12/6/80: recreation center, mill valley, CA. w/santa claus.
this is a pretty remarkable and strange little show. just a couple months after their acoustic residencies at the warfield theatre and radio city music hall, the dead played a holiday party for the local muscular dystrophy association, at the behest of justin kreutzmann.
“thank you to the clowns for the nice entertainment, you were very good,” says the woman emcee before introducing the band. she doesn’t quite know everyone’s names (“weir? wire?”), so jerry takes over, which is charming. with brent on the rec center piano, the boys casually play the same tunes about sex and death (and the one about the train-driving monkey) that they did during the october sets but to an audience that likely (mostly) doesn’t know them, though at least one wheelchair has a stealie sticker.
the short set begins with a rousing rendition of dire wolf, and the perky little workingman's murder ballad never sounded so good. weir takes the lead on the next number. a jug band fave, she's on the road again has made its return to the dead's repertoire. it's essentially a new song compared to the electric versions in '66. it's got a jouncy feel that seems genetically connected to the '72 bakersfield era. as they did for the reckoning LP, been all around this world and monkey & the engineer go back-to-back with weir’s classic banter in between, “this next one's a song about disaster narrowly averted…” jack a roe—played on/off since ’77 (once acoustic in 1978)—is next, now finding virtually perfect form with naturally weaving acoustic bounce. next up, an excellent off-mic moment when a kid approaches garcia. kid: "i want rock & roll." garcia: "you do? this is sort of like rock & roll, this next tune." they deliver cassidy, which is sort of like rock & roll, which includes a deft little jam with jerry building to a big peak.
ice cream is served up before bird song, which does feel ideal for a holiday celebration. garcia really brings it on this version, and it's about as stormy as the acoustic bird songs get. a slow, sweet rendition of elizabeth cotton’s oh babe it ain't no lie is next in the queue. the song would only be performed two more times by garcia and company (in the netherlands for an acoustic set, and finally at marin vets, on 3/28/84, in a performance that kicked off the second set, without weir and mydland onstage). ripple ends the show, which seems like the perfect finishing touches on another offbeat story in grateful dead history. and then, it’s time for santa! the ambient amusements linger as the band scatters after the set, including a crowd-supported search for brent who apparently left without his gift.
recorded by betty cantor-jackson with a swell new transfer by jason chastain in 2020, this tape is jolly good. and it's a betty field recording, so you can go ahead and download the sucker!
https://archive.org/details/gd1980-12-06.151263.betty.master.flac16
