Let the Good Times Roll/Franklin’s Tower/Gimme Some Lovin’/Wharf Rat – Live at the Omni 3/28/89 – The Grateful Dead

Part of what makes The Grateful Dead so beloved is their differentiation of setlists and improvisational skills. No show was ever the same, which is why the market for live Dead shows is so incredibly large. Over their career, they played roughly 2,300 shows; there’s no telling how many were actually recorded, but I would not be shocked if the number was around 2,000 or even more. If you follow the blog, you know I love live music, so it is really fun for me to dive into their catalog of bootlegs and official recordings (There are 77 official live albums) and find some gems. It is also really cool to have a personal connection to some shows. There are bootlegs of a couple of various concerts I have been to, and it’s really fun to go back and listen.

So, this Dead show specifically was attended by my mom! Very cool! Mama was there on the second of 2 nights, and I spent the morning listening to the show in its entirety. 1989 was a good year for the fellas, and it was hard to pick a favorite track. The Dead opened with “Let the Good Times Roll” and transitioned into one of their own staples, ‘Franklin’s Tower,” a great way to start things off. From the second set, I chose their cover of The Spencer Davis Group‘s (Steve Winwood) “Gimme Some Lovin,” one of my all-time favorite songs, which goes into one of my personal favorites of the Dead’s in terms of lyrics, “Wharf Rat.”

The audio of the show will be linked below in its entirety, but there are time stamps in the description.

Audio – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAuRJaLCCQI