POLL away the dew... Best Grateful Dead recurring live jam/transition piece

Oh yeah, JRAD are fucking phenomenal. I hope to get to see them live soon. They can stretch out the least likely, most hated 80s songs and take them in fascinating directions. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if they could turn a "Day Job > Samba in the Rain" into an absolute half-hour gem.

Do SBDs float around for these shows?

also lol in the recording reviews:

Reviewer: Devil's Friend - ★☆☆☆☆ - September 20, 2021
Subject: Balloons and Barking
Where's the recording of you wrecking Death Don't Have No Mercy for everyone in your section at Noblesville? I asked you to STFU before things escalated. Idiot. For a dude that tapes and probably goes to a lot of shows, you are most "unDeadhead". You came across like a man-baby fighting with seat neighbors over a BALLOON. Your woman looked completely ashamed and embarrassed by you. She deserves better.

lol tapers

At the JRAD show I went to they played Comfortably Numb - as best as I could tell it was a debut? I read somewhere that they played an all-Floyd set at a festival or something, so probably it grew from there, but couldn't find any indication that it had been played at a regular show. Anyway, after that funk melange of all those songs I listed above, second set ended with Comfortably Numb>Morning Dew. They got all the soaring guitar heroics out of the way in Comfortably Numb so they then took Morning Dew in a totally different direction, with a funky, rhythmic guitar/keys duet. It was unique and super cool. Here's the full setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/joe-russos-almost-dead/2021/westville-music-bowl-new-haven-ct-438cc777.html

Do SBDs float around for these shows?

I mean, I'm sure they do. I just wait for them to show up on the Relisten app or site (highly recommended for Phish, Dead and JRAD too!) and listen from there. Definitely not SBD, but surprisingly decent quality for the most part (I know the said 9/18/21 show is up there and sounds good). You can pay for SBD from nugs(dot)net if that is your thing though.

I cannot recommend the Relisten app enough though, if you are into this stuff.

I haven't listened to much jrad but their guitarist's sets with kruetzmann & billy strings at red rocks definitely piqued my interest.

Yep guitarist (Tom Hamilton) is great, and Joe Russo (drums) and Marco Benevento (keys) have been playing together in various configurations for 20 years or more, I think, and are both masters. Benevento has a lot of tricks up his sleeve that I haven't heard in other Dead-adjacent projects. They can get very jazzy.

Yeah I first saw Russo and Benevento when they toured as GRAB with Trey and Mike from Phish about fifteen years ago, they were pretty good then but I've grown to like them even more since.

Between Billy & The Kids and the Dead & Co tour, 2021 was a great summer of new shows for old deadheads, I only made it to Pine Knob for Dead & Co, but listened to almost every show of this tour when it came up on the archive and I watched most of the free set openers on nugs to get a feel for the scenes. I went to Wrigley in '17 and '19 so I didn't mind missing that so much, but I really wish I'd gone to Blossom and Deer Creek on this truly special tour. Oh well, summertime done come and gone my oh my!

I get that Wrigley may not be the ideal setting for a show, but I've grown to like it and appreciate it - easy access, plenty of food and drink options nearby for before and after a show. As opposed to Alpine Valley with no convenient non-venue places to meet up, sitting in a parking lot for two hours after a show and either springing for overpriced hotels (which still aren't even within walking distance of the venue, so you still need to either drive or arrange for transportation) or making sure you have a sober group member to drive every back home late in the night.

I loved seeing them at Wrigley, as a Cubs fan it was amazing to dance in the stands and go out onto the field, to experience the friendly confines with a extra dose of kindness. But Deer Creek was the only place I got to see Jerry ('93) so I was thinking it would be cool to go back there again, I was just too worried about Covid - but I would've risked it for that second set had I known: Sugaree>Dark Star>St. Stephen>Eleven>Drums>Space>Dark Star>Death Don't Have No Mercy!