Grateful Dead at Barton Hall - Cornell University May 8, 1977 - 36 Years Ago Today

**NeonKnight** · 05-08-2013

I thought this deserves it's own thread, since today is the actual anniversary of this show. I believe this one is the result of a merge of an audience recording with the sound board. Sounds sweet to me:

Grateful Dead at Barton Hall - Cornell University May 8, 1977
Set 1

New Minglewood Blues
Loser
El Paso
They Love Each Other
Jack Straw
Deal
Lazy Lightnin' ->
Supplication
Brown Eyed Women
Mama Tried
Row Jimmy
Dancing In The Street

Set 2

Scarlet Begonias ->
Fire On The Mountain
Estimated Prophet
Saint Stephen ->
Not Fade Away ->
Saint Stephen ->
Morning Dew

Encore
One More Saturday Night

**Rael** · 05-08-2013

I know I'm in the minority on this, but I've always found this show somewhat overrated. Sure, it's a good show, but May 1977 had lots of great shows, many of them better than Cornell. IMHO.

**GuitarGeek** · 05-08-2013

Originally Posted by Rael

I know I'm in the minority on this, but I've always found this show somewhat overrated. Sure, it's a good show, but May 1977 had lots of great shows, many of them better than Cornell. IMHO.

I'd have to hear it again, but I certainly don't think it's the best show the Dead ever did. There's about three or four shows that get that honorific, depending which Head you talk to, and I'm not inclined to agree with any of them. The only one that's even from what I consider to be the band's peak era is the Veneta, Oregon show from August 72. I'm more inclined to cite something from 73 or 74 as the best, and if I was gonna pick something from 72, it'd more likely be a show from the Europe 72 tour. There's a few other shows from 72 that I might be consider, ones where they did some particular long and interesting renditions of Dark Star and The Other One, which I think topped the Veneta show.

To tell you the truth, from what I've read about the history of tape trading, I think the reason the Veneta Oregon show, the Barton Hall one, and the Fillmore East shows from February 1970 are so highly rated is because their amongst the first shows to circulate in nice sounding soundboard form. Thus, I think a lot of people tended to go to them over the sometimes difficult to listen to audience tapes that were around at the time, and therefore they've just sort of gotten locked into the attitude that these were "THE BEST", even after the Betty Boards and other soundboard tapes started to circulate in the 90's which I feel are as good, if not better.

As far as 77 era Dead goes, I might be inclined to choose 3/18/77 over the Barton Hall show, and I think there's several shows from later in the year, that were also better.

**ajcmixer** · 05-09-2013

'77 was a great year for the Grateful Dead, usually no arguing that. One could certainly argue that 5/8/77 is not the best show of its year but, yes, it is a great show with a killer setlist. Nevertheless. I'd have to place my vote for either 6/7 or 6/9/77, they returned from that totally triumphant Spring tour and showed the folks back home in Frisco some real love in Winterland. Because their love would Not Fade Away...

Peace,
Alex

**syncopatico** · 05-09-2013

My favorite Dead show from May '77:

Lakeland, Florida, May 21, 1977 (Dick's Picks 29, 6-disc set along with another show that's good but not AS good). Sound quality isn't as up to the level as many others from that month (some minor technical issues)--probably why it was bundled with another show, rather than as a standalone--but the performance is the best imo. Here's why:

1) The ONLY Dead show that features He's Gone and St. Stephen in the setlist.
2) One of only two Dead shows that features Comes A Time and St. Stephen in the setlist. (The other is a show from Chicago in 1971)
3) Best version(s) of Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain in 1977, to end the energetic, inspired first set (Strange but true

).
4) Comes A Time was only performed five times in 1977, and every rendition of that song in '77 is an excellent performance.
5) If you don't supply the goods and deliver on a hot Saturday night in Florida in the 1970s--then better stay home!

(The following Sunday night in Pembroke Pines on May 22 is another classic (Dick's Picks 3), but i prefer this Saturday night's Lakeland show for the above reasons: a more energetic performance too.)

**JKL2000** · 05-09-2013

Is there a database of all Dead setlists somewhere, where people search for things like this (the only show with song A and song B in the setlist, etc.)? There must be an app for that