Garcia said “We were great for seconds on end.” I was lucky to see Jerry play for about 1,000,000 seconds exactly. Thanks for your 1,000,000 views here . Dave Davis wrote this blog for 500 posts and 5 years from 2015 to 2019. Contact me at twitter @gratefulseconds

Saturday, December 29, 2018

Closing of Winterland, Play Until 7AM, Dark Star Returns, "Best New Year's Ever" December 31, 1978


40th birthday of what many think is the best New Year's Eve show ever.
This is considered one of the most important Grateful Dead shows ever, the last show at Winterland, December 31, 1978 when the Dead broke out a dream third set of  Dark Star>The Other One>Dark Star>Wharf Rat>St Stephen>Good Lovin' to cap an outstanding show.  Here are the tunes

There is also a nice midnight first set opening with Sugar Magnolia>Scarlet Begonias>Fire on the Mountain that sandwiches back into Sunshine Daydream.

There is a lot written about this show and many beautiful photos and official DVD release.
The Blues Brothers and the New Riders opened the show and the Dead were on the radio and the TV

Amazing this show is only rankled #2 for 1978 behind the July 8 show at Red Rocks.  While I saw six New Year's shows from 1980-1985, this is the one I wish I could have seen the most and it's usually ranked top 12-31 show in informal polls.

I was at a party in Portland, ME that evening trying to get an update from my gf in Marin, but since the Dead didn't even start until 3AM east coast time, I'd didn't get the Dark Star info until sometime in January.

The bonus disc included with the 2003 4 CD release is here

Blair Jackson's great New Year's eve blog post




































2 comments:

Buzz Wilson said...

Boring, bland crap music. Almost every song sounds like every other song that came before it. This is really horrible stuff. you would have to be under the influence of very heavy mind-altering substances to listen to that crap. Why don't you try it listening something good like Led Zeppelin sometime.

Unknown said...

Led Zeppelin is good...sometime.