Bob Weir Band [Grateful Dead] - Acoustic 1978

Another rare acoustic set for The Dead. This time from 1978. The Dead were in the middle of a three night run in Chicago when they did this impromptu performance earlier in the day. Billed as the Bob Weir Band but really the band minus Keith, Donna and Bill.

The show was a benefit for the college's Hunger Week and saw the band dig out some old favorites and a couple of new ones and one original and that was a Bobby song from his recent solo album, Heaven Help The Fool.

I love acoustic music in general but acoustic Dead always seems like something special. Enjoy.

Side One
01 Whinin' Boy Blues
02 Tom Dooley
03 This Time Forever
04 Deep Elem Blues
05 KC Moan

Side Two
01 Knockin' on Heaven's Door
02 Big Boy Pete
03 Jack-A-Roe
04 Dark Hollow
05 Oh Boy

Reality Notes

Not too much more I can say about this one. It's a fun listen and unlike other shows I've edited This one was pretty tight with very few long bits between songs. The recording is a clean and decent soundboard which required no touching up. The song choices are mostly old folk and blues songs with one original. Many are making their first and last appearances.

I wanted the cover to have a bootleg feel. This is pre-CD era and their label Arista was still pushing them to deliver slick production product so this would never see an official release making it perfect bootleg material. Even before doing my usual trimming of between song chatter this was barely over 45 minutes long and would split nicely between songs five and six on a vinyl disc. For this reason I did not try to smooth out every edit. I imagine the bootlegger had rudimentary tape editing skills and just chopped what he could to make it fit on the disc.