13238 What a day ! I still remember the look on Mickey's face while Jerry was teasing Dark Star. Plus Santana got busted in Houston with a small amount of rule #5 trying to fly out for this show. Even if you weren't there you should d/l this show. fun show madman420 2004-05-17 10:38:49 2004-05-17 10:38:49 5 13325 22nd row but waaaay off to the right side. Carlos was great that day opening for the boys. It was a very fine night in Denver. For a look at Carlos opening up go to http://members.aol.com/swervn/Carlos/ Unfortunately the pics I got of the Dead that night were a little too dark and bleary. But the music was fine fine fine! It WAS a good day at Mile High Swervn 2004-05-18 18:38:29 2004-05-18 18:38:29 4 14245 well, perhaps my bias is fogged by memory. yes, this is a great recording. yes, the wharf rat dark star tease is great. overall though, nothing much stands out. a friend of mine accompanied me up into the bleachers so that we could sit down during the picasso moon. crazy fingers lacked that certain spark. my friend was a musician in a fairly special band from boulder, and during the saint he said something about how you cannot draw a blackjack every time, but it's nice to know these guys are still willing to sit in front of the deck and draw. imho, the santana opener seemed a little cheesey and the crowd responded as if the opener was the house band at a cocktail party. maybe it's just me, but sandstone and rfk just blow this mile high away. check out the wharf star rat, it makes for good filler. ok, but . . . mid-maine 2004-06-03 14:05:40 2004-06-03 14:03:06 2 15415 I was at this show in Denver w/ a buddy and a girlfriend at the time. We tripped our butts off and enjoyed Santana too. CASSIDY and 1/2 Step. Great quality to download. Mile High Brother Luck 2004-06-26 10:58:27 2004-06-26 10:58:27 4 21287 I'm not a fan of 90s-era GD but this show does it for me. The sound quality is impeccable, typically stellar work from Mr. Gans. There was something going on in June of 1991 that wasn't happening in the months before and after. The show is full of interesting readings of even the most over-played material, and there was a sense of play about the band during this time, particularly in knocking Dark Star off its 'sacred cow' perch. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but boredom is the mother of re-invention. Sound 5 : Show 4 cheyler 2004-09-20 16:02:50 2004-09-20 16:02:50 4 29614 Yeah, the look on Mickey's face was immaculate........This show was, while full of overplayed material, one of those shows that sparkled nonetheless. Sometimes they would bust out with songs that we had all heard a million times, yet they would play them anew. Mr. Spock Smiles indianahead 2005-01-20 16:15:07 2005-01-20 16:15:07 3 45134 What a way to kick off my long strange trip... Santana had gotten busted for a little of the green and played a lack luster set, then the Boys came out. From note one I was hooked. Aiko, was hot as was Picasso I love the Dark Star tease/Jam in Wharf Rat... I feel that this show is truely underrated. If you were there you know. Maybe not the best of '91 but a great show never-the-less. I highly recomend this one. ps-> this was the Only time the Dead played Mile High. My first show. Gr8fulDriver 2005-07-02 16:04:48 2005-07-02 16:04:48 5 47730 This was also my first Dead show and what a way to start it up. To this day I have never seen more people on LSD in one concentrated place my entire life. The drug was everywhere and all the police were concerned about was the bootleg t-shirts. Some Heads had no regard for others as they were randomly dosing people with squirt guns (not cool). I saw someone being dragged out of the crowd by medics with perma-grin on their face as they were gone to the world. I was second row right in front of jerry and peaked the moment they hit the stage. It took me a whole week to come down from this one. Great Wharf Rat! What a night! ChuckC 2005-08-05 15:01:25 2005-08-05 14:25:35 5 49678 I am glad that the previous reviewer noted how tweaked out the crowd was at this show. All these years, I've wondered if I was just feeling prudish that night. Even for the admittedly spacey standards of a Dead show, I remember this as a downright scary crowd; people were partying like they had something to prove. Either the previous reviewer and I saw the same guy being hauled out on a stretcher, or there were multiple guys-on-stretchers. Guys on stretchers, if you survived, if you're out there, COME FORWARD and TELL US WHAT YOU SAW! The Dead were acting strange too, come to think of it. "Eyes of the World" into "Picasso Moon"? Plus, the whole "Dark Star" taunt. I look back on this experience now, and still I can only say: "Huh?" I have yet to make it through the entire tape of this show. Bruce and Vince are very ham-handed keyboardists. They are good, but they play very thick, dense parts. Having them both up there fighting for bandwidth was probably not a great idea. Still, this show was a pretty good way to spend a deathly hot summer afternoon at Mile High Stadium. Mile-High indeed Lilypad 2005-08-31 14:00:30 2005-08-31 13:59:00 3 50459 I was an east coast transplant living in Boulder at the time and I attended this show. I definitely remember it was a strange show. There were tons of people dosing there faces off and like the other reviewer said people definitely going around with big supersoakers and dosing people. I remember there was kind of a scary vibe about it because it was like heavy acid wash not some 110 mics a hit shit they were using. the biggest thing about this show that I remember was that the cops took just about every single dog that was in the parking lot. What happened was, when everyone went in to the show they came in and took all the animals left tied to bumpers (on long leashes with bowls of water, of course) and took 'em to the pound. Not cool. Bad vibes. Also, this is the first show where I actually liked Picasso Moon. HighTimes and Stolen Pets ... kallisti7 2005-09-10 12:43:26 2005-09-10 12:43:26 3 62398 Hey Lilypad.. I know what you're talkin about... Very HIGH! Absolutely NUTS!!! I saw lots of people guzzling whiskey in their seats and openly indulging in the finest illicit street drugs! Woman walking around naked :0) Dangerous fireworks going off in the parking lot. Good show, but totally different atmosphere. Mile High dogtear1 2006-02-15 01:47:50 2006-02-15 01:47:50 4 65691 I agree, it was a pretty strange vibe. I think it was due to the fact that it was the 'end of the road' since there wouldn't be a show for another month or so... My recollection was that the sound system absolutely sucked! Didn't Phil kick a speaker at some point? Plus their voices were 'tired'.. Santana had held up the start of the show, arriving late due to his pot bust. So energy was weird, due to having been seated in the stadium a little too long before anything got started. I had a great time. Thanks for the memories! Strange show jhwygirl 2006-03-31 12:59:48 2006-03-31 12:59:48 3 32851 ...but pretty sweet nonetheless. Mid 1st set Iko is awesome, Eyes is amazing. Several other gems too. In contrast to several previous reviews: I was at this one (up close on the floor), and witnessed a very sober, middle aged, mellow crowd. I remember it was a hot, sunny day, and most everyone seemed very sober to me. The most weirdness I witnessed all day was Jerry busting into Iko in the middle of the 1st set, and the Dark Star tease during Wharf Rat, which wasn't even that unusual b/c Bruce dropped Dark Star riffs every other friggin song this whole tour. This show was added to the tour after the preceeding dates were all scheduled. not the best of summer 91.... dmilks 2006-04-17 13:43:29 2005-02-23 11:03:13 4 This closed out a summer's worth of shows for me, and though it wasn't anything like either night at Deer Creek, Chicago, or Kansas, it had it's musical moments. But what really blew my mind was how the stage orientation, which made no sense to me all night, enabled a perfectly full moon to gracefully arc across the top of the stage post-drums. Quite lovely, and I can only figure it was intentional. And I'm so glad that others shared my delight in watching Mickey throughout that so lovely and very rare Dark Star INSERTED INTO ANOTHER SONG. Find me another, I dare you. But did you look up? Mooding 2007-10-17 07:44:10 2006-05-20 13:35:14 0 Pardon this review that is light on songcraft and long on the personal, but that fucking concert shattered my life when I needed that most. I had fled Hollywood, bounced up to Seattle and was driving to DC and as I pulled into Denver on 25 I followed the VWs to Mile High. I had never seen the dead I had never been to Denver and I was lonely and dirty, living in a 86 ford taurus for weeks. I was 19 but with the beard and crazyeyes I was able to get a few bottles of fortified wine. With that in a coke cup I wandered the parking lot looking for tickets and in a minute I met a irish drunk deadhead hustler and I traded a little color tv I had for a handful of hits. He gave me a freebee and said this one was in his wallet and a little weak, since it was a first trip he wanted to ease me in. White blotter. Sanatana was hazy and all the women near me were loosening up to the weird vibe. I entered the music and understood what the big deal was, I had broken through the curtain of Touch of Grey playerhating I had as a 80s metalhead and heard the actual music, IkoIko lifted me up and I got as close to the stage as I could. Peaking I needed to cling to the hallways and there was a man in full rainbow hippie outfit, the rainbow afro, everything and he was holding nachos like a prize and as he walked by he dropped them and he wanted to cry but to me it was the funniest thing I had ever seen and I shouldn't have laughed at the poor human being but I was following my brain up the fire escape. The moon pulled me into the parking lot, the second set was coming on and I knew I had to get out early, the acid still hitting me and I ended up on the hi-way lost after cops with flares guided me away from mile high, I started the worst terror trip of my life (lots of acid never again as bad as that) driving and parking near a drive in by some motels I was told there were no rooms, but I looked homeless and smelled worse and tripping I didn’t know what to believe. So I watched Kevin Costner at the drive in on the other side of the fence and it was the worst movie I had ever seen and then I noticed I had been sitting on an ant hill. I walked to dunkin donuts and slowly came back to earth, maybe I picked up some of that badvibe, the fuckin blotter like thousands of freight trains through thousand of tiny mind tunnels that night. It busted my cherry, having those peaks and valleys alone lost and without a guide fortified me for all the other later excursions into the mind that the dead seemed to quantify, we have lost something now that that tribe has dispersed. Something will replace it but it is sometime a long wait when you are staring at Kevin Costner in tight covered with ant bites. (or was I imagining the ant bites? Did I just say that out loud?) Shattered, shoodoobie 5 unagriot 2006-12-02 18:07:21 2006-12-02 18:07:21 well summer tour winding down but the music plays the band once again. this show gave new meaning to "mile high", WOW! All the shrooms we ingested might have had something to do with that. I will never forget during space I experienced galactic flight in a grateful dead propelled mother ship, milehigh stadium elevated beyond the atmosphere then gently bringing us back to earth. Only at a grateful dead show, big thanks boys! what a long strange summer tour it has been! 4 grillybeen 2006-12-10 21:13:42 2006-12-10 21:13:42 Or we must be ... did you know that the second step leading up to the Denver Capitol Building is exactly 5,280 feet in elevation? Another Charlie Miller transfer. What GD Hour show # was this? I don't know. Who can keep up? Very professional first set with minor slip ups. All songs are good. BTW & Cassidy are pretty hot. Don't Ease, the first set closer, is not on this, the archive's version. Second set starts with a grand exposure of Eyes. The sound is rich, texturous and malty. Conversely, though, it's akin to shooting drops into your eyes 3 times a day ~ you don't see clearly, you see clearly, ad infinitum. That doesn't sound appealing? Maybe not, but drops in the eyes help you discern shapes in the fog. In a matter of moments you're hearing better than you ever saw, or whatever. Then... Picasso comes on gangbusters with a wallbanging like the Nightfall of Diamonds (10-16-89 MSG) version. It's mystifying to me why someone would hate this song. Okay, okay, it's got some hokey lyrics, and all, but, "It's the music." - jimi h. From there they work their way into a breathless Crazy Fingers and its resultant tempestuous jam. This is definitely a capitol moment in the first part of the second set. Rollicking they glide right into Saint. It's a big top circus mode of Saint. From Saint they go into a gigantic drums. There is the sound of pan pipes, or something, coming across the PA from stage, then the drums increase two fold in sound dynamic and onto a Matterhorn of space. Vince, champing away, finds the right niche and cruises into a glade; pulsating, going in and out faint pulse. Then as he fades, Mickey jumps on the Beam and the recording goes in and out from SUPER LOUD to diminutive. It sounds like the concert is doing the Wave. Oh, Jesus Christ...The sound IS doing the Wave. Oh, wow, I have never heard anything so fifth dimensional! My mind is totally totalled! ~ A wreck, on the rocks! Rebel Without a Cause! The rest of the band magically re-appear and before long every member is gyrating his aks thru the endzone metaphorically revitalizing the Broncos who inadvertently overrun a Rockies batting practice session. Chaos ensues. Old burial grounds are given up. Bones rise up thru the pencil thin air. One by one they gain, drop out, and regain their jamming ground. Jerry in French horn tone. The keyboardists are trashing around looking for their last half sense, Phil and Bobby composing their kindred necrophilia. The drummers drop back. The music becomes Alfred Hitchcock-ish. You are fearful that at any given moment someone is going to rush up to you, draped in a plastic shower curtain, and slash your necropolae back to pre-vegetarian length. For the Big Jam, Billy and Mickey come back and begin a slow burn. No matter, for they are helped along by Phil's frenetic bass patterns. Then comes Jerry howling. Things slow down a bit for their effortless re-grouping and the first morsels of Miracle, which is very PHAT. Then they settle like an eagle on it's nest into Wharf Rat. Some despise this song, but this is not one of those throw aways from the 19th Century. Oh no. The GD attack this song with grave elan' and it works in spades. Rapturous. Oh, gilded song, song that oxidize not. Songs that tarnish not. But wait. Out of Wharf they do the Dark tease and drift back to Wharf. This is indicative to me, of some decided anger on the GD's parts. For some reason I sense this show, with a setlist composed of not oft loved Dead Head songs is sort of a counter-protest to the fans, to the promoters, to anyone and everyone who had ears to hear, and to know. Wharf>Dark Tease>Wharf>Throwing>NFA: the definition of insult followed by excruciatingly predictable repetition of your deepest angst nipping at your heals like a thousand Pomeranians. And pop! it's all over. no more anger. no dogs. Phil stands up and nails Box and it acts as a deciding revamp back into the reality of known. This show is pretty goshdarned hot, ALLA WAY Thru. Thanks Chalkie, David Gans, and Archives.org. This Must Be Heaven Evan S. Hunt 2007-07-23 03:38:11 2007-07-23 03:38:11 5 this is one of the best verions..of picasso moon.....there wheren't many....give bob a break...they said lost sailor sucked back in the late 70's...and thats a wonderful song!!...i think picasso moon is a good song not a great song!!! picasso moon haters!!!! stoner mulholland 2008-01-27 22:24:08 2008-01-27 22:24:08 5 I was 2nd row center for this with my Brother Scott and it sure seemed that everyone around us was flying higher than a Mile High. I mean Zing! Maybe they were spraying liquid from the stage. I dunno! We were so close that we couldn't see much of what they were playing on the big screens. We had a great time at this show. The download sounds great! One of my Fav's... This was also the night that while driving home to Littleton on 285 we came around the bend at about midnight and there were all these cherries in the darkness... A sobriety checkpoint... There were 5 of us in my little Geo and we were all Gonzo'ed out. Bewteen us all we had a fresh sheet, half oz. of shrooms, porbably an oz. of weed, an 8 ball, open beer and an open bottle of Jack... The Police had all these cones out on the road to create a little lane that they used to line up the cars. The car ahead of us was the last one to fill up the lane and they waved us right by it all. Holy Freakin Shit! If we were one car ahead lives would have changed, marriges wouldn't have happened, babys wouldn't have been born. Some of us would have spent a lot of time in jail. Angles watching over us... Maybe... Dumb luck... who knows! All I can say is if you're ever carrying be careful! Wow! Drumheadz 2008-03-21 14:10:37 2008-03-19 13:36:22 5 Having attended with gifted tickets, this was a great night all the way around; even if Santana was late due to being held up (as per news accounts) negotiating his release from airport police upon entering the country with an unspecified quantity of controlled herbs. I'm glad to have read that it was the only time the band played Mile High; makes it an even better "event", even if the company wasn't great for this show. Even being from Long Island, and having attended college upstate, and with the great number of shows we were lucky to be in such close proximity to for so many years, this was the first time seeing Peggy-O performed live; one of my favorites. And while the crowd band were a little subdued as opposed to many shows I've been to, and the band seemed to reach for fewer "peaks" .... nor was there a "valley" in the lot; a really entertaining show and any night with The Dead is a great night. I lived in Denver for five-plus years, and saw a great many shows there - Mile High, Fiddler's Green, Red Rocks, McNichols, Pepsi Center - but this was what I remember Denver for. Peace, Yitro I Loved This Show *62 2008-03-29 15:33:15 2008-03-29 15:33:15 4 I am astonished reading these reviews, I remember this as the worst played and list I ever saw the Boys play. I think the first set was not horrible but never in total synch. The Second was a rough starting Eyes and Bobby whaling on Picaso Moon couldn't keep the energy in the crowd around me from crashing. We were all long timers and all hated that song, especially in the second set. The highlights to me were the Dark Star tease in Wharf Rat which is a good and bad thing then the nice Box encore. As I listen to it now I laff at my reaction because I realize I'm a spoiled Head who should be grateful for even this mess. After the previous GREAT run at Big Mac in December this was a huge let down. But as I said the other reviews seemed to love the show since they never saw a 60's or 70's show I guess, even some 80's made this look pale but I am grateful I was there to shake my bones for even a little while. goes to show you don't ever know buscameby 2008-03-29 21:24:00 2008-03-29 21:24:00 2 21 3.95