[FromWichita]

If you're unfamiliar with this show's Dark Star it settles into an extremely laid back spacy version (Gary Duncan sits in on guitar). It's hands-down my favorite latter-day Dark Star. (10.31.71, twenty years prior was when my all time favorite was played! Dick's Picks 2)
So Bill Graham the concert promoter who was an integral part of the Dead's history had been killed in a helicopter crash on 10/25/91.
So this is Halloween night.
Ken Kesey comes onstage post-verse and begins "I was in D.C., and when I got the message I thought of two things..."
The message is that Bill Graham had been killed in the helicopter accident.

It is so powerful! I won't give anything away. This is going to be such a treat. Prepare yourself for a Grateful Dead "singularity". Enter the event horizon...

I hope to discuss it with any/everyone.

Here's a link to the performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmCp2g20V-E
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Buffalo Bill ’s
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus

he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blue-eyed boy
Mister Death - e.e. cummings

[FromWichita]

"And I thought of one more thing... Bill- he knew it! You know? He knew it! He knew it! And the second thought...."

I could probably quote Kesey's entire Dark Star-eulogy. I forgot to mention this is also my favorite late-period Dark Star. The tempo and drum groove is just... perfect. The band playing off of what Kesey said and how he was saying it is priceless.

What Ken Kesey relates regarding his son driving over a cliff and Bill Graham "sending a thousand bucks to put a thing up on the hill in Oregon which points in all directions so you can always find your way from the top of that hill" has got to be most amazingly meaningful/symbolic gestures I've heard of. So deep...

I should have requested anyone who went and listened to this 'once in a lifetime' Kesey Star to report back whether they got goose-bumps, or a spinal shiver, or the sensation of one's head and neck hairs standing up.

"And I thought - shit! This is the Grateful Dead telling me about my son! It's as big a time as it gets!"