as a huge baseball fan, wrigley field has always been on my bucket list of places to go. so even though it wasn’t for a baseball game, i thought i would go there this past weekend to catch a dead and company show. it was also a good chance to meet up with an old college buddy of mine. john had been living in chicago ever since we graduated in the mid eighties. so between the fact that we hadn’t seen each other in about a decade, and the fact that i knew he would be a good source to figure out some pre show activities, it seemed like it could have the makings of a great weekend.

i drove over saturday morning and got to his place early afternoon. we caught up on a few things and then headed down towards the vicinity of wrigley field and had some cocktails and an early dinner. it was a beautiful saturday afternoon and we got down to wrigleyville in plenty of time to start heading to the show.

it had rained the previous evening, so much so that friday night’s concert was suspended in the first set. but tonight it was perfect, and so it was just a matter of getting in the building and getting situated. my friend kevin had secured two pit tickets for us, but we decided to explore more of the floor seating and then settle in later. more on that in a bit.

we had been debating the merits of the song ‘althea’ in the bar before the show, and sure enough they opened with that. it’s funny how things happen like that at a dead show. overall it was a very good first set, including two of my favorites: ‘jack straw’ and ‘brown eyed women’. it ended unusually with ‘one more saturday night’, which normally is a second set closer or encore. when i texted that to a group of friends back home, one said that means you will have a great second set.

and it was. if you are a fan of the classic pairing of songs the dead generated in the seventies, then you would likely be very happy with the song selections. first up was ‘china cat sunflower’ going into ‘i know you rider’ (‘china/rider’), and then ‘estimated prophet’ going into ‘eyes of the world’ (‘estimated/eyes’). a drums/space interlude was capped by a late period garcia tune named ‘days between’, and then they finished the set with the classic trilogy of ‘help on the way/slipknot/franklin’s tower’. those are all favorites of mine and i am not sure i could have scripted it much better.

we never did make it into the pit. covid protocols required everyone to show proof of vaccinations, which we had. you had to show that to get into the building (you got a wristband for that), and then show proof again to get on the floor (another wristband for that) and then show proof again to get into the pit (even though i already had two wristbands to that effect). the security line to get in was very long, and it looked very crowded in there. it just wasn’t worth it.

but overall it was a great show, a great night, and great friends. well worth the trip. great to see you, john. let’s do this more often.