Dead Show/podcast for 10/30/26

This week's Deadpod comes from close to home for us here in Michigan: Ford Auditorium in Detroit on Monday, October 30, 1972. It was the last stop on the Dead's fall 1972 Midwest run, with Jerry, Bob, Phil, Keith, Donna, and Bill on stage just months after the band got back from Europe '72.

This week we're playing the full first set, and it's a long one. It's the 1972 band at its best, mixing tight rock and roll with patient, open-ended jamming. Bertha gets things moving, and from there the Bob and Jerry songs trade off all night, with the cowboy tunes Me And My Uncle, El Paso, Big River, and Mexicali Blues alongside Deal, Sugaree, and Don't Ease Me In. Black Throated Wind and Jack Straw were both still fairly new songs in the fall of '72.

The highlights for me are a long, exploratory Bird Song and a China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider that really flies. Phil also steps up to sing a lovely Box Of Rain near the end of the set.

This is a fine audience recording, warm and full, with a real sense of being in the room. It isn't flawless: there's a splice in Bird Song, Big River gets clipped at the end, and it is said to be recorded by Owlsey. But the sound is so good for an audience tape from 1972 that the rough spots are easy to forgive.

Grateful Dead

Ford Auditorium

Detroit, MI

10/30/1972 - Monday

One

Bertha [7:30]

Me And My Uncle [3:27]

Deal [6:03]