Barton Hall, Cornell University
Below: Early 1980 Grateful Dead newsletter mentioning the upcoming release of “Go To Heaven.”
This was the first of two Grateful Dead shows that I saw at Cornell while I attended Ithaca College. The concept of springtime tours through smaller cities and college towns - especially on the east coast - seemed a big part of what the Grateful Dead was to us in those days. Ithaca College had a community of serious Dead fans and as soon as school started I met several. A depth and variety of music permeated that community of people.
As it was the year before, there were some Grateful Dead shows we could get to at both the beginning and end of the school year, but the Dead were coming right to us this time in the Spring. Even for IC students, (Cornell's) Collegetown was a fun place to eat and drink, see some live bands and even buy some records at Collegetown Records. We often went to the Chariot and the Nines for drinks and for live music (and, according to my discriminating Brooklyn friend, for the “best pizza anywhere”. Sadly, the Nines closed in 2018.) Barton Hall is just a few blocks from there. It was really nice to have that feeling that the Dead and all things emanating therefrom were right there in your own small college town. Jerry even noodled around with the Cornell song on this night.
When I started school in the fall of 1978, “Shakedown Street” was the new Grateful Dead album…. and now "Go to Heaven" had just been released and for a couple of weeks we listened to it in the dorm. We scrawled “Sure Don’t Know What I’m Going For…” in chalk inside the stairway of the dorm; we imagined what Saint of Circumstance would sound like live with the big Timpanis. The Go to Heaven material would indeed fall heavily into the rotation for this year and the next. Feel Like a Stranger - all laid back and funky, with Brent’s new keyboard sounds, was played in classic form at both Ithaca shows, in addition to really classic Shakedowns and Altheas at both shows.
On the afternoon of this show I drove up and headed over to catch the soundcheck. As I sat there on the lawn outside Barton Hall the Dead ran through Playin' in the Band with some starts and stops, and strangely, in that song, I heard the lyrics being altered by Weir to "Playin in the Barn." They played it in the second set that night, and he went ahead and sang it that way at one point. Years later, some of the comments on archive.org may have misunderstood his reference.... Barton Hall is the Cornell campus' old track and field building - and it has a long rectangular shape with a ceiling that made it look like a gigantic barn inside. "Playin’ in the Barn" ... just hearing that outside made it seem like the Dead felt at home at this place.
This show was three years and one day after the first time they played in the same building, a show that would be chosen as the favorite concert tape among fans (as polled by "Deadbase") from all of the Dead's shows, first on cassette and then digitally, although the Deadbase reviews by the serious tapers talk about how the show is actually overrated, an inevitable conclusion for anyone that knows the overall catalog of Grateful Dead performances and appreciates the band’s long history. In addition, due weight must be given to Bob Weir’s more recent disclosure that the 1977 show never actually took place.
In 1980, and for some time thereafter, that now-famous 1977 show wasn't famous at all - as many fans know, the original tapes of that show were among the ones recorded by Betty Cantor and left in a storage locker until the late 1980s. Its just funny because in retrospect I can say pretty confidently that at this show in 1980, most of us knew nothing at all about that 1977 show … In those days, setlists of previous shows weren't even available in any medium, and the only 1977 shows in most of our tape collections at the time consisted of the Chicago, Capitol Theatre (NJ) and Englishtown shows - all shows that had been broadcast over the radio.
Some fine soundboard tapes of the 1980 and '81 Ithaca shows surfaced in later years and forever confirm how good these shows were.... both are among the strongest sets played in two of the most productive years for the band. This 1980 performance would showcase them in fine form, playing funky, bluesy, spacey and all things in between, earning its release as part of the Road Trips collection of Grateful Dead live shows.
Take note, Senator Al Franken (since you have such a keen interest in comparing versions), that two beautiful Altheas were played here in Ithaca, and this one is worth your consideration, for sure. (A week later I would see the Dead play the Honorable Senator’s favorite version in Nassau.)
I admit I do have a historical bias for shows in May of any given year ( especially in the peak eras, like the spring tours during 1972 and 1977). I also love listening to the 1977 Barton show, especially after seeing the band in that building twice. But I do have to cringe every time I read or hear the silliness about how the 1977 Ithaca show was “the greatest” GD concert. I appreciate it as part of ‘the trilogy,” comprised by Betty Cantor’s great tapes of that 3 night run on the road in Boston, Ithaca and then Buffalo. From the time I had first heard the Betty Boards of those 3 shows, it was pretty much a game changer all the way around - for me, none is head and shoulders above the rest (but the Buffalo show satisfies me just fine as the closer, with its perfect renditions of so many great tunes, and with Come a Time in set 2 and then the Uncle John’s encore). The Deadbase reviews (published in the 90s) had cut Buffalo down a notch but raised up the Boston show a notch.
I think that one reason the 5/8/77 got such rave reviews from cassette traders was there was something special about the sound on that particular tape from Betty - not just punchy and clear but it sounded like a matrix recording at a time before people created those. And perhaps the reason for the quality of the sound on those tapes had to do with Barton Hall's acoustics and the kind of hall reverb that was present when the Dead were "Playin' in the Barn."
The 1981 Barton Hall show would bear some interesting similarities to this one and would take it all a step further.
Below: From a 1981 Relix magazine - a nice article on Betty.
