My first real Dead show (after Woodstock) was in November 1970 at U of Rochester in a small basketball court arena. We were sitting in the bleachers up on the side, and I vaguely remember a guy next to us holding a microphone and giving us dirty looks if we talked too loud. There's only one recording of this available (I believe), and you can hear the audience chatter, so I always wondered if that was us jabbering. Hey, it was a first date- I had to be sociable...
https://archive.org/details/gd70-11-20. ... sbeok.shnf
From Rolling Stone article on top 10 guests playing with the Dead:
9. Jorma Kaukonen
University of Rochester, Rochester, New York
November 20th, 1970
Listen at Archive.org
Serendipitously, the Jefferson Airplane were playing the War Memorial in Rochester, New York, the same 1970 evening that the Dead were doing a college late-nighter. So after his band's gig ended, Airplane guitar pilot Jorma Kaukonen headed over to campus to join the Dead for a hot take on the Bobby Womack-via-Rolling Stones nugget "It's All Over Now," some smoking blues jams (both country and Chicago-style) and a rocking rendition of the old folk standard "Darling Corey." Sketchy sound on the surviving bootlegs, but fiery playing.
Here's someone else's memory of the night from archive. Whew- those were the days- 5 sets?!
"My first Dead show. And what a doozy and scene it was (for pre-med, egghead, army brat, 21 yo me), considering it was upstate NY university. Hopped on that bus! Lots and lots of good stories from that concert! My recollection is that it was a (Lesh-Jerry-Mickey) NRPS set, then an acoustic Dead, then 3 electric Dead sets, at least the last one of which had Jorma. I sooo wish I also had that Jerry NRPS set-- psychedelic pedal steel ("get off the wah-wah pedal, son" is the punchline to one of the stories). I remember Lesh trying to coax Jack on stage, e.g. playing the "White Rabbit" riff at him, but I don't recall Jack actually getting on stage. Whew, Jorma stinging guitar is my memory."
And just to completely overdo it, here's a post from 5 years ago that I did on that show:
forum/viewtopic.php?f=311&t=11924&p=110 ... er#p110670
"Do not write so that you can be understood, write so that you cannot be misunderstood." -Epictetus
First show: 8/16/69 (Woodstock)
Last show: 3/19/95 (Unbroken Chain breakout)
Member of the Four-Decade Club
Charter Member, President & CEO of OAD (Order of the Ancient Deadheads)