On Saturday, August 1, Dark Star Orchestra takes the stage at the Greek and does what they do best: bring an entire show back to life, note for note. This time it's Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey, August 1, 1973, one of only three times the Grateful Dead ever played on Jerry's birthday. These shows came right on the heels of the legendary Watkins Glen Summer Jam just days earlier on July 28, and the band rolled into Jersey City still riding that high, by all accounts they were on fire!
To celebrate, we're digging into the Rex Foundation archive and pulling out a few pieces that take us right back to that summer.
The Sound System, Mapped Out By Hand
Here's a real gem: a hand drawn schematic of the Wall of Sound setup at Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, just a couple months earlier on May 26, 1973. Every speaker stack, every PA tower, labeled block by block, Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Keith, all the way down to the monitors. It's a wild look at just how much engineering went into making sure fifty thousand people could hear every note, long before anyone called it a science.
The T-Shirt
A vintage tee from the original Roosevelt Stadium run, worn by someone who was actually there for the Grateful Dead and The Band, fifty plus years ago. Faded, soft, and still very much alive, proof that this music has a way of staying in people's closets long after the last note rings out.
The Newsletter
And then there's the newsletter itself, sent out to Dead Heads that same summer with the tour dates typed up plain as day. Roosevelt Stadium, July 30, July 31, and August 1, 1973, right there in black and white, decades before Dark Star Orchestra would exist to play it all back for a new generation of us.
Come see August 1, 1973 come back around at the Greek Theatre.
(NOTE: These items are not for sale.)
