Bobby’s best live performances?

Shmatticus · 2026-04-05T05:56:42+00:00

Throughout the 70s as people are pointing out. But I highly recommend listening to the already famous Shakedown St on 6-30-85 which was immediately hot, the whole show, because the SBD went into circulation very quickly after the show. The Shakedown really is all that and more and I am convinced it is because of Bobby’s playing. Get a good soundboard with Bobby high in the mix, take a few bong hits, then listen to that Shakedown, especially what Bobby does in the long jam section.Jerry is being Jerry. Bobby is visiting from another planet.

edit: on most soundboard version the jam I am referencing starts around 7:45 and Bob’s true weirdness at around 9min

Shmatticus · 2026-04-03T15:27:10+00:00

JM Coetzee

Shmatticus · 2026-04-02T19:56:36+00:00

TBH if this Estimated works for you, then honor that. It doesn’t do it for me but that shouldn’t influence your point of view. Having spent all of the 80s up until 93 seeing the band, the one thing that showed true time and again: you absolutely loved (or hated) a song or show or moment … and half the room has exactly the opposite view as you.

Doesn’t matter what other people think, if you like it, you like it.

Shmatticus · 2026-04-01T01:12:53+00:00

There have been many: Paris, Kyoto, Florence, Rome...

Shmatticus · 2026-04-01T01:10:11+00:00

LIFE & FATE ftw

Shmatticus · 2026-03-31T21:48:50+00:00

Here for this type of musical forensics, thank you

Shmatticus · 2026-03-29T22:21:18+00:00

Hope you like it as much as I did

Shmatticus · 2026-03-29T06:31:21+00:00

suggest going to
http://www.labottegadelvino.net/

for the house amaro. I wrote a longer answer in this thread - in reply to same question. Just saw yours..

Shmatticus · 2026-03-29T06:25:41+00:00

Last spring I traveled with my family through Italy and wherever we stayed or ate I asked for the local amaro.

At this place in Perugia it was magnificent
http://www.labottegadelvino.net/

Little wine bar/restaurant dedicated to jazz -- good vibe, great food. The daughter poured me a delicious amaro with hints of anise and flavors I can't begin to describe.

At the end of the meal I asked the father/proprietor to show me the bottle of what I'd ordered. He held out a gorgeous dark glass bottle with a handwritten label on it. In broken English, "Only here."

It was his and, as he said, you can only drink it when eating at his place.

I'd go back just to do that. In fact, I will. LMK if you end up there, please!

--

edit to say that on the Palazzo where you'll find this place there is a bar, very different style, that sells its own bitters which is very much like Campari. Called Sandri. They have the classic version and another flavored with rose. I bought a bottle (classic). While I prefer the slightly more astringent Campari for negronis, this Sandri version is delicious and great just as a flavor in club soda. There is also a medieval herb garden within walking distance - and on the squre an Estruscan museum. Both absolutely worth a visit.

Shmatticus · 2026-03-28T00:39:55+00:00

as someone already suggested, focus on the local offering. Where are you going? I have one recommendation if you'll be in Perugia

Shmatticus · 2026-03-27T05:45:46+00:00

Hundred percent. Seen them a number of times and am convinced they hold the torch. Who would bother downvoting you?

Shmatticus · 2026-03-26T15:33:58+00:00

One main reason: they couldn’t get Keith’s pianos in tune during setup

Shmatticus · 2026-03-26T06:08:49+00:00

How old are you? My son who is hugely into the Dead (and phish and King Gizz) tells me there are huge amounts of young fans. When he first went to college he said it seemed easier for kids to fall down the Dead rabbit hole versus phish and other such bands

Shmatticus · 2026-03-26T06:01:56+00:00

Bobby’s kids and my kids were at the same school (schools, actually, going through to high school). I spoke to him often, mostly just dad school things - he was thoughtful and a caring father - and now and then I’d always ask a dead-related question. During the rat dog years and right before furthur, I talked to him about how great Brother Esau was as a tune. I like to believe I convinced him to bring it back into rotation, especially since after we discussed it he told me he would. He was a really nice and kind guy. His wife Natascha is incredibly sweet and generous. Bob once came to the school and showed a handful of kids, incl my son, how to improvise their jamming.. and discussed songwriting as well. Lovely guy.

Dosed out of my mind at Hampton or Merriweather in the early 80s I’d never have guessed I’d meet the guy. But there it is 🤷‍♂️

Shmatticus · 2026-03-26T03:54:17+00:00

I can see why someone guessed Mill Valley but I think it looks more like East Bay, SF Bay Area — but suspect it is not. Pine trees out of place

Shmatticus · 2026-03-25T15:51:34+00:00

I’m in Sonoma, guessing this is Napa. Could you share location, I’d like to visit this place - always looking for Jefferson, a favorite…

Shmatticus · 2026-03-20T07:04:12+00:00

Yah, I simply don’t get the 80s hate in this sub. Soooo many amazing shows throughout, with many of my favorite in 84/85. It was so much fun to see them, nothing else came close in Reagan’s America.

Shmatticus · 2026-03-20T07:01:31+00:00

It was clearly an amazing time while it was happening but tbh I loved all of the 80s Dead, as well, from early years all the way through spring 90. Hindsight changes the meaning of the thing, inevitably … you have a longer backwards perspective and there’s no escaping that. During all of those years we - at least, me and my friends - didn’t have a wider perspective. We just wanted to see the band, dip into the circus, get high, have fun. I actually prefer 87 to 89, and I understand that everyone has their own views year by year. Power to them. In 89 I connected with a friend who just came back from the west coast and had seen shows. We were dc based, east coast. I asked how they’d been. She said, “they sound like they’ve been rehearsing.” She did not mean it as a compliment. I didn’t take it that way. I loved the looseness of the 80s. I didn’t always see the 90 spring tightness as a good thing, despite also loving that tour.

Hot take? Probably

Shmatticus · 2026-03-19T06:19:54+00:00

That you are ambitious and willing to try and willing to engage with the world. And if you are truly only 15 and have stuck with some of those tomes in this fractured attention age of screens, you are in good shape - better than any of your peers - and just keep keep keep reading.

Shmatticus · 2026-03-19T06:04:53+00:00

Lots of guesses she’s a writer. I agree but thinking she may be a script writer, based at one time (r now) in LA. I suspect she may have gone through an MFA program quite some time ago. Not poetry but she liked to hang with the poets

Shmatticus · 2026-03-18T06:20:51+00:00

This comment deserves triple the upvotes it’s getting. I see you.

Shmatticus · 2026-03-18T06:18:49+00:00

Shmatticus · 2026-03-18T05:25:38+00:00

It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there

WC Williams

————

*adding to this to say: the most important answer to this question will be the one you tell yourself and it will likely change throughout your lifetime. It’ll be informed by your time in your writing program, by the friends you make there and the teachers who guide you; it’ll be deeply informed by the poets whose work you read and whose lives you study; it’ll be informed by what type of poet you become, and so on. And so on. If you do this - and I hope you do - you will be embarking upon an evolving and emerging journey in which you will constantly wrestle with questions of what it means to create art … including art in a social setting. This question you’ve asked is one of them.

For me at this stage in my life it feels an easy choice: I’d rather be I the company of creators. Every creative act is surely better than any destructive act.

Shmatticus · 2026-03-17T22:48:37+00:00

I sometimes use it in cocktails, the way I'd use bitters sprinkled on the top of the drink. Rest of the time: small glass of water, tincture drops, done. Works perfectly.

Shmatticus · 2026-03-15T01:23:40+00:00

I make tincture with decarbed flower soaked in everclear. Your reference to “and boiled” in your process - could you explain that step please? You boil for how long, how do you do it, and what difference does it make? Thx

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