1966 Show List

There is currently no single, accurate page online where all the Grateful Dead shows and tapes from 1966 are listed. Setlist sources like deadlists and deadbase are considerably out of date, and recent tape and date discoveries are scattered across several sites, so I thought it would be useful to provide a simple complete show list for the year.

About 110 Dead shows are known from 1966, though there were certainly more forgotten shows played. We have recordings, mostly partial, from 21 shows (19% of the shows played, but in many cases only one surviving reel or a few songs per show) -- a smattering from winter/spring, a cluster in July and a few in November/December, and nothing at all from August through October.

Many of Owsley’s home recordings of the Dead’s rehearsals have surfaced, and are included along with the few film fragments that exist from the year. All the known songs played are listed.

Some of the many previous dating errors are noted, but it should be stressed that most 1966 tapes in the Vault have either the wrong dates or no dates on the labels, so a lot of the placements here are conjectural.

Thanks to Benjamin Miller for suggesting this list to me. 

For later show lists, see: 
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2018/06/1967-show-list.html 
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2018/10/1968-show-list.html 
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2019/11/1969-show-list.html 

Other bands that played with the Dead are listed on their own page:
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-shared-stage-1965-1975.html

1966

1/1/66 Beaver Hall, Portland, OR (Sat.)

Acid Test. The date is uncertain (it could have been Christmas 1965).

1/4/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Tues.)

1/5/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Wed.)

1/7/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Fri.)

SETLIST:

Mindbender
On the Road Again
She Belongs to Me
I'll Go Crazy
Can't Come Down
Death Don't Have No Mercy
Parchman Farm
Midnight Hour
The Only Time Is Now
Early Morning Rain
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

1/8/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sat.)

Acid Test.

RECORDING:

I’m A King Bee

Hog For You Baby

Caution>

Death Don’t Have No Mercy

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-01-08.sbd.lestatkatt.106505.flac16

(The Lestatkatt file contains multiple mixes from the Prankster recordings, as well as a fragmentary Tastebud from an unknown show.)

FILM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t5bb_qRAKA (footage from several Acid Tests including 3/19, but the color King Bee appears to be from this show)

1/13/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Thu.)

SONGS: “All of My Love,” Hog For You Baby

1/14/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

Mime Troupe Benefit.

1/15/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Sat.)

1/16/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Sun.)

1/22/66 Longshoreman’s Hall, San Francisco (Sat.)

SONG: Midnight Hour

1/23/66 Longshoreman’s Hall, San Francisco (Sun.)

Trips Festival. (It’s uncertain whether the Dead actually played on the 23^rd, since Garcia’s guitar broke.)

FILM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG_4yU7Stfo (good luck spotting the Dead)
REVIEW: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/02/january-1966-san-francisco-acid-tests.html 

1/66 Bear’s house, Berkeley

HOME RECORDING:

Viola Lee Blues (many takes)

Cardboard Cowboy

https://archive.org/details/gd66-01-xx.sbd.hanno-uli.18846.sbeok.shnf

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-02-05.136661.sbd.bruno.flac16

(Recorded the week before moving to Los Angeles.)

1/66 Bear’s house, Berkeley

HOME RECORDING:

Wandering Man

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-06-01.136657.sbd.sirmick.flac1648

1/28/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Fri.)

RECORDING:

I

/You Don’t Have To Ask

II

Viola Lee Blues

I Know You Rider

Midnight Hour (plug pulled)

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16 (tracks 15-18)

(Reel labeled “Pauley Ballroom #2,” date deduced from stage talk.)

1/29/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Sat.)

1/29/66 Sound City Studios, San Francisco – Members of the Dead were present at a Merry Pranksters recording session that night, apparently after playing at the Matrix, but this was not an Acid Test or a Dead performance. Garcia, asked to sing, protests that his voice is shot.

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-01-29.sbd.berger.99527.flac16

2/6/66 Northridge Unitarian Church, Los Angeles (Sun.)

Acid Test. (A newspaper report confirms that it took place on the 6^th.) 
REVIEW: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2017/06/february-6-1966-acid-test-unitarian.html 

RECORDING:

/Tastebud

Mindbender

One Kind Favor

Beat It On Down the Line

The Only Time Is Now/

http://www.dead.net/features/tapers-section/february-26-march-04-2018  

https://sabercathost.com/hz1Y/Jam_Of_The_Week_66-02-06_Los_Angeles.mp3

Though the reel is dated “2/6,” I don’t believe it actually comes from an Acid Test, but from a nearby show. (Bear, who recorded it, also said he did not attend this Acid Test.)

Weir, on the 1/28 tape, starts to announce an event happening in Los Angeles on Saturday the 5^th, but is cut off. Lesh, in a rehearsal, also mentions playing in LA “Saturday night.” It’s unknown whether they thought this Acid Test would be on Saturday as usual, or if they had another show planned that day.

2/12/66 Youth Opportunities Center, Compton (Sat.)

Acid Test.

RECORDING:

“Who Cares” rap

“New Orleans” vamp*

Twist & Shout*

(* - with harmonica player)

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16 (tracks 6-9 - unlabeled reel)

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-06-01.136658.sbd.sirmick.flac1648 (bass & drum puttering, band discussion – reel labeled “Acid Test #3,” probably from this evening)

2/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles

HOME RECORDING:

Hi Heel Sneakers

Viola Lee Blues

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-06-01.136642.watts.sbd.mr.dat48k.sirmick.flac16 (reel labeled “Watts” – early Viola Lee)

2/23/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles

HOME RECORDING:

It’s a Sin jam>La Bamba jam>It’s A Sin jam (instrumental – titles conjectural)

http://www.dead.net/features/february-23-march-1-2009

2/25/66 Empire Studios, Los Angeles (Fri.)

Acid Test. Moved from the Cinema Theater.

The tape labeled “2/25/66 Ivar Theater” was misdated – no actual Dead show at the Ivar Theater is known.

The Free Press newspaper ad for this Acid Test also states, “Saturday night too, but elsewhere,” so there may have been another event on the 26^th.

2 or 3/66 Unknown location

RECORDING:

Big Railroad Blues

Sick and Tired

Empty Heart

(Released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.” This show is a total mystery, unless more of it comes out of the Vault. A bandmember calls for “Otis” (You Don’t Have To Ask) after Sick and Tired, but it sounds like these three songs are consecutive.)

2 or 3/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles

HOME RECORDING:

Walkin' The Dog*
Big Boss Man
Beat It On Down the Line
It's All Over Now Baby Blue
You See a Broken Heart*
One Kind Favor
Promised Land*

(Available on “San Franciscan Nights vol. 2” collection. * - released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.”)

2 or 3/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles

HOME RECORDING:

Space (labeled “tuning”)

Blues Jam

http://www.dead.net/features/tapers-section/january-1-january-7-2007

2 or 3/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles

HOME RECORDING:

Not Fade Away

(Released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.”)

3/2/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles

HOME RECORDING:

Betty and Dupree

Stealin’

(Released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.”)

3/3/66 AIAA Hall, Los Angeles (Thu.)

With the film “Psychedelic Experience.”

3/9/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles

HOME RECORDING:

Unknown Pigpen song

Who Do You Love

Jam

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-03-09.136654.practise.sbd.mr.dat48k.sirmick.flac16 (reel labeled “LA Practice”)

3/10/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles

HOME RECORDING:

Sittin’ on Top of the World (several takes)

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-03-10.136655.sbd.sirmick.flac16

3/66 Bear's house, Los Angeles 
SONGS: I Know You Rider, You Don't Have To Ask   
(Scully played these demos for an LA Free Press reporter on a March 19 visit, saying they would be released as a single.)

3/12/66 Danish Center, Los Angeles (Sat.)

RECORDING:

I

/Viola Lee Blues
/One Kind Favor
I Know You Rider
You See A Broken Heart
It's A Sin/
Beat It On Down The Line
Heads Up
Next Time You See Me

II
Slow R & B Instrumental
/Death Don't Have No Mercy
Midnight Hour/

http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-03-19.sbd.scotton.81951.sbeok.flac
(Often dated "3/19/66," but there's no evidence this is from an Acid Test.)  

3/19/66 Carthay Studios, Los Angeles (Sat.)

Acid Test. Moved from the Grand Ballroom, UCLA.

FILM: Viola Lee Blues - http://original.livestream.com/davidaron/video?clipId=pla_410150df-2908-4a68-9db8-2dfd2701dcd1
REVIEW: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2017/01/march-19-1966-carthay-studios-los.html  

3/25/66 Trouper’s Club, Los Angeles (Fri.)

RECORDING:

I

/Stealin'
Instrumental
Hey Little One
Hog For You Baby
You Don't Have To Ask

II
Cold Rain And Snow
Next Time You See Me/
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-03-25.sbd.unknown.38.sbeok.shnf

4/6-9/66 Unknown (Wed.-Sat.)

Phil Lesh starts to announce something happening on these dates on the 3/25 tape, but it cuts off. The assumption is Phil was announcing upcoming shows, but they’re unknown and most likely weren’t played.

4/66 Bear’s house, Los Angeles?

HOME RECORDING:

Good Lovin’

Standing on the Corner

Cream Puff War

(Released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.” Due these songs' ties to the 5/19/66 show, I think this was recorded near the end of their Los Angeles stay. No home demos after the move to Olompali are known.)

4/22/66 Longshoreman’s Hall, San Francisco (Fri.)

SONG: Midnight Hour

4/23/66 Longshoreman’s Hall, San Francisco (Sat.)

4/24/66 Longshoreman’s Hall, San Francisco (Sun.)

Trips Festival.

RECORDINGS:

/It’s A Sin

Viola Lee Blues

Midnight Hour

Beat It On Down the Line

Blues Jam w/ Jorma & Jack/

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16 (tracks 10-14)

Beat It On Down the Line

Good Morning Little Schoolgirl>

You Don’t Love Me>

Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16 (tracks 4-5)

(Though respectively labeled “Longshoreman’s Hall 3^rd Night” & “1^st Night,” it’s possible that neither of these tapes are actually from the Trips Festival. The “3^rd Night” tape is the earlier show, in any case, since the “1^st Night” BIODTL is considerably rearranged.)

5/7/66 Harmon Gym, U of California, Berkeley (Sat.)

SONG: Midnight Hour

5/14/66 Veterans Memorial Hall, Berkeley (Sat.)

5/19/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Thu.)

Straight Theater benefit.

RECORDING:

I

/Beat It On Down The Line
Standing On The Corner
Mindbender
It Hurts Me Too
Viola Lee Blues
I Know You Rider
It's A Sin
Sick And Tired
Cream Puff War/

II
Sittin' On Top Of The World
New Minglewood Blues
Cold Rain And Snow
Tastebud
Silver Threads and Golden Needles
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Good Lovin'
You Don't Have To Ask/

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-05-19.sbd.miller.106828.flac16

(The Vault reels of this show are labeled “2/23/66” and “3/12/66.”)

5/22/66 Rancho Olompali, Novato (Sun.)

Party/jam session.

5/28/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Sat.)

5/29/66 California Hall, San Francisco (Sun.)

LEMAR benefit.

SONG: Dancing in the Street.

5 or 6/66 Unknown location

RECORDING:

On The Road Again
Next Time You See Me
I Know You Rider
Hey Little One*
Cold Rain And Snow
I’m A King Bee* >
Caution*
Stealin'/

http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-02-25.sbd.unknown.1593.sbefail.shnf (tracks 1-8; the track 9 Stealin' is from 7/17)  

(Commonly misdated “2/25/66,” and labeled as “3/12/66” in the Vault, it’s actually from the spring. * - released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.”)

6/66 Buena Vista Studio, San Francisco

STUDIO RECORDINGS:

Stealin’

Don’t Ease Me In

Tastebud

Cardboard Cowboy

Cold Rain And Snow

You Don’t Have To Ask

I Know You Rider

https://archive.org/details/gd66-06-xx.sbd.vernon.9513.sbeok.shnf

(Some takes released on “Birth of the Dead.”)

6/66 Pauley Ballroom, U of California, Berkeley

One of the Dead’s 1966 reels was (mis)labeled “Pauley Ballroom #2,” confirming Deadbase’s entry of an unknown show there.

6/3/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

FILM: Mindbender - https://www.facebook.com/chris.dileo.5/videos/10211791762644198/

6/4/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sat.)

6/7/66 Stockton Ballroom, Stockton (Tue.)

6/8/66 Stockton Ballroom, Stockton (Wed.)

6/9/66 Stockton Ballroom, Stockton (Thu.)

A poster exists and the promoter recalls the shows, but the dates seem implausible and have been questioned – weeknight runs in 1966 were extremely rare.

6/10/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Fri.)

6/11/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Sat.)

6/12/66 LSD conference party, mansion, somewhere in Marin County (Sun.)

6/17/66 Veterans Hall, San Jose (Fri.)

6/18/66 Veterans Hall, San Jose (Sat.)

7/3/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sun.)

RECORDING:

I

/Nobody's Fault But Mine
Dancing In The Street
I Know You Rider/
/He Was A Friend Of Mine
Next Time You See Me
Viola Lee Blues
Big Boss Man
Sittin' On Top Of The World/
/Keep Rolling By

II
New Minglewood Blues
Cold Rain And Snow
Tastebud
Beat It On Down The Line
Cream Puff War
Don't Mess Up A Good Thing*
Cardboard Cowboy
Gangster Of Love*
You Don't Have To Ask
Midnight Hour  

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-07-03.139751.sbd.miller.clugston.flac1648 (part of first set)

(Full show released on “30 Trips.” * - released on “Rare Cuts.”)

7/8/66 Armory, Santa Venetia (Fri.)

7/9/66 Armory, Santa Venetia (Sat.)

7/14/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Thu.)

7/15/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

7/16/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sat.)

RECORDING:

I

/I Know You Rider
Big Boss Man*
Standing On The Corner*
Beat It On Down The Line
In The Pines*
Cardboard Cowboy
Nobody's Fault But Mine*
Next Time You See Me
He Was A Friend Of Mine
Cream Puff War

II
Viola Lee Blues*
Don't Ease Me In*
Pain In My Heart*
New Minglewood Blues
Sittin' On Top Of The World*
You Don't Have To Ask
Cold Rain And Snow
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue*
Dancing In The Streets/
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-07-16.sbd.miller.89555.sbeok.flac16

(* - released on “Birth of the Dead,” undated.)

Also: Midnight Hour (encore with Jefferson Airplane, not recorded - see comments here)

7/17/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sun.)

RECORDING:

/Big Boss Man
Cold Rain And Snow
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Cream Puff War
I’m A King Bee*
Stealin'
Dancing In The Streets/

Next Time You See Me*

One Kind Favor*

He Was a Friend of Mine*

Keep Rolling By*
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-07-17.sbd.miller.21064.sbeok.shnf (partial)

(* - released on “Birth of the Dead,” without date. Since the last four tracks didn’t circulate, they’re presumed to come from a Vault reel of this show, but they may be from 7/15. Deadbase asserts that “this is most or all of the second set, since the first reel of this show is no longer playable.” David Gans said twenty years ago that another reel of 7/17 was “unusable because of damage to the reel,” but that may not reflect the current Vault holdings. The lack of known reel labels makes it quite possible that a stray reel may be from 7/15.)

7/29/66 PNE Garden Auditorium, Vancouver, BC (Fri.)

Trips Festival.

RECORDING:

I

Standing On The Corner
I Know You Rider
Next Time You See Me
Sittin’ On Top Of The World
You Don't Have To Ask
Big Boss Man
Stealin'
Cardboard Cowboy
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Cream Puff War

II
Viola Lee Blues
Beat It On Down The Line
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl/
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-07-30.sbd.GEMS.94631.flac16

(Released on the debut album 50^th-anniversary edition)

7/30/66 PNE Garden Auditorium, Vancouver, BC (Sat.)

Trips Festival.

RECORDING: 

Dancing In The Streets
Cold Rain and Snow*
I’m A King Bee
One Kind Favor*
You Don't Have To Ask
Hey Little One*
Beat It On Down The Line
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
New Minglewood Blues*
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-07-29.sbd.GEMS.94633.flac16

(* - released on the debut album 50^th-anniversary edition. See the notes on the dating of these shows.)

7/31/66 PNE Garden Auditorium, Vancouver, BC (Sun.)

Trips Festival.

RECORDING:

/Viola Lee Blues

Don’t Ease Me In

Tastebud

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16 (tracks 1-3)

(The date of this reel is speculated – the reel was mislabeled “possibly 2/12/66.” If it is from this run, it could also possibly be from a second set on 7/30.)

8/3/66 bandstand, English Bay Beach, Vancouver, BC (Wed.)

Free park show, shut down by the police.

8/5/66 Pender Auditorium, Vancouver, BC (Fri.)

Contrary to Deadbase, the Dead did not also play on the 6^th.

SONG: Midnight Hour.

8/12/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

8/13/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sat.)

(One site lists the Dead playing in Golden Gate Park with Country Joe & the Fish on 8/13, but they didn't. Deadlists asserts there were “numerous unscheduled performances” in Golden Gate Park that summer, but there’s no specific trace of one. The Dead were still living in Lagunitas, and moved to 710 Ashbury in September.)

8/19/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Fri.)

8/20/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Sat.)

8/26/66 IDES Hall, Pescadero (Fri.)

8/27/66 IDES Hall, Pescadero (Sat.)

Per one witness, the Dead did not play on the 28^th. “It was a 3 day gig, but the Dead just played for 2 nights. There were less than 10 of us there the first night, maybe 25 the 2nd night.”

9/66 house party, Loma Mar

SONG: Midnight Hour.
Larry Rogers (who attended the Pescadero shows) writes: “I told them I was having a party soon and asked if they would like to come and to play. I asked them at the Pescadero event. Garcia was all for it… It was my house… There were no neighbors and we were surrounded by redwoods and off the beaten path… There were maybe 20 folks there, lots of LSD… I remember that they played Midnight Hour for about an hour.”

9/2/66 La Dolphine, Hillsborough (Fri.)

Debutante ball. 
REPORTS: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2015/07/september-2-1966-la-dolphine.html 

9/4/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sun.)

(Deadbase lists a 9/5/66 Rancho Olompali performance, which seems unlikely since they no longer lived there. But I’ll note that Monday, Sept. 5 was Labor Day, and an October newspaper article seems to describe a recent Olompali party, so it may be possible.)

9/10/66 Strawberry Canyon, Berkeley (Sat.)
"Picnic -- Community for New Politics presents The Grateful Dead. Swimming, dance & food."

9/11/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sun.)

Both/And jazz club benefit.

SONGS: Beat It On Down the Line, Midnight Hour 
REVIEW: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/september-11-1966-jazzrock-show.html  
(Ralph Gleason: "After a couple of warm-up numbers, including a fine Muddy Waters blues sung by Pig Pen, the band went into "Midnight Hour" and Pig Pen made it into a one-man blues project. He sang for almost 20 minutes..." Mojo Navigator: "The Grateful Dead, who were not billed, closed the show with a set played on other people’s equipment. The first few songs were a bit loose, but the Dead rounded into form with a good version of “Happy Home,” then did one of the best “Midnight Hour”s I’ve ever heard by them. Pigpen was in excellent voice, as was Bob Weir.")

9/16/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Fri.)

9/17/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Sat.)

9/23/66 Pioneer Ballroom, Suisun City (Fri.)

9/24/66 Pioneer Ballroom, Suisun City (Sat.)

9/30/66 International Room, SF State College, San Francisco (Fri.)

10/1/66 Women’s Gym, SF State College, San Francisco (Sat.)

10/2/66 Commons lawn, SF State College, San Francisco (Sun.)

“Whatever It Is.”

Garcia also apparently played the organ in the Pranksters’ broadcast on 10/2: 

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-10-02.sbd.bershaw.5413.shnf

10/6/66 Panhandle, San Francisco (Thu.)

Love Pageant Rally – free park show. 
REPORT: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2017/03/october-6-1966-panhandle-san-francisco.html 

SONG: Alice D. Millionaire? (According to Deadbase, but how did they know? No source is known. It may just be speculation since this was an “LSD rally” - the SF Chronicle's "LSD Millionaire" article on Owsley had appeared only the previous day.)

10/7/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

The tape that used to circulate with this date was a fake from other dates.

10/8/66 Mt. Tamalpais Ampitheater, Mill Valley (Sat.)

Afternoon Phil Drath benefit.

10/8/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sat.)

10/9/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sun.)

10/14/66 TMU Deck, Stanford U, Palo Alto (Fri.)

10/15/66 Heliport, Sausalito (Sat.)

10/16/66 Panhandle, San Francisco (Sun.)

Artists’ Liberation Front – free park show.

10/21/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

10/22/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sat.)

10/23/66 Las Lomas High School, Walnut Creek (Sun.)

SONG: Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

10/26/66 North Face Ski Shop, San Francisco (Wed.) 
REPORTS: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2015/03/october-26-1966-north-face-ski-shop-san.html 
https://www.mensjournal.com/gear/north-faces-epic-1966-opening-party-featuring-the-grateful-dead-w446385

10/28/66 Freeborn Hall, UC Davis, Davis (Fri.)
https://jgmf.blogspot.com/2019/08/gd-at-freeborn-hall-friday-october-28.html

10/31/66 California Hall, San Francisco (Mon.)

SONGS: Viola Lee Blues, Alice D. Millionaire
REVIEW: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/03/october-31-1966-california-hall-sf.html 

10/66 Columbus Recorders, San Francisco

Recording session with Jon Hendricks.

SONGS: Fire in the City*, Sons and Daughters

(* - released on “Birth of the Dead.”)

11/66 KFRC Radio, San Francisco

Band interview.

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-11-00.FM.interview.ordon.sorochty.125586.flac16

11/4/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Fri.)

11/5/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Sat.)

11/12/66 Old Cheese Factory, San Francisco (Sat.)

It’s rumored that the Dead also played unbilled at a Hell’s Angels dance at Sokol Hall this date, but no evidence has surfaced.

11/13/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Sun.)

Zen Mountain Center benefit.

11/18/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

11/19/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sat.)

RECORDING:

I

Cold Rain And Snow
Hi-Heel Sneakers
Pain In My Heart
Beat It On Down The Line
Cream Puff War
The Same Thing
He Was A Friend Of Mine
Dancing In The Street/

II
Smokestack Lightning
I’m A King Bee
Midnight Hour
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1966-11-19.sbd.miller.94106.sbeok.flac16

(Old copies were misdated 3/17/67.)

11/20/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sun.)

11/20/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sun.)

SNCC benefit.

The poster for the regular Bill Graham Fillmore run lists a 2-7 pm show on Sunday, while the benefit poster lists a 3-midnight show, so the listed times clash. If the Dead played two shows at the Fillmore that day, the times must have been rearranged, but it’s possible the usual Sunday afternoon show was simply replaced by the benefit.

11/23/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Thu.)

Thanksgiving party.

11/28/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Mon.)

11/29/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Tue.)

RECORDING:

(Set I missing.)

II

Me And My Uncle
The Same Thing*
Stealin'*
Big Boy Pete
One Kind Favor
Early Morning Rain
Cold Rain And Snow
Viola Lee Blues

III
Down So Long
Something On Your Mind
Overseas Stomp (Lindy)
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
I Just Want To Make Love To You
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-11-29.sbd.ret.20448.sbeok.shnf 

(* - released on “Historic Dead.”)

11/30/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Wed.)

12/1/66 The Matrix, San Francisco (Thu.)

RECORDING:

I

Minglewood Blues
Betty And Dupree
Next Time You See Me
I Know You Rider
Big Boss Man
One Kind Favor
Alice D. Millionaire
Me And My Uncle (1)
Cream Puff War

II
You Don't Love Me
Beat It On Down The Line
It Hurts Me Too
On The Road Again
Yonder's Wall*
My Own Fault*
Down So Long
Cold Rain And Snow
Viola Lee Blues

III
/Deep Elem Blues
Something On Your Mind
Big Boy Pete
Death Don't Have No Mercy
Overseas Stomp (Lindy)
Dancing In The Street
Me And My Uncle (2)  

(* - with guest singer/harmonica)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd66-12-01.sbd.sirmick.26968.sbeok.shnf

12/2/66 Pauley Ballroom, U of California, Berkeley (Fri.)

12/9/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

12/10/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sat.)

12/11/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sun.)

12/14/66 Gym, College of Marin, Kentfield (Wed.)

Date uncertain – show is unverified, reported by a witness.

12/17/66 Ladera School, Ladera (Sat.) 
REPORTS: http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2017/02/december-17-1966-ladera-school-ladera-ca.html 
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2017/02/december-17-1966-christmas-dance-ladera.html

12/20/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Tue.)

12/21/66 Continental Ballroom, Santa Clara (Wed.)

12/23/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Fri.)

12/24/66 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco (Sat.)

RECORDING:

I Know You Rider

It Hurts Me Too

It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

Dancing in the Street

Midnight Hour

Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

Overseas Stomp (Lindy)

https://archive.org/details/gd1966-09-16.sbd.davenport.95970.flac16

(Formerly thought to be from 9/16/66. Released on “Vintage Dead” and “Historic Dead” with no date, these songs could come from either show, in any order. An announcer introduces Midnight Hour, “Once again, the Grateful Dead,” which may be an encore.)

12/28/66 Governor’s Hall, Sacramento (Wed.)

SONG: Death Don’t Have No Mercy

12/29/66 Armory, Santa Venetia (Thu.)

12/30/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Fri.)

12/31/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco (Sat.)

SONG: Midnight Hour?

1/1/67 Panhandle, San Francisco (Sun.)

After the 9pm-9am New Year’s show at the Fillmore, the Dead then proceeded to play a free “New Year’s Day Wail” show in the park the next day. Not surprisingly, it was the last show they ever played on January 1^st.

Fall 1966 American Legion Hall, South Lake Tahoe

According to an unverified Lost Live Dead witness, the Dead played a sparsely-attended show here at some point this fall.

Unknown 1966 Freeborn Hall, U of California, Davis

According to a 1967 newspaper report, the Dead played to “a capacity crowd” sometime this year. 
This turned out to be 10/28/66.

Late 1966 Commercial Recorders?, San Francisco

STUDIO RECORDING:

Silver Threads and Golden Needles

(Released on “Rare Cuts & Oddities.” According to Rock Scully’s book, demos of Early Morning Rain and You Don’t Have To Ask were also recorded, among others (though he may have confused these with earlier studio sessions). The band may also have taped demos at Coast Recorders. See http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2011/10/dead-in-studio-1966.html )

NOTE ON SONG TITLES

Deadbase 50 notes that some familiar song titles went by different names at the time:

You Don’t Have To Ask was called Otis On A Shakedown Cruise. (Scully calls it that in a March ’66 newspaper article; the Dead also call for “Otis” before playing it on 5/19 and on 7/30.)

Cardboard Cowboy was called No Left Turn Unstoned - Weir introduces it that way on 7/29, and Lesh gave the title in a later interview. The Dead also nicknamed it “The Monster" (because "it was just so big and ugly and hard to play," Lesh said).

He Was A Friend Of Mine was actually Mark Spoelstra’s song Just A Hand To Hold.

I’ve bowed to convention and kept the common titles, as they’re labeled on official releases. 

The main sources for this list:

http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2016/02/grateful-dead-performance-list-december.html

http://hooterollin.blogspot.com/2015/12/grateful-dead-performance-list-july.html

http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/06/grateful-dead-tour-itinerary-december.html

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/01/deads-1966-songs.html

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-1966-mystery-reels-guest-post.html

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2015/09/deadbase-corrections.html

http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2013/07/studio-outtakes-1965-1974.html

Cut Us Off Again!

This post is simply a list of the Grateful Dead shows that were cut short by their power being shut off. As you might expect, all these shows are from the early days, none after 1970 - back in those days, the Dead were more like "psychedelic guerrillas" crashing through music venues that were ill-prepared for them, and performance conditions could be more chaotic and haphazard. Some of these shows are well-known, but it happened more often than we know about.

We'll start with an interview Jerry Garcia did with Dennis McNally, complaining about this issue, which happened to the band repeatedly.

Garcia: There was a while there when every tour, our second set - the last half of our show, somebody would fuckin' turn off the power, would shut us down. And we started to get pathological about it. It happened all the fuckin' time. And we started to get crazy behind it. You have no idea what it's like - building up and all of a sudden the power is gone... Someplace in Ohio or some dumbshit college somewhere, and it just makes you crazy. It just made us furious. I mean, goddamn.
It seemed like that never stopped happening for one year, maybe '69 or '70 or somewhere in there, right when college campuses were in their greatest upheaval. So everybody associated us, for some reason - I don't know why, God knows we were never very political - but they associated us with danger. As soon as they started seeing people freak out, they thought, 'Okay, that's it. We're not going to let this go any further.' Boom.
Jesus Christ, I mean, that's the evolution, really, of our whole sound system and our power things - with those big fuckin' things that clamp onto the main trunk route - that stuff all evolved from that. We want something that nobody can fucking turn off, ever. It was like they drove us to it, I must say. We were perfectly happy with our regular amplifiers, but they wouldn't let us go on.
It was weird. It was so funny. I mean, everybody did it. Bill Graham even did it to us up in Montreal... [Expo '67 in Montreal, 8/6/67] The audience started freaking out and the cops started getting uncomfortable and Bill Graham told us to stop playing so exciting. 'Okay Bill, okay, we'll play some lame shit.' You know what I mean? What kind of thing is that to say to us? I mean, that's what we're there for. That's what the crowd is there for. That's what everybody is there for, and we knew nobody was going to get hurt. They were all like girls and stuff like that. We knew nobody's going to get fuckin' hurt. It was, like, crazy, but it scared them. It used to be that anything that looked like it was out of control scared them, scared the cops.
Mountain Girl: People have to stop dancing right now and sit down!
Garcia: Oh yeah, stop dancing. I mean, sometimes where they were so hard-assed to the kids. Someplace like Memphis - [6/19/70]
Mountain Girl: Or Ohio, University of Ohio.
Garcia: This was a municipal facility because the cops there were regular city cops. I mean, if somebody got out of their chair - if they got out of their fuckin' chair, the cops would come, like three or four big cops, and would come and bang them.
And I mean, this is during that time when cops were constantly getting onstage, constantly getting in our faces, and we were constantly having to shut [down]. It was happening all the time. There would be this 6-foot-6 cop ready to deck Mickey, or whoever the loudmouth in the band was. And I'd have to jump in there with my guitar and say, 'Hey, wait a minute.' And the guy would swing at me and I'd have to - fuck, I mean, push them off the stage. It was frequently hairy during those [shows]... For about a year, it characterized our shows.
Mountain Girl: I think that gig with the cops was like Toledo, Ohio, or something like that...
Garcia: There was more than one.
Mountain Girl: I remember it was really scary.
Garcia: I remember one was outside of Kansas City - I guess it was Kansas City - and it was some little soldiers-and-sailors kind of hall, one of those kinds of places. We came out after the show and half a dozen cops were beating the shit out of some skinny little hippie. One of them could have killed him. I remember getting so furious... It was so cruel and uncalled for. And it was like, I can't understand this. That was during that period of time when it seemed like our audience was catching shit all the time and our shows were being cut off all the time.
(from Jerry on Jerry, p. 166-170)

Phil Lesh also recalled the Memphis show in an interview: "In Memphis it was really an uptight performing situation. If anyone stood up in their seat they got busted, and I mean busted. Even if you thought about moving, you got wiped on the head, dragged out and taken to jail." (The Dead swore they'd never play Memphis again, and didn't return there until 1995.)

Lesh also remembered the Montreal Expo '67 show, writing in his book:
"I notice that the entire area is full of people - and more are jamming in... The cops appear and join arms to keep the surging people off the stage (which is at ground level). All the while Bill Graham is standing behind the amps, screaming, 'Don't play so good!' and 'Calm it down!' We play on, exhilarated by the knowledge that the music is literally pulling people in off the street but oblivious to the fact that those same people are slowly being squeezed into paste. Finally, Bill runs onto the stage between Pig and Jerry, waving his arms and screaming, 'Stop! Stop playing!' We grudgingly acquiesce... I look up and see...[a] line of blue-shirted police standing nose to nose with...the band, and behind them, the distended faces of the public crushed up against one another."
(Searching for the Sound, p.110)

According to one paper, the 6/1/67 Tompkins Square Park show also ended prematurely: "The music could be heard for blocks in every direction... The Tompkins Square bandshell rocked...until a noise complaint was lodged in the late afternoon. Rather than tune down, the Dead turned off."
It's likely other free park shows came to a sudden end as well - such as their very first free park show, in Vancouver on 8/5/66. One witness recalled, "They were driving around Vancouver and saw the bandstand at English Bay. Without getting any permission, they decided they'd play there; they set up and were promptly shut down by the police." (A local promoter also said, "The bandstand show took place until the power was cut off.")

The Dead certainly faced some shows that were shut down by the police to control the crowd or just end the noise. But what Garcia doesn't mention is that more often, shows were ended by simple curfew issues, the venue not wanting the band to play overtime, or by noise complaints. These were problems the Dead didn't have to face much later in the '70s, but frequently dealt with in the '60s. 

We mostly only know about those shows that were taped, so this will be an incomplete list, but these are the shows I could find where the plug was pulled on the Dead:

1/8/66 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco
https://archive.org/details/gd1966-01-08.sbd.lestatkatt.106505.flac16 (multiple edits/sources)
I don't think the band was stopped mid-song (the available recording is incomplete), but the police came in and tried to shut down the power. "The cops started shouting for them to close down but couldn't make themselves heard and started pulling plugs out... Finally they ordered the Pranksters to start clearing the place out." (Wolfe p.225)
"Around 2 AM the police came by to close the show... An officer came out onstage and motioned for the band to stop, and was duly ignored. The cops grew perplexed... They tried to use the house PA to announce closing... They began to pull power cords out of the wall, and MG followed them and plugged things back in. At length, the band stopped playing and the police dutifully began shooing everyone out, although it was a slow process." (McNally p.122)
(For a transcript of the end of the show, see Appendix B below.)

1/28/66 Matrix, San Francisco
https://archive.org/details/gd1966-XX-XX.sbd.GEMS.81254.flac16
The plug is pulled at the start of Midnight Hour. Someone had been trying to shoo the Dead off stage - before I Know You Rider Lesh says, "Let 'em throw us out then," and Midnight Hour is introduced as "the last song."
Garcia: “Cut us off again. That’s what happens, there’s no place you can play.”
Weir: “The story of our lives, you play somewhere and somebody turns you off.”
Lesh: “Good night, ladies and gentlemen, and you too, you pricks.”

2/22/68 Kings Beach Bowl, North Lake Tahoe
One witness recalls, "The show was finally stopped when the powers that be turned off the electricity to the stage...otherwise it would have gone on for hours upon hours into the early morning. Bobby came forward and apologized for not being allowed to play longer since they wanted to." 

8/24/68 Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles (Two From The Vault)
The plug is pulled in the climax of Morning Dew.
Garcia: "Got turned off once again! Goodnight, everybody."
Announcer: "The law says that's all, so I guess that's it."

11/25/68 Memorial Auditorium, Ohio University, Athens (no recording)
Witnesses recalled: "The whole thing wailed until midnight, with some members of the audience dancing on stage." "Most of the crowd was standing instead of sitting, many on the stage, dancing on the floor. The electricity was deliberately cut off around midnight. I remember Jerry calming the crowd, preventing a riot."
"Around midnight, the band was ripping through a rendition of “Good Lovin’” that had the crowd dancing in the aisles. But right in the middle of the song a university official climbed on stage, opened the metal cover on a large circuit board, and flipped a couple of switches. With the exception of the drums, the music stopped dead. The official shouted to Garcia that the show was over. There was a whole lot of heckling, but not any real protest from the band. They unplugged their instruments, and eventually the roadies started packing up."
The band sang We Bid You Good Night to end the show.

1/24/69 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco
https://archive.org/details/gd1969-01-24.sbd.fix.miller.110304.flac16
The power is cut off during the second set, in the middle of Lovelight. It sounds like Weir shouts, "There you have it! [to Pigpen:] All yours." Pigpen encourages the audience for a bit, and they don't want the show to stop - he tries to keep Lovelight going unaccompanied as the audience shouts and stomps with him, and the drummers keep going for a long drum break while the crowd claps. "More! More!" Some stoned nut climbs onstage to shout along with the drums, but to no avail, the show ends.
Considering the set had been only a little more than a half-hour long, the show must have been running overtime - and the Avalon was pretty strict about keeping sets short; the Dead's sets were usually under an hour.

4/6/69 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco
https://archive.org/details/gd69-04-06.sbd.fm.cotsman.9492.sbeok.shnf
The plug is pulled at the end of the jam in Viola Lee Blues.
Weir: "It seems somebody is trying to tell us something."
The band ends the song by singing the last verse to a drumbeat.
The night before, 4/5, after It's A Sin Garcia had asked the audience, "What do you wanna hear that lasts for ten minutes? We got ten minutes left!" They then played a 20-minute Alligator>feedback. This may partly explain being cut off the next day. All the Dead's second sets during the April '69 run at the Avalon went for over an hour, much longer than usual for that venue. (For a couple other examples of similar 1969 behavior, see Appendix A below.)

4/17/69 Quadrangle, Washington University, St Louis (Download Series vol. 12)
A minute into Caution, the band stops playing as the cops intervene.
Garcia & Lesh: "They're taking our road manager to jail if we play any more, so we  ain't gonna let our road manager go to jail. We like him a lot, he's a real good guy, and you people are really good too."
(This was an outdoors show in the rain. The cops seem to have been hanging around for a while - after Lovelight, the audience was getting frantic for the show to go on and shouting for more, and Garcia explained, "Okay, okay - gotta change a string - just broke a string... Save the hassles for the heat - really, who needs it, man? The rain won't hurt you, you won't melt, you're not made of sugar - for god's sake, people!")
A newspaper article reported: "Police in St. Louis County got several calls [from residents] about midnight complaining that the amplified beat...was audible a mile away. About 300 young persons, many in hippie attire, were found grouped around a band shell on the quadrangle, listening to music played to the flashing of psychedelic lights. Police suggested the Grateful Dead stop living it up, and the concert ended."

12/13/69 Swing Auditorium, San Bernardino 
https://archive.org/details/gd69-12-13.sbd.clugston.5583.sbeok.shnf
The stage power is cut near the end of Lovelight, as they're winding up the song. It's not very dramatic - there's some stage yelling, but otherwise you might think the Dead just stopped playing. The vocal mics were turned off, so someone shouts unmiked to the audience, "They pulled the plug on us! Show your appreciation."
(There's a faint onstage conversation 23 minutes into the track, which I can't entirely make out, starting, "What the fuck happened?" "Those dirty bastards...")

2/20/70 Panther Hall, Fort Worth -- or possibly 2/21/70 Convention Center, San Antonio (no recording)
"One night Quicksilver opened, playing very well. This challenged the Dead, who responded with a fine set that was abbreviated when the police pulled the plug, a not-uncommon event in those days. Furious, Ron Polte shouted at the promoter, 'Those guys earned that fucking encore,' and found himself being tackled by a police officer. The ever-volatile Mickey Hart grabbed a mallet...[but] Garcia managed to interpose himself between [Mickey and] the officer..." (McNally p.284)

2/22/70 in the Houston Coliseum also had police troubles according to a newspaper review: "When Quicksilver finished and the lights were up, the police imposed their order on the thousands of people... With a little pushing and shoving, everyone was put back "in their proper place". When it looked like all was calm and quiet, out came the Dead... [But] with twenty policemen in every aisle and any semblance of freedom completely lacking...they tried to get it on but just couldn't find the spark... The Dead just went through the motions."
Houston witnesses added: "No one could get close to the stage in those days with the Houston cops!" "The Sunday afternoon show ran kinda long and the people running the hall needed to clear everyone out to make room for wrestling that night. The police made their presence known and the Dead's set was shortened. I remember Bob Weir talking about the situation with a riot-helmeted Houston PD officer." (This was pretty much also what happened at the 10/5/69 Dead/Airplane show in the Houston Coliseum, which the police also cut short, pulling the plug in the Airplane's set for inciting the audience to dance.)
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2017/10/february-22-1970-coliseum-houston.html

(For other accounts of the Dead confronted by Southern police, see:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2017/10/june-19-1970-mid-south-coliseum-memphis.html
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/11/november-11-1971-municipal-auditorium.html )

4/25/70 Mammoth Gardens, Denver (not on tape)
An audience member recalled: "The power was cut off around 2 AM as Mammoth Gardens was in what was essentially a residential neighborhood which frowned upon loud music being played in the wee hours. Power cut twice then the band called it quits... The band would have likely played all night so that was why the power was cut twice to try to get them to stop. The first time they just fired right back up. It was funny and amazing." 
(This is not mentioned in a newspaper review of the show.)

This was the last example I found. There are probably other shows I've forgotten about, so please comment on any other shows that were shut down prematurely! 

I don't think there are any instances of this happening after 1970 - during 1970-71, perhaps the Dead became better at sticking to curfews and playing shorter shows as needed. (For instance, on 3/24/70 Garcia ends the show saying, "Our time's up, see you later!" Or at the end of 4/7/71, Garcia announces, "Because of the curfew stuff, we have to knock off. I'm sorry.")
One good example is 4/22/71, in the Bangor Auditorium, where they had to stop at midnight when the house lights were turned on.
After Good Lovin', Garcia says: "That seems to be as much time as they'll let us have in this place. They're just about to pull the plug on us!"
Lesh: "Let's do one more! If they cut us off in the middle of a song, you'll know who's doing it."
They wrap up the show with a quick Johnny B. Goode.
https://archive.org/details/gd71-04-22.sbd.clugston.2176.sbeok.shnf
(One thing noticeable in all these shows is that it's almost always Garcia who explains or apologizes to the audience.)

Sometimes the power would also go out inadvertently during a show. One early example was the Dead's own record release party at Fugazi Hall in San Francisco, 3/20/67 - Ralph Gleason reported, "Monday night's party for the Grateful Dead was aborted when the power failed and the Dead's set was chopped short."

One eyewitness reported a power failure at the 12/9/67 Atwood Hall show in Worcester:
"Maybe 40 minutes into the set...I realized that all of the little red lights on the guitar amps had gone out. The Dead had blown out the power, but I was so entranced, I didn't even notice. The stage lights were still on, they were on a different circuit. The band members all picked up percussion instruments and just kept playing. (Maybe this was not the first time this had happened). They kept jamming until [a stage tech] threw the breakers and the power came back. The Dead played a while longer until the circuits heated up and they blew the power again. It was no use, they excused themselves, and promised to come back, which they did in April of 1969."
(When the Dead returned on 4/20/69, Garcia announced, "Last time we were here it was a colossal disaster - this time it'll be worse.")

On 12/21/68 at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the Dead faced repeated power problems. During the opening Lovelight, the guitars drop out around 12:20 while Pigpen is rapping - they shout, "Power! Power!" and soon the guitars come back.
Then, the Cryptical reprise is interrupted by power failures - around 11:00 in the Other One suite, the guitars drop out for a few seconds but then come back, only to drop out again after 11:30. The drummers carry on; after a minute and an ominous equipment hum, Garcia trickles back in and noodles a bit with the organ, but the other instruments remain dead.
Weir tells the audience, "C'mon now, we need a little bit of power. Y'all get up and start dancing and clapping your hands, we can generate a little power - c'mon now!" This seems to work, for the guitars promptly come back on, and they finish the tune.
https://archive.org/details/gd1968-12-21.sbd.miller.89718.sbeok.flac16 

5/10/69, at the Rose Palace in Pasadena, is another good example of power failure, with the power cutting out twice: in the opening Hard to Handle the instruments drop out in the solo, and Pigpen sings the last verse to the drums.
Pigpen: "I think our electricity went out or something."
Garcia: "See, here in the rock & roll universe, there's such a thing as power failure."
Weir: "Anybody got a deck of cards?" 
Then the instruments drop out again during the climactic Morning Dew jam.
Weir: "Well, what the fuck?"
Garcia: "That's what happens when you play too loud... That's what happens when you have a good time."
Weir: "Did you say 'good time'? You're under arrest."
Garcia: "Somebody out there's got an electric razor plugged in, or something."
Weir then regales everybody with the Yellow Dog Story til the power is restored.
https://archive.org/details/gd1969-05-10.132812.sbd.bear.wise.sirmick.sbeok.flac16

Sometimes the Dead had their own equipment problems they couldn't overcome - for instance, 1/31/70 at the Warehouse in New Orleans. The bass amp starts buzzing and they stop the electric set, calling Bear for help.
Weir: "We got a busted amplifier here."
Garcia: "We got a severe technical problem."
Weir: "So you guys can hang out and chatter amongst yourselves, and feel free to wander around and make friends...while we try to work it out."
They play an impromptu acoustic set (despite having only one acoustic guitar on-hand), while the amp keeps sputtering and Garcia explains, "We're still working on Phil's bass frantically in the background." But they never do get it fixed, and close the show acoustically.
https://archive.org/details/gd70-01-31.sbd.cotsman.7045.sbefail.shnf

Power cuts could happen sometimes in later years too - on 7/10/90, the Dead played in a lightning storm, and in a nearby strike the stage power went out shortly after Promised Land started; after waiting a few minutes for the power to be restored, the Dead picked up the song where they'd left off: 
https://archive.org/details/gd1990-07-10.sbd.miller.106373.flac16  

* * *

APPENDIX A:
1969 Overtime

Along with 4/5/69, there are a couple other known examples where the Dead intentionally played overtime.
On 2/6/69 in St. Louis, they opened for Iron Butterfly (the Dead had also opened for them the previous day in Kansas City, and had not been impressed). After Lovelight, Lesh says, "The Iron Butterfly will be on in a minute," but Garcia has other ideas: "Okay, we have some more time, we're gonna play a little more." Then they proceed with a 22-minute Cryptical>Other One>feedback suite.
As the Dead leave the stage, the crowd is going wild and calling for more, and the announcer says, "Did you like them? Listen, we're going to have a very brief intermission, because I know you're all waiting to see the Iron Butterfly. [calls of "No! No!"] They're going to call out the heat and close up this place in about an hour and a half. So we're gonna have to get on with the show."
(According to the unverified account of one person who said he was backstage: "The set was supposed to end with Lovelight. But...after listening to the Dead burn the house down, Iron Butterfly didn't want to come out. So, the Dead came back on to play a "few more minutes" and proceeded to add insult to IB's injury with the Cryptical sandwich, Feedback, and AWBYG." If there was only 90 minutes left before closing time, the Dead would have played longer than the headlining band!)
https://archive.org/details/gd1969-02-06.137394.sbd.wise.sirmick.sbeok.flac16

The other more famous example was on 4/26/69 in Chicago, where the Dead played a set of almost three hours (including a 40-minute encore) to keep the Velvet Underground from playing a second set. This was in revenge for the previous day, when the Velvets had done the same to them.
The Dead probably played over-long sets other times too that we don't know about (or can't tell from tapes), though it must be said that usually they were good at playing short hour-long sets when opening for other bands, or when facing a time limit (as in a rock festival).

APPENDIX B:
1/8/66 Dialogue

The tape of this night is heavily edited, making it extra-chaotic - the pranksters were recording over several microphones, then cut the tracks up in different combinations on various video releases.
Police: "Everybody out, the dance is over, you're to clear the hall."
Babbs: "This is incredible! The chief security has suddenly taken over and informed - he has made his extraordinary announcement - and has pulled the plug on the band - completely nullifying the engines!" "We've lost all power! ...I see that the electrician is running down now trying to get things reestablished... We're into emergency power now, having to rely on the energy which the passengers are able to create by donating everything they have..." [Babbs' lines may have been dubbed in later.]
The pranksters take over and start trying to clear the hall: "Everybody enjoy theirselves? Let me hear you say yeah!"
"We're planning on having other gigs in other cities, and if we have a hassle here, there's not gonna be another hall that'll have us, so we'd appreciate it if....everybody use their heads."
Kesey: "Everybody be calm now - don't press forward and kill any little 13-year-old girls. Everybody keep very calm, there's nothing to worry about at all."
Weir: "Don't pay any attention to Kesey! ...insurrection...total confusion...demented chaos..." He calls out to Jerry: "On the Road Again to get the people on the road."
Garcia: "We can stay here until hell freezes over, but we have to turn everything off."
People keep yelling and making noises, and someone moans, "Go home to your families, you don't want to stay here...leave, the cops..."
The pranksters don't seem to be herding people very well in the confusion, as some girl keeps wailing into a mic. "Okay, let's everybody go home man, everything's over, we don't have no choice." "We don't want any trouble here." "Everybody out now - this has been a nice party - let's not spoil it now." "That won't work, [those] tactics won't work around here." "Everybody go home now please!"
Pranksters observe the scene: "Total chaos everywhere...rack and ruin... Let's let them run it out. Let the energy just eventually wear out, let 'em just stay here." "The cops seem to be turning everything off, and they have asked everybody to be turned off, that's impossible, you know as well as I do nobody's gonna be turned off - we're not machines after all, we're human beings! Can't turn us off, hell no! Cops, ridiculous!"
Weir has a moment of contemplation: "Sad, isn't it? You know, when you come to one of these things, you want to have a lot of clean fun, you know, good clean fun...enjoy yourself and not hurt anybody, you know? And well, that's what people come here to do, and then they get kicked out, you know? It's really a pity. It's a cryin' shame."
Weir then tells the police: "Arrest everybody, but don't hurt any of the equipment, you know, it's our livelihood."
People are yelling & making noises into the mics, and Weir & others decide to yell Star-Spangled Banner at the crowd. "We're just signing off." "Good night ladies & gentlemen, we enjoyed having you here!"
The recording ends with continued noise-making and babbling. "Nobody can seem to find out how we're supposed to turn off this PA... We're supposed to turn off the PA fellas, does anybody know how to turn it off?" "I don't know, we seem to be loosening the crowd here with the microphones, and there just seems to be nobody doing anything that we're supposed to be doing, it just seems to be orderly chaos - everything goes on in here then is just let out into the street, it's gonna be terrible... Yes, in the end nothing but mindless chaos..."

Buzz-Saw Music: Fillmore East, June 14, 1968 (Guest Post)

Essay by Ben Dyment.

The Background

If one-line summaries were being passed around on this band, ‘for years I ignored them’ would be mine. I cast the Dead aside as one of ‘those’ bands I’d heard enough half-truths and opinions about, usually through the eyes of other musicians and would-be critics. As I made my way through other SF bands of the same era, I still saw them as something else, the ones with such a towering reputation that it blotted out whatever origins they may have had. The few times I’d try playing a Dead song, it just seemed so removed from those other bands - there was none of the same energy and bright-eyed rush I expected to find.

It wasn’t until a trusted source recommended Live/Dead that I finally lost my inhibitions and started to get into them. It sounded weird, stretched out but thematic, interesting. Enough so that I kept going, digging into other ‘69 shows, ‘70, going backwards, discovering the Acid Tests, Aoxomoxoa, and finally Anthem Of The Sun, a record of extreme innovation and fractured beauty that stood up with other so called ‘difficult’ albums I had previously assimilated, such as Twin Infinitives by Royal Trux, Harsh ‘70s Reality by The Dead C or Faust’s The Faust Tapes. These were works meant to be ascertained, analyzed, deconstructed. To me it had as much in common with those as it did with albums of the era like Crown of Creation, Wow, White Light/White Heat, Electric Ladyland, etc. I still have little interest in anything past the Workingman's Dead era, mostly because they seemed to lose a lot of the propulsion and energy that initially sustained them - I know it’s heresy among some, but given the choice between a ‘St. Stephen’ from ‘77 vs. one from ‘68 roaring out of the amps, I know what choice I’ll make.

Forced to pick one year of Dead shows to stick to, I’d go with ‘69, but there’s something special about ‘68 that slipped away like ether relatively quickly. With the introduction of the Anthem songs to the set, the music grew larger, longer, looser and just plain weirder. There was increased concentration on long segues, turning songs into suites and running entire shows into one longform piece. The whole notion of taking everything further and farther out became their raison d’etre.

Of the many surviving tapes from this era, this is easily one of the greatest. Friday, June 14^th, 1968 marked the Dead’s first appearance at the Fillmore East in New York City, playing opposite The Jeff Beck Group (and The Seventh Sons). [1] To anyone else, following the powerhouse Beck Group would have been cause for concern, but the Dead were never the average band.

One of the first things that appealed to me about this show was the sound of the surviving tape. It’s accepted that the general populace, even those inclined towards live shows, don’t really have a stomach for anything too ‘lo-fi’, and while I can understand that feeling, I definitely don’t share it. To me, a tape like this is the epitome of what I search for; I want to hear the sound of the room, especially when we’re talking classic ballroom venues, built for sound and volume. Sometimes the vocals get drowned out, the bass turns to mud and midrange is king, but to hear the backline blowing off the stage, bouncing off the ceiling and onto the walls is crucial, and lets you really get a sense of how everything really sounded. There’s a partial soundboard of Caution going into the final Feedback, [2] but I’m not going to bother with it here because frankly it doesn’t carry the same weight for me - it’s too dry and you lose all the atmosphere of the room and no sense of audience perception. The saturated, lo-fi nature of the AUD source only serves to push the sound into a more accurate approximation of how it felt to be pounded and blown back by this juggernaut of psychedelic SF noisemakers. They didn’t just want you to sit sanguine and approach the music from an intellectual standpoint, they wanted you to dance and when they moved into stranger territory they wanted to blow your head off too for good measure.

The Show

For a band whose first album was a regional footnote at best and whose second album was still a month away from release, it wouldn’t have been out of line for a concertgoer to assume they’d hear some familiar material, but the Dead never cared much for that in this era; in fact, save for the cover of ‘Lovelight,’ the entire set was comprised of relatively new, unreleased material. [3]

Faced with having to follow The Jeff Beck Group’s set, they decided to go for sheer power and blow the roof off with an opening ‘Feedback’, one of the first things people still talk about when discussing this initial Fillmore appearance. Over the years it’s been suggested that this is a false song order, just a by-product of tape trading splicing the closing ‘Feedback’ in half to fit a side, but a simple listen to the SBD fragment reveals the fallacy of such a claim. Whatever the case may be though, let the tape speak for itself.

Even the most crazed ‘Viola Lee’ openers of ‘68 don’t quite compare to this introduction. The crashing wave of electric carnage hits like a neutron bomb, instantly putting everybody in the building on high alert and reducing all that went on before the Dead to another time and place – that was then, this is now. It’s cavernous and relentless, saturating the stage and the ears, the band playing the amps playing the band, letting the sound spread out and stick to every surface, slowly winding down to suggest they’re going somewhere further but giving no indication where that might be; you’re stuck in no man’s land, hanging on in the immediacy of the moment, until Phil starts slowly strumming the opening chords to ‘The Eleven.’

‘The Eleven’ is a song so ingrained in most people's heads as part of a certain running order that you can’t quite imagine they’d lead into it this way, but they do, starting in with a little hesitation before blowing into the initial round of calliope psych melody, Weir and Lesh digging into the rhythm tight and slick while Garcia dances around his lines with a torrent of major key runs - you can just picture him doing his tightrope move, bobbing back and forth along the stage. The vocals come in and are admittedly pretty deep in the depths of the mix, sounding more like ghosts of the undead, but it’s no problem, just hearing them play is good enough. Everyone is moving fast, propelling the music headfirst into torrid, brutal and boundless delirium.

The Dead had their (literal) Wall of Sound era, but I tend to associate 1968 with the ‘wash of sound’ style, particularly in Pigpen’s keyboards. When you hear something like ‘The Eleven’ on this tape, the whole band is locked into each other’s nuances well enough that it’s almost difficult to ascertain individual movements unless you’re well acquainted with the material. When Constanten showed up in the following months, the keyboards shifted towards the baroque style of Aoxomoxoa and Live/Dead, which was great in its own right, but sometimes it’s the ‘68 material that’s the most enjoyable, still a little scuzzy, rawer, more appealing.

‘St.Stephen’ is still relatively new, having only debuted a month or so before, [4] and you can hear its fresh nature as the band pounces into it with an audible enjoyment. Garcia jumps the gun in eagerness to start it up, and they run it up at a quick pace. It’s almost a ‘blink and miss it’ kind of situation, especially for an unfamiliar audience, but the light and playful nature of the music is like daylight coming in through the rafters, especially after the previous act’s pentatonic blues jams. As it gets underway it starts to sound like the band is just picking up more and more energy - Garcia’s solos are so fluid and constant they sound like sticking your whole head in an electrical socket and keeping it there. Weir is throwing rhythm chords down not even trying to keep up, just keeping a solid background down. The whole band sounds like the hand of God crushing a mountain to make a river, and plays with a confidence evocative of this period; even when they don’t know where they’re going, they always sound like they’re doing it with belief that they’ll get farther towards a goal. The whole band rises in crescendo to meet the highest parts of Garcia’s solo and then one graceful upswing chord and - it’s done, a clean break, something that ‘Stephen’ wouldn’t get for much longer.

‘Alligator’ starts up with a fade-in - whether or not this means we’re missing something in between is unknown, but who cares, it’s on and ready, Kreutzmann and Hart rolling into the opening beats like they’ve been playing it all their lives before Garcia rolls into his opening riff. The whole song is an aural kaleidoscope, pure painted sound, as the band moves like a train that won’t stop for anybody, content to ride at the speed of sound. There’s this one little part in ‘Alligator’ that always gets me, right when Garcia starts a run and the whole band does this lurch, drop and hit back against his two notes. Well, he’s dead accurate this night and it comes off beautifully, in fact all his leads are like coiled wire on this one, liquid ease. The complacency that dogged them in later years is nowhere to be found here; this is dance music, pure and cosmic. Garcia explained as much in an interview circa March 1967, stating that, “At this point, the experimentation we’re doing now isn’t a matter of drug experimentation; we’re experimenting with music.”

Out of ‘Alligator’ comes a surprise ‘Lovelight’ segue, one that Phil seems to initiate, though that’s just going by aural assumption. Pigpen’s vocals were pretty drowned out in ‘Alligator’ but are loud and present now, commanding from the stage. They get into it like they’re getting paid by the note, which considering who was running the Fillmore, they probably were. It’s loose yet still tight, heavy lightness; Garcia’s not sticking to any strict tempos here, he’s running through his repertoire but going fast and loose with the rules and it sounds fun. After a couple minutes of breakneck soloing, he comes back down and the band swings back into the main melody. Pigpen gets the audience clapping along and they do so generously - you can hear the ambience of the room in this part and hear the enthusiasm of Garcia riffing against Pig’s rap, Kreutzmann and Hart staying soft, Weir angling for a harmony. Pig starts in the “lookin’ everywhere” lines and almost threatens to spiral into a total collapsed rhythmic stutter before they pull back and restrain, edge it out just a little more, play off the tension, and then it’s off to the next number.

By the time the band breaks into ‘Caution’, all bets are off. Garcia signals the change with a ham-fisted power chord assault worthy of Townshend at peak operating power, his Les Paul practically snarling with unbridled fury. Lesh picks up the mood and slides into a ceaseless, undulating pattern of notes, saturating the low-end with a constant stream of sound. Hart and Kreutzmann stick to the top end percussion, letting the guitarists take center stage in the mix, maintaining a rolling coital clashing rhythm. Garcia’s barrage of lead lines are so densely packed that he begins to sound like he’s overdubbing himself in real time, no room to think, just feel. Some of it reminds me a little of my absolute favourite ‘Dark Star’, from a show in Monterey exactly one year later, in that they’re both fantastic examples of everything coming together to propel his playing into further reaches, his fingers running independently of his brain like a somnambulist playing through his sleep, oblivious to the external world. In a recent interview, Mickey Hart summed up this feeling as such:

“The thing is that we always left the room – consciously or unconscious – with improvisation. [...] You can do whatever you want in a song as long as you identify the song with a beginning and ending – sort of, kind of [laughs] – and then say, “Okay, nothing in this is crystallized.” [...] We don’t have to play four-minute songs. We were marginalized and laughed at and misunderstood for many years, but it didn’t matter. It really didn’t. We actually took great pride in that – that we were breaking ground. It all depends what you’re after in music. It’s easier to play the same songs every night. But is it the easy part of music? Perhaps.” [5]

As the freeform excursion starts to migrate back towards familiar areas, Pigpen comes back in with a brief harmonica interlude, initially just playing against the drums before Garcia starts playing off him - he pulls a slide from his hat and runs wide with it before it disappears again - did he even have a slide or was he rubbing up against the mic stand or something? For a couple minutes it’s unlike most performances of the song, totally spaced out and in its own realm. “She told me that all you need, all you need, oh.” They pick up speed again and now Garcia’s guitar is melting, dying on the vine - it almost threatens to turn into a ‘Dark Star’ to my ears. The closing segment just after Pig sings where it sounds like they’re playing in reverse is always one of my favourite moments in ‘68 shows; I’m always left impressed by how they manage to pull that off live - when you hear ‘Anthem’ you figure it’s just a product of tape manipulation, but they really did it with nothing more than imagination and some strategic volume knob rolls.

The closing ‘Feedback’ once again carries a sound like the band is somehow playing back the whole set and dragging it through the tape machine in real time, the amps howling back but groaning along at the wrong speed, pouring out like a Velvets show (ironic considering they were on the Dead’s turf during this time, playing at the Avalon in June ‘68). Hart and Kreutzmann are spewing out fills until the whole band seems to stop and turn to catch their looming shadows -  the percussion chimes start slowly tingling up the spine, feedback still ghosting around the room but mixed up, careful, studious, slow drones eloquently sinking in rhythmic gnashing, and then - the final chimes, a tape slip and applause. [6] It’s the Anthem Of The Sun, circling ‘round forever.

https://archive.org/details/gd68-06-14.aud.cotsman.16532.sbeok.shnf

NOTES

[1]  http://rockprosopography101.blogspot.com/2009/12/june-14-15-1968-fillmore-east-grateful.html

The Seventh Sons opened, followed by the Jeff Beck Group. The Grateful Dead headlined, closing the show. There were early and late shows (8:00 & 11:30), and the tape is from the late show. So far no contemporary review of the shows has been found.

[2] A 30-minute fragment, released on the Fillmore West 1969 bonus disc.

[3] Though ‘Alligator’ and ‘Caution’ weren’t released until the Anthem album, New York concertgoers had very likely heard them in previous Dead shows, so the material wouldn’t have been all-new to Dead fans who’d seen them before. (The Dead had played a run at the Electric Circus and a couple free shows a month earlier, and several shows at the Palm Gardens and the pre-Fillmore Village Theater back in December.)

[4] Two other early ‘St Stephens’ from this month (and a fragment of a third) can be heard on this collection – tracks 1, 31, and 40. These ‘Stephens’ have the same arrangement as the 6/14/68 version, but are not as fiery.

https://archive.org/details/gd68-xx-xx.sbd.vernon.9426.sbeok.shnf

[5] ‘Dead Notes #15: The Mickey Hart Interview’, Aquarium Drunkard, January 2018 -
 https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2018/01/09/dead-notes-15-the-mickey-hart-interview/

[6] The ghostly chimes (glockenspiel?) can be heard better on the audience tape than the SBD. Afterwards, the SBD tape captures an announcer naming the bandmembers as the audience calls for more.

The photos are from the Shrine in Los Angeles, May 1968; photographer unknown.