Last Time in Irvine: JGB at Irvine Meadows, May 15, 1994

I forewarned a few posts back that I had some backlogged listening notes, and have been posting them this weekend. They were backlogged, in many cases, because I just didn’t have that much to say. I often check the date index for the blog in picking something to listen to, looking for gaps or inflection points that I might not have covered. I won’t be able to cover it all, ever, but I want to get a nice sampling.

So, here we are in May of 1994. Garcia had been doing brief SoCal jaunts for many years, and especially from the early 80s on these were Bill Graham joints. From the early 80s these were generally small club and theater gigs, but by 1994 our hero was in big spaces that the Dead had pioneered, such as Irvine Meadows, behind the Orange Curtain. The venue, had the honor of hosting Jerry on his 50th birthday, years after the Grateful Dead had been banned by the city because of unruly fan hairdos behavior. The May 15, 1994 gig came just three days after Jerry had signed the last, eventually highly-contested version of his will, and was the third of six shows in seven nights. This little southwest mini-tour, his last, ended with a thud when our hero, for the only time in his career that I can think of, started a show but couldn’t finish it, a flu in Phoenix ending the May 19th show after a single set.

If Robbi Cohn’s photos from Irvine are any indication, Jerry may well have caught the flu from John, who looks decidedly green.

Jerry and John, 5/15/94. Photo by Robbi Cohn, reproduced with permission. Visit www.deadimages.com and www.robbicohn.com to see more!

Anyway, the show has a few good moments, as in “Let It Rock”, on its penultimate appearance (3/4/95). Other tunes mix some good guitar work with lots of forgotten vocals (though he never entirely falls and can’t get up, nor leads me to exclaim “confused, trainwreck, yeesh, yikes“, as would happen with other shows plus or minus a few months). Only “Midnight Moonlight” is worryingly bad, with Jerry changing key a few times and the whole thing not coming apart at the seams only because it was never together in the first place.

This is a great tape, as so many of these 90s DAT masters are, and generally this landed about where I expected it to, our protagonist declining but still smiling enough for Robbi to capture.

Smiling Jerry calling a song to a close, 5/15/94. Photo by Robbi Cohn, reproduced with permission. Visit www.deadimages.com and www.robbicohn.com to see more!

Jerry Garcia Band
Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre
8808 Irvine Center Dr.
Irvine, CA 92618
May 15, 1994 (Sunday) – 5 PM
Neumann KM140 shnid-145697

–set I (7 tracks, 47:54)–
s1t01. How sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [6:01] [0:28]
s1t02. They Love Each Other [6:17] [0:31]
s1t03. Let It Rock [6:58] [0:59]
s1t04. Run For The Roses [4:27] [0:14]
s1t05. Ain’t No Bread In The Breadbox [10:27] [0:11]
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [3:58] ->
s1t07. Deal [7:13] (1) [0:10]

–set II (7 tracks, 67:27)–
s2t08. Shining Star [17:25] [0:20]
s2t09. Tore Up Over You [7:08] [0:19]
s2t10. Wonderful World [4:32] [0:54]
s2t11. Simple Twist Of Fate [11:21] [0:16]
s2t12. The Maker [9:05] [0:28]
s2t13. Lucky Old Sun [9:17] ->
s2t14. Midnight Moonlight [6:14] (2) [0:08]

! ACT1: JGB #23
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g, v;
! lineup: John Kahn – el-bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals – keyboards;
! lineup: Donny Baldwin – drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch – backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones – backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; … = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the “real” time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.