Giants Stadium
I was a freshman at Ithaca College and I pretty quickly found a bunch of cool people and serious GD heads.
Even during the summer orientation I become friendly with someone who was tied in as a tape trader, and right when we got back up to school he let me pick six tapes from his collection. I had listened to GD tapes before, including some reel to reels that a friend’s brother had recorded at the Fillmore East, but I had no copies of those, and I don’t think I had heard much at all that took place after 1971 other than shows that had been broadcast live on the radio. In that week before this show I got my first copies of 6-16-74, parts of the classic April 71 Fillmore East run, a classic Avalon Ballroom tape, and the Binghamton show from 5-15-70. My mind was blown by hearing them for the first time and I will never forget what it was like when I first popped a crystal-clear soundboard of the second set of 6-16-74 in my tape player.
My new friends invited me to head down to Giants Stadium for this show. One of them was a Sophomore who had a car and was as psyched to go as was I.
The Dead were on their way to Egypt to play at the Great Pyramid and this was kind of an unusual stand-alone show before that excursion. They had to watch the time, and someone in the band motioned to their watch during the jam.
I remember that when I heard that Willie Nelson was opening. It was the first time I had ever (like, ever) heard of him.
Few good tapes surfaced for a long time, and until recently I don’t think I ever heard any soundboards of this show. Nowadays I hear stuff like the Looks Like Rain from this show played on The Grateful Dead channel in soundboard form. Fun to hear, unexpectedly, while driving in the car, for the first time in 40 years.
