Friday, August 28, 2020

February 6, 1979 The Pavilion, Tulsa, OK: Grateful Dead (Last Lost Live Tape)

The board tape for January 22, 1978, in Oregon
The Grateful Dead were the first band to not only allow audience taping, but the first to openly encourage it.  Inadvertent or not, the Dead's strategy to allow the free circulation of live tapes was essential for the group to build their loyal audience, who returned to see the band again and again, indifferent to whether the band current record release, if they even had one. The Dead succeeded financially running directly against late 20th century music business orthodoxy.

Deadheads know, of course, that not every Dead show was taped, or preserved on tape. Many shows in the 60s were missing, and even into the early 70s there were scattered shows with limited or missing tapes. By the early 70s, however, the Dead were popular enough in an underground way that even the "untaped" shows had newspaper reviews, eyewitness accounts and other ephemera, so we had some idea what happened those nights. 

There's an outlier, though. And it's late, much later than anyone realizes. On February 6, 1979 the Grateful Dead played the Tulsa Pavilion in Tulsa, OK. No board tape survives in the vault. No one seems to have made an audience tape, not even of terrible quality. There was no newspaper review. No one has appeared online as an eyewitness. Maybe it was just a Tuesday night in Tulsa--maybe they played "Dark Star" for 40 minutes. We don't know.

How did this happen?

If you go down to the Deep Ellum DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) station, you probably don't have to keep your money in your shoes.
The Grateful Dead in Texas and The Southwest 

The Grateful Dead first established themselves as a money making act on the two coasts, followed by the Upper Midwest. If you define a traveling circus by roadways, the Dead's initial main lines were US101 in the West, Interstate 95 in the East, and I-80 linking the two across the country. This is hardly a metaphor, as an analysis of their first touring schedules will tell you. Throughout the 70s, initially under the guidance of Sam Cutler, the Dead worked on building audiences in different places, along different roads. Financial success for the Dead meant profitable touring, and building audiences in new territory required returning to a region again and again, maybe not in the same cities but near enough for a road trip.

The Cutler road map played huge dividends over time, even if the paydays didn't come until after Cutler was long gone. Over the decades, the Dead extended their touring schedule to include upstate New York and the "New South" of North Carolina and Virginia. When the band finally hit it big in 1987, with "Touch Of Grey," the willing audiences in those places allowed the Dead to tour from city to city without excessive travel. This favored both the road crew and the road-tripping Deadheads. Put another way, the band took their three main highways, and added two more: I-90 (in New York State) and I-85 (in Virginia and North Carolina). 

But the Cutler plan wasn't foolproof. Throughout the 70s and early 80s, the Dead played relentlessly in Texas and some surrounding states. They played some great music, per the tapes, but the Dead never really took hold in Texas. It seems strange, given the generally strong economy and Texans love of love music. I wrote about this at some length, but I can't say why Texas wasn't prime Deadhead territory. By the time '87 rolled around, the Dead had pretty much given up on the state, and after 1988, they never played there again. The Grateful Dead's failure to add I-10 as a major thoroughfare was the the backdrop for that Tuesday night in Tulsa.

The Pavilion in Tulsa, OK, built in 1932 with a capacity of 6,311. Located on the State Fairgounds at 1701 S. Louisville Avenue, the Grateful Dead played here on February 6, 1979
February 6, 1979 Tulsa Pavilion, Tulsa, OK 

After December 1978, it's hard not to draw the conclusion that the Grateful Dead somewhat gave up on Texas and the Southwest. They only played the region intermittently throughout the 80s. As the 80s rolled on, when the Dead played their strongholds in Florida and Atlanta, they took the North/South route through Virginia and North Carolina rather than East/West through New Orleans and Texas. This was not necessarily a planned decision, but it was a rational one. As the Dead's ticket sales became more focused on fans who saw the band over and over again, the booking policy led to a touring schedule that featured relatively short drives on a nightly basis. The vast distances of the Southwest were far less attractive for any fans who were thinking of catching three or four shows in six nights.

Another factor in the Dead's declining presence in the Southwest was the absence of any longstanding relationships with local promoters. Sam Cutler was an old comrade, and he had run Manor Downs in Austin, but for mysterious reasons he dropped out of managing the facility in the late 1970s. The Dead would indeed return to Manor Downs but Cutler's departure meant that the band focused on established beachheads elsewhere. We will have to wait for Cutler's new book (hurry up, Sam!) to unravel the details, but it seems that his departure combined with the vast plains of Texas to keep the Dead touring in the more humid climes of the Southeast, rather than the Southwest.

The Grateful Dead's only appearance in Tulsa on February 6, 1979 indicates how small a part the Southwest played in the band's plans. Everything about the Tulsa show is an outlier, and indeed the entire section of the tour is an outlier. The Dead had never played Tulsa before, which is 107 miles Northeast of Oklahoma City, and the second largest city in the State (behind OKC). The  Pavilion, at 1701 S. Louisville Avenue, had a capacity of 6,311, and had opened in 1932. It was originally called The Fairgounds Pavilion. The Pavilion was only the second-largest venue in Tulsa (the 8,900 seat Convention Center had opened in 1964), so it wasn't a glamorous booking even for Tulsa.

 It was also a Tuesday night. Even weirder, it was in between a Sunday night show (Feb 4) in Madison, WI and a Wednesday show (Feb 7) in Carbondale, IL. Both of those shows were effectively university gigs.

Any band that would go 750 miles for a Tuesday night gig in a city they had never played, just to go 500 more miles for a Wednesday night show in another city they had never played was hurting for money. The Dead had two weekend nights in Kansas City, KS (Feb 9-10), so they had to fill the week with any paying booking. If Texas had been a good gig, they might have gone there, but Tulsa and Carbondale seem to have been better choices. Draw your own conclusion.

When I mentioned the Tulsa show in an earlier post, commenter Brad K mentioned that someone who put up posters for the show had said that it snowed. I checked this out, and it's correct--temperatures were under thirty and there was snow, albeit not a lot. Now, sure New England 'Heads will say, "c'mon 25 degrees and snow flurries, I'd do that!" But the Southwest isn't the Northeast. The roads and the people aren't equipped for any snow, so anyone making a last minute decision would have just stayed home. Daunting weather would have discouraged any non-roadie from driving to Tulsa from any distance.

There's yet another observation derived from Brad's comment. In the late 70s, promoters only hung posters around town if a show was way undersold, and they were desperate to sell tickets. How many Grateful Dead shows were there in the 70s where anxious promoters put up signs around town? Not anywhere I lived. And another thing--not only is there no tape for the Tulsa show, nor a setlist, but there's a missing poster, too. Sure, it's probably a standard "boxing -style" poster that says "Tuesday Night, The Pavilion, from San Francisco: The Grateful Dead." But right now, it's rarer than any Avalon poster.

As far as I know, the February 6 Tulsa show is the last, latest Grateful Dead show for which we have no audience tape whatsoever. That tells me that for whatever little community there may have been of "tourheads," none of them were going to Tulsa on a Tuesday night in February. Legend also has it that when Brent Mydland joined the band, in late March, Garcia grabbed a few tapes of recent shows off the shelf and handed them over. While unprovable, it would explain why Tulsa and a few other shows from that run have no board tapes in the vault. Thus February 6, 1979 in Tulsa, OK, is the latest Dead show for which we have not a single recorded note from any source, listenable or not. 

If you meet a guy, and he tells you "I saw them do "Dark Star" during a snowstorm in Tulsa," well, maybe he's deluded. But maybe.... 

Update:
Thanks to the miracle of the Internet, a few distant fragments have been threaded into one place. Thanks to everyone who contributed, but particularly fellow scholar Jesse Jarnow:
Grateful Dead at Tulsa Fairgrounds Pavilion, February 6, 1979

First of all, not one but two posters exist (it turned out both were on Deadlists). They aren't great, but they exist.

Eyewitness Accounts
It turns out there are a number of comments on Dead.net recalling the show. It appears that the show was kind of undersold anyway, and then a snowstorm encouraged people to stay home. And it was several inches of snow, which is a lot for the Southeast. Here's some good samples:

"Tulsa Steve" recalls:
That snowy show.....

Yup, I was there too. It was a weather disaster. There was a blizzard raging in the hours prior to the show. The band made it to Tulsa. I'd always heard that the TU Student Association posed as a "real" promtion company and brought the Dead to Tulsa. having been a fan for many years, this was my 3rd show with the Dead and I was happy to attend. I bought our tickets early on and had great seats right in front of the stage. As I recall, the band had played Saturday Night Live about a week before and they were touring hard. Jerry's voice was in lousy shape (you could hear it when he sang I Need A Miracle...lots of crackling in those pipes. I chalked it up to working so hard and being on the road for weeks. The unfortunate thing is that many of the fans couldn't make it in due to the snow - seriously, it was a foot deep. Even people from Oklahoma City backed out and consequently, the Fairgrounds Pavillion was really about 2/3rds empty.

For me, not the best show, maybe the worst - but by God I was there and its sorta like fishing - my worst day fishing is better than my best day working....my worst Dead show was DEFINITELY better than most other days in my 55 yrs! Thanks to Patrick Dead Head for confirming my thoughts. I too went on to earn my degree from TU and happy I stuck it out. This made that fateful year even more interesting. By the way, I'd also heard rumors after the show that the Dead would NEVER play Tulsa again and you know what? They never did! I'm going to run some traps cause if the Lafortunes have a tape of that show, it needs to be liberated!!!!!

"Patrick Deadhead" has an illuminating story

Tulsa show
At the age of 19 I produced the show on behalf of the Tulsa univ student assn, changed my life . due to the weather we lost $15k, a valuable lesson ( with someone elses money) about business. Experience of a lifetime. They felt sorry for us and invited me on the bus. I stayed and got my degree instead . Asked Dicks Picks about it , tapes were damaged .There was someone with a good rig close to the stage, but i never got the tape. They were a bit shocked at my age when we met at the airport. Jerry was real friendly and we hung out and had a long converstaion at intermission. My girlfriend and I had a steak dinner cooked by the crew backstage second set. The experience was crazy , the Babtists threatened to protest ( Oral Roberts country ) , the stage union tried to shut us down for using student labor , one of the cars with band members wrecked on the slick ice. Mickey threatened to toss the TV out the window when they would not let the band in the hotel bar with jeans on. That experience prepared me for a great job that included working with global promotions , beauty pageants , TV shows and all kinds of good stuff. Thanks Greatful Dead. Learned a lot of lifes lessons that unforgetable night. I still have the coffee cup from the band commisary

An alternate poster for the Grateful Dead at the Tulsa Fairgrounds Pavilion on February 6, 1979

There seems to be enough information to construct a setlist, as some Commenters pointed out
Set 1:
Jack Straw, Loser, Beat It On Down The Line, Peggy-O, It's All Over Now, China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider, From The Heart Of Me, New Minglewood Blues, Deal
Set 2:
I Need A Miracle,>Bertha>Good Lovin', Ship Of Fools, Estimated Prophet>Eyes Of The World>Drums>Not Fade Away>Black Peter, Around And Around
Encore:
Johnny B. Goode

"China Cat Sunflower" had returned a few days earlier, in Indianapolis (Feb 3), so if there were any actual tourheads, it would have been heartening to find out that the return wasn't just a one-off (like in '77).

A writeup of the Tulsa Grateful Dead show from the 1979 University of Tulsa yearbook, with pictures of Phil and Bob

Pictures

The Tulsa College yearbook has pictures from the show. No review, but pictures.

A photo of Jerry Garcia and The Wolf, onstage at the Fairgounds Pavilion in Tulsa, OK, on February 6, 1979. Photo from the 1979 University of Tulsa yearbook

The Tape

And of course, the tape. Someone taped it. We even know who taped it. William LaFortune is currently a judge in Tulsa, and he used to be the mayor of the city. And he taped it. He recalls it in an interview. But he doesn't know what happened to the tape.

An interview with Judge (formerly Mayor) William LaFortune in the April 2015 edition of Tulsa Lawyer Magazine  (great research from @bourgwick)

Somewhere out there, someone has a box of dusty old cassettes they were given back in the 80s. Maybe Tulsa Feb 6 '79 is there. If you see it, pass it on.



 

 

 

28 comments:

  1. Deadbase has a setlist for this show.

    Set 1: Jack Straw, Loser, BIODTL, Peggy-O, All Over Now, China>Rider, Heart of Me, Minglewood, Deal

    Set 2: Miracle>Bertha>Good Lovin', Ship of Fools, Estimated>Eyes>Drumz>NFA>Black Peter>Around

    E. Johnny B. Goode

    Indeed there is nothing a Lossless Legs or on the Saint server. Hoping to hear this one soon.

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  2. Addendum: Deadbase also states that Deadlist has Stagger Lee and Passenger in there, but since no recording exists (up until now???) the entire setlist is impossible to confirm.

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  3. Fantastic. Hope this can help surface the tapes!

    There was a poster for the show, as well as a handbill. Both can be seen here: http://www.deadlists.com/posters/1970s/19790206.html

    There are also 2 pieces of lore about a possible tape.

    One taper has said they acquired a copy on cassette from an original taper, digitized it, disposed of the tape, lost all files in a malware crash, & lost touch with the original taper, now suspecting that the original taper either isn't online or doesn't know the tape is MIA.

    Another piece of lore suggests that a now-prominent citizen of Tulsa made a tape as a 20-something & several comrades are diligently working to resolve that.

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  4. There are also numerous firsthand accounts of the Tulsa show in the comments on the Dead.net page, including a note by someone who says they were one of the promoters. https://www.dead.net/show/february-6-1979

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  5. The Setlist Program is not always reliable in general, but I wonder how they arrived at this:

    Set 1:
    Jack Straw
    Loser
    Beat It On Down The Line
    Peggy-O
    It's All Over Now
    China Cat Sunflower
    I Know You Rider
    From The Heart Of Me
    New Minglewood Blues
    Deal
    Set 2:
    I Need A Miracle
    Bertha
    Good Lovin'
    Ship Of Fools
    Estimated Prophet
    Eyes Of The World
    Drums
    Not Fade Away
    Black Peter
    Around And Around
    Encore:
    Johnny B. Goode


    https://www.setlists.net/?show_id=1148

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    1. Pretty standard setlist, and no Dark Star!

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  6. On page 7 of this issue, the Judge confirms the story that he, in fact, made a tape of the Tulsa show, but doesn't know where it is or what happened to it. https://issuu.com/tulsacountybarassoication/docs/tulsa_lawyer_april_2015

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  7. No proper review in the student paper, but a financial summary of the gig appears on the bottom left corner of the 3/1/79 Collegian: http://edu.arcasearch.com/usokuotcn/PDFs/utc-1979-03-01-0_001.pdf#page=1&zoom=auto,-15,1054

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  8. It turns out that there was more information about the Tulsa show than I thought, but it was scattered to the four winds. Thanks to Commenters, Twitterers and others who helped pull the threads together. I have updated the post, with links.

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  9. That setlist does look like a pretty typical, generic '79 setlist! It's telling that of all the memories on dead.net, no one remembers much of anything about the show itself except that it was "pretty lame," "one of the worst shows I ever saw," "maybe the worst," "not the most memorable," etc.
    The snowstorm made the show a disaster for the student association that promoted it - they ended up losing over $13,000 on the show due to the sparse crowd. Only the most determined ticketholders came! But alas, the snow and small audience don't seem to have inspired the Dead.

    McNally's book makes winter '79 sound like the tour from hell, with Garcia in poor health, Keith & Donna at their nadir, and the band booking a number of strange new cities because they were so deep in debt after the trip to Egypt.
    Garcia's response to the midwest detour was perhaps summed up the next day in Carbondale, IL, when he downed a handful of valiums before the show, with predictable results. (A couple witnesses recall, "Garcia was so out of it that he eventually sat down on stage and then just walked off." "Jerry was so stoned he sat down on the drum riser and nodded off during the show...I think they may have finished without him on stage." "Jerry was so tired that he went and sat down at the side of the stage in a chair, he was smoking a cigarette and I saw it fall out of his hand, I think he fell asleep, and the drummers did a drum solo... They woke him up and they finished the set.")
    It's worth mentioning that most of the second set of the Feb. 7 Carbondale show is also totally lost, with no known recording at all. Just imagine what we've been spared!

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  10. the numbers tell the tale!

    do a 1250 mile detour for a $15K payday during a stick around week? why not! better a band busy than a band bored.

    4 inches of snow? a blizzard to some, snow flurries to others.

    I-) ihor

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    1. It was the ice that was the problem not snow. My friends and I drove from Norman, where we going to school at OU, and we were on the edge of our seats the whole drive. It almost doubled the normally 2 hour drive. Upon getting inside the venue we were informed that our great seats that our friends camped out to get when tickets went on sale, were now at the back of the venue. The promoters, University of Tulsa student association, did not realise how far the stage would come out into the arena and now our seats were terrible. At least that is what we were told. Keith was not well and the sound in the Pavilion was awful. Keith was let go about 11 days later after playing the Rock for Life show, I think it was called. All in all it was great to see the band in my hometown, but it was right up there with my worst Dead shows ever. Some of which include, April Fool’s in Memphis 1995 and most certainly, Gate Crashers Suck Show at Deer Creek July 2, 1995 which unfortunately was my last show.

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  11. Reading about this lost '79 show kinda reminds me of the dead's appearance in michigan on 3-13-71. Even though, unlike the tulsa concert, there is (supposedly, according to latvala) a SBD tape in the vault somewhere, not ONE SECOND of the '71 show has leaked into the trading community or been uploaded to the internet archive or streamed on taper's section. Another difference is that, unlike the tulsa show, there are no photographs or verified 1st hand accounts of what was actually played. Yes, despite all the hundreds of hours of GD music that has been made availible in the last 25 years on cd and the web, there are still a few recordings that have eluded our hearing. There are still some GD-related mysteries that remain unsolved.

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  12. Doesn't Parish allude to the Tulsa show in his "Home Before Daylight"? I am far away from my books but I think he provides a Tulsa related explanation for the Valium episode at Carbondale.

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  13. I can shed light on one other legend about that show: I was one of the "Jesus Freaks" recruited onto the local sound crew, (via my Oral Roberts University mandatory Sunday school class, no sh*t), for the purpose of "witnessing" to the band/crew about Jesus. Little did the Sunday school teacher who asked for volunteers know that I had been on the bus long before I entered my religious phase. My hand shot up so fast...everyone looked at me like i was f***in' nuts to go into the Dead's devil den so eagerly. Only one other person raised their hand, and we caught eyes across the room like, "Yeah I know YOU, rider!"

    Come show morning we basically just humped the trucks, moving the cases into place for the set up, but didn't too much other than that and maybe unwind some cables. At a point where it seemed appropriate, I asked someone who looked in charge if I could meet Ramrod, who I knew of from the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, my bible before the bible. Years later I would realize from pictures (and his distinctive voice) that it was Parish I had asked. He rounded up Ramrod, who politely shook my hand. I mumbled something about "enjoying reading about him in the book". I'm sure I came off like the dog that caught the car. I quickly became self-conscious of making him feel like a zoo specimen.

    A little later there was break for dinner or something, and no one was really around. I stood sidestage, taking in the drums gleaming in the stage light, along with those beautiful blue meters of Jerry's McIntosh. I couldn't resist stepping out onto the stage. It was almost like I was pushed. I HAD to. I stood on Jerry's rug for a minute, breathing in the scene. I can still go right back there with a single, effortless thought.

    Fun note: Someone had affixed a "Steinway & Sons" name plate to Keith's Yamaha baby grand. I thought, "Well, I guess that's some Grateful Dead humor."

    As for a tape, I remember one tree going up a few rows behind me, well before the show. My seats were 23rd row, just off center, so the tree woulda been around row 30 dead center. I was kinda of stereo store geek as a kid, so of course I went over and checked it out. Whatever happened to that guy's tape who knows. I've seen reports that people were stopped from taping elsewhere. But there was definitely that one tree, for sure.

    The show itself is a blur, since it was my first and the whole day had been so surreal...I was not literate in the whole Dead catalogue at the time, so I didn't know many of songs. But I did know Shakedown and Terrapin, and was hoping for an Estimated, so that was highlight. Was hoping for a Miracle and got that as well. As an older head now, I would have been thrilled to get a Ship of Fools and a Black Peter. My other main memory is that the Johnny B Goode encore a was loud AF.

    Imagine my heartbreak many years later, discovering the archive...and no tape of this show. :-(

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  14. I was there as well. And it was also my first show. All these years later I still listen to the Dead 364 days a year (I figure there must be that one off day in there somewhere). The show certainly wasn't the best as the whole night was set up to fail - bad routing for an exhausted band, weak facility, TERRIBLE weather, short promotional time frame, etc. But none the less, it was a FRICKIN' DEAD SHOW! And my memories of it are that it pretty much kicked ass. To diss this show is kind of like saying the original Steal Your Face isn't the greatest live Dead quality, so I'm not gonna listen. I'm sure we'd all give a kidney to be dancing at that show right now.

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  15. Friends and I drove to Tulsa from Wichita, KS to see this show. It was beginning to snow about the time we entered the venue. Not a large crowd at all and we easily made our way to the floor (no seats) a mere 12-15 feet from the stage in front of Jerry. Stood and danced during the whole show and scribbled all the song titles on the envelope my ticket came in. My set-list matches up with the one in Deadbase with the exception of Passenger in the place of Minglewood. Loved the Jack Straw opener since we were from Wichita. Peggy-o, China > Rider, Estimated > Eyes, and Black Peter were all memorable. Leaving the venue after the show there was about 3-4 inches of snow on the ground and a group of (possibly Oral Roberts University students) protesting our attending a concert of soul damning sorts. Six weeks later I moved to Tulsa. I still have the set-list on the ticket envelope and the large 36"x24" poster with the steal your face icon on it that I removed from a utility pole a few blocks away from the Pavilion earlier in the day.

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    1. After a short search through my Dead memorabilia I found my two tickets to this show that are nearly totally intact since the ticket taker tore off only the slightest piece of a corner. Would love to upload an image of them to this site.

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    2. R Scott, thanks so much for the eyewitness descriptions, it adds so much. The ticket can be seen here--https://gdsets.com/75tickets/1979-02-06.jpg

      I would love to be able to post your hand-written setlist, if you want to send it to me (corrarnold at gmail dot com).

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  16. I was there and I believe there was ice on the road as well as snow but my memory is iffy. There was a rumor that a car full of OSU students wrecked on the way to the show and everyone died but I can't confirm that. It was something I heard the next day. This show changed my life and I have the poster on my wall so I know I was there! I am pretty sure they also played New Orleans, then Houston, then Dallas in something around 1990 but again, my poor brain. I was at those shows as well, if they really happened....

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    1. Ruby, thanks for the eyewitness account after all these years. The Southeast isn't the Northeast, ice on the roads is very dangerous for cars, drivers and roadways not prepared for it.

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  17. Performed by Dark Star Orchestra the last night of the 2023 Jam in the Sand.

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    1. If DSO played the Tulsa show, that's as close as we are going to get for a tape. Good for them

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  18. My first wife's (RIP) second show was this show. Her first was Dallas 78. This was well before she met me. I always thought that was cool that her first 2 shows were shows not many knew much about. She told me she rode up from Dallas on the back of a motorcycle and froze her ass off. She said the setlist in Deadbase looked right but she couldn't really remember down to that level of detail. Also for a while I lived near Tulsa (in the 90s) and had a friend that actually lived in Tulsa who I visited quite often. At one time during this period he claimed he had met a girl who claimed to have a really poor aud tape at one time but then lost track of her. He has also now passed away. Seems like there is a long lost tape out there based on the comments above. The question is has it survived anywhere.

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  19. This was my first Dead Show and not even a foot of snow was going to keep us from driving over to the Fairgrounds. Yes, the place was 3/4 empty, louse as hell and none of us gaf! It was the Dead, in Tulsa and at 17 it was heaven!

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  20. I have an extremely rare t-shirt from this show, given as a gift to a biker who was a "carrier" of drugs for the Dead and other rock bands. It features the Rick Griffen crow from Wake of the Flood along with words JERRY TULSA 79. Red with white screen print. Only one known to exist, unless someone here has seen another?

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