March 24, 1990
Knickerbocker Arena
Albany NY
Set 1
Let The Good Times Roll > Help on the Way > Slipknot > Franklin's Tower; Walking Blues; Loser; Desolation Row; Tennessee Jed > One More Saturday Night

Set 2
Playin' in the Band > Uncle John's Band > Terrapin > Mud Buddy Love Jam > Drumz > Wheel > All Along the Watchtower > Stella Blue > Not Fade Away

Encore
We Bid You Goodnight

By this time I'd had a well-rounded start to my Dead concert experience. I saw four shows in four years, all on or around the 4th of July, in the cities Buffalo, Rochester, Rochester, and Buffalo. But now it was time to branch out. I had also moved from Syracuse to Ithaca where I was working for Cornell University. This got me plugged into the Internet several years before the World Wide Web exploded. There was a fairly strong online Deadhead community, and I learned from them how to go about ordering tickets by mail. Although it required following a long list of stringent rules to the tee, it made things a lot easier.

When I learned that the Dead would be playing in the Knickerbocker Arena in Albany, I ordered up four tickets through the mail. One of the tickets went to my pledge brother and best buddy Farkle. He wasn't much of a deadhead, but he lived in Albany and could put me up for the weekend. He also liked to hang out with the gang, so even though he didn't know the music all that well he was happy to come along. The other two tickets went to Donger and Burkie, two other very good friends of mine.

The weekend arrived and I drove to Albany. In fact it was a rather mellow weekend. Farkle and I got to spend a lot of time together before Donger and Burkie showed up. We all carpooled to the show. They told us that Toast was going to be there. He was the guy who'd been such a dick when we were parking back in '88. He was now living in the Albany area, and he somehow had seats in one of the luxury boxes overlooking the stage. We spent watched the first set from our seats, but during intermission we went out to find Toast and weasel into his luxury box. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea. It wasn't Toast's box. He just had two seats in it. Some rich kid was the one who actually had the box. By the time intermission was winding down he got upset with the crowd that had formed and ordered everyone out who wasn't supposed to be there. Somehow we managed to keep our heads down and stay for the second set.

And what a second set it turned out to be! The Grateful Dead actually released a live CD of selected songs from the series of shows they played at that venue. It was called "Dozin' At The Knick", and this second set we watched was some of the best stuff on the whole CD. And we had the pleasure of watching it from this luxury box. The box wasn't really all that luxurious, but we had a very nice vantage point. The encore was an a cappella version of "We Bid You Goodnight." It was magical to experience. It wasn't until much later that I realized what a rare treat this was. In fact I had witnessed what became somewhat of a legendary moment in the Grateful Dead's long history of performances.

After the show Donger and Burkie when their own way. Farkle and I had a mellow evening in and I drove home the next day.

index | next story -->