil: "Citizens of Boise, submit or perish – you are a conquered people" Boise 9.2.83

Weir- Mickey's got a broken drum and you can't beat that.>>>

10/26/80 Put Bill in that joke, then says "Now it's fixed".  Talking between Iko & Dark Hollow.  Clean Soundboard of the whole show.

https://archive.org/details/gd80-10-26.sbd.hinko.18862.sbeok.shnf/gd1980...  

We're here to enjoy the music, not suffocate.  Phil - Binghamton 79. Good times 

“We came here to listen to music not to trade punches and get in people’s faces.”

- Bob Weir, Roosevelt Stadium, 8-6-74.

"for you folks who, who are following us around, we're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna badger you with some new tunes until we get em right, you know how it is"

Weir intro to Hell In A Bucket at ScaryWeather 6/20/83. The lightning wind and rain show. You had to be there!

I melted, puddled, then swam in my own sea. 

Jerry - Besides, all those cops are from heaven man.

https://archive.org/details/gd1973-12-01.sbd.clugston.6648.sbefail.shnf/...

2-5- 78

Weir tells his Sahara Forest Lumberjack joke

Probably his worst joke ever

Telluride 87.  Brokedown Palace Encore

Harmonic Convergence 

Copy and paste below. 

Jer: "Wait a minute, this is all fucked up!"
Phil [almost off-mic, mock-serious]: "Pardon me?"
Bobby: "Oxygen deprivation!"
Jer [on mic, unusually]: "We're in the wrong key!" [they weren't]
Jer: "You people are used to this - the altitude and all!" [actually a minimum of the crowd were townies. It's like Jer forgot he was being followed all over the country]
Jer: "Forget all of that happened!"

Then there is the banter from the audience during a silent moment.   

A lady head with an obvious speech impediment screaming very loudly. 

" JEEWWWEE JEEWWEE GAWCIA,

PWAY WAMBEWL ON WOSE, JEEWWEE"

Crowd:  We Want Phil!  We Want Phil!

Jerry:  If everybody says 'Please, Phil'

Crowd: PLEASE, PHIL

Phil: I can't hear you.

Crowd: PLEASE, PHIL

Phil: Not now, I'm not in the mood.

Bobby: Ladies and Gentlemen, are you ready for Star Time?

Crowd: (ROARS)

Bobby: I can't hear you.  Are you ready for Star Time?

Crowd: (ROARS)

Bobby: I can't hear you.  Are you ready for Star Time?

Feb 26th 1990 Oakland Coliseum

and now we're going to continue our singin' in the rain

Bobby at Hershey Park, 1985

A real good one that wasn't from the stage; it was when that guy screamed out for dark hollow at the top of his lungs, and so they dug right into it. And then he screamed "thank you!" When it ended. Radio city?

There was a sustained "We want Phil!" chant one time at the Frost before a set (yes, I am being vague).

Jerry walked over and put his arm around Phil and said forcefully into the microphone

"WE"RE hanging on to him for a while! He's OURS!"

5/11/86 

https://relisten.net/grateful-dead/1986/05/11/tuning?source=34186

Let Phil sing chant

Phil: It's not a question of letting me, it's a question of making me.....Make Phil sing, Make Phil sing

Jerry: What makes you think we can make him sing

Phil: Bob broke a string. This is the first time he broke a string before we started to play...... Oh you people have mystery on your mind

Ran across this gem today from 4/24/72, right before Chinatown Shuffle...

Bobby - Hey good evening folks, you might have noticed that we take a long time between songs and that's because we're grossly inefficient.

Jerry - And we like to scratch our asses a little.

I love the little Jerry-ism on the Fillmore West '69 shows.
I can't recall which one, maybe 2/27 or 03/01...
 

Anyway, Jerry says something like:

"It's incredibly strange/weird up here.
If only you could be up here under similar circumstances, you'd understand how incredibly weird it is"

12/22/70 w/New Riders in Sac. Not sure if this counts as stage banter, but Weir was having trouble with a stage monitor. A couple of times between songs, he called techs over to check it out.
Finally, he's looking off stage and you can hear him say something like, I'm telling you, there's something wrong with this monitor. Not sure what the response was, but the next thing you know, Bob stomps on the speaker a few times. Then, he speaks into the mic, "now, can I get a different monitor?" A couple of guys hustle over and exchange the damaged speaker. If there were any issues after that, he didn't complain.

Altamont during the JA set when Marty is getting his ass-kicked by a Hell's Angel...

Stage Banter-weight?

"We have some more hassling with equipment up here...as usual."-Jerry Garcia, 12.06.71

Not Band stage banter, but another good Bill Graham intro:

"Whatever is going on in the rest of the world, whether it's wars or kidnappings or crimes, this is a peaceful Sunday night with the Grateful Dead."

Winterland 2-24-74

^^^Listened to this classic over the last couple days, one of the best of the year^^^   Dave's Picks 13  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbdOqSGU0tE

4/15/88 Rosemont Horizon, Bobby before Knockin On Heavens Door:

"Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen... its a very special night tonight, because tonight is one of our drummers birthdays... in fact, in fact its both of our drummers birthdays...  so you can throw stuff at them and stuff like that...

There's a version of LLR from the early 70s where Phil observes, off mic, just before the song starts, "Maybe she just had to pee."

Another version, right as they start  LLR Garcia says "Looks Like Pain."

>> [Inaudible from crowd]

>> Phil: None of your business, man.

>> [More inaudible from crowd]

Phil: What are you? The heat?

[Even more inaudible from crowd]

Phil: You're awful curious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mike, I had the good fortune 2 B at this shoe. Especially the second set; this was the best shoe I was ever at!

First a few side notes. There was more stage banter at this shoe then any other that I was ever at.  Except perhaps the night B4.  There was also some killer Colombian making the rounds. The kind that made U feel like when U walked, your feet where about 6 inches off the ground, then some.        

At the risk of totally embarrassing myself (aw what the heck, why not) allow me to fill in the inaudible portion of this banter:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Somebody next to me: Jerry, Columbian (Jerry comes over takes the pass & is toking)

nycdave:  Hey Jerry, what'cha  ya smokin'?

Jerry: None of your  business, man.  (Oops, I think I pissed him off a bit)
Jerry:  What are you? The heat? (At this point Jerry looks at me and smiles)

Jerry: You're AWFUL curious.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile, on the other side other side of the stage:

Plil; Take off your disguise, man, and show us who you really are. Let's have a spotlight on this man here. One, two, three, four from the rear. I mean four from the front. Ha ha. Slowest light crew in the world, man.

Dave, so it was you that Jerry thought was the heat? Far out!  I've listened to that show many times and always wondered if there was an actual undercover cop that had been outed.

Bob screaming at the crew because they gave him tea that was too hot.  Jerry's trying to calm everyone down. Warfield '80 I believe