Summer Magic 1985: Merriweather Post Pavilion, 6/30 & 7/1

Rich Mahan (0:01)

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The Good Ol Grateful Deadcast, the official podcast of the Grateful Dead. I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarnow, exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead for the Committed And The Curious.

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Deadheads, welcome to Season 13 of the Good Ol Grateful Deadcast. I'm your co-host Rich Mahan. Thank you very, very much for tuning in. In this, our final episode of Season 13, the Good Ol Grateful Deadcast pulls into town in the Baltimore, DC area for two smoking shows at Merriwether Post Pavilion. And yes, these shows are from the new forthcoming big box from the Grateful Dead Summer Magic 1985 It features seven shows from the band's 20 years so far anniversary tour and includes all three Greek theater shows on June 14th, 15th, and 16th, Saratoga Performing Arts Center on 627, Hershey Park Stadium on 628, and two shows at Merriwether Post Pavilion on June 30th and July 1st, which we're covering in this episode. It was all recorded by Dan Healy and mastered by David Glasser at Air Show Mastering. Summer Magic 1985 is limited to 10,000 individually numbered copies and is available exclusively at dead.net. Pre-order your copy today. Release date is September 18th. And they're going pretty, pretty fast. Head on over to dead.net/deadcast and check out all of our past episodes. From there, you can link to your favorite podcasting platform so you can listen how you like to listen.

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We have transcripts for many of your favorite Deadcast episodes available now for you are reading pleasure. Head on over to dead.net/deadcastdashindex and check them out.

Have you played around with the new Playing in the Band online mixing board yet? Well, you better get yourself on over to dead.net/playing in the Band and get mixing. You can make your own mix from the original actual studio master tracks for songs from the Venita 72 show, Mars Hotel, Wake of the Flood, Blues for Alla and the recently released Steal Your Face. Musicians, you can mute whichever instrument you like and jam along with the Grateful Dead. Be your own Bobby or Jerry or Phil. You get the picture, but make sure you get it at dead.net/playing in the Band. Well, we are icing the cake on season 13 as the Deadcast wraps with two absolute heaters. Merriweather Post Pavilion on June 30th and July 1st, 1985 Everyone who caught shows in the 80s will tell you what an absolute blast they were. And these shows from Merriweather Post Pavilion, by all accounts of those who were there, were nothing short of epic. Here's your friend and mine, Jesse Jarnow.

Jesse Jarnow (4:32)

Today, the Deadcast pulls into the parking lot of Merriweather Post Pavilion, just west of Baltimore, where The Grateful Dead performed the last two shows on the Summer Magic 1985 box, June 30th and July 1st. Grateful Dead Archivist and Legacy Manager, David Lemieux.

David Lemieux (5:06)

June 30th, I think it's got the highest points in this box set with The Shakedown Street.

First set has some incredible music. It's got a great keep on growing. Where everybody's been so high on 630 at Meriwether, which they should be, but don't sleep on 7-1 because it is just as good a show. And as a consistent great show star to finish, it's up there.

Jesse Jarnow (6:18)

Please welcome back Third Eye In The Sky, David Leopold, now creative director of the Al Hirschfeld Foundation.

David Leopold (6:24)

And this was a place that was exciting to go to because something always seemed to happen.

Jesse Jarnow (6:28)

The 1983 show featured some wildness of the non-musical variety. It was a dark and stormy night at what some heads called Jerryweather.

David Leopold (6:37)

It's just pouring rain the whole time. Now I had seats inside the pavilion, but the stairways inside the pavilion were just waterfalls. There was just a tremendous amount of water. And again, they're just playing this high octane music all while it seemed like the whole world was melting. It was just like water everywhere.