The Grateful Dead Live at the Spectrum - Cumberland Blues 9-21-1972

0:05 SPEAKER_04: Hey everybody, welcome back to the concert room. Inside the Philly Concert Experience. I'm your host, Bob Hill. The Concert Room is a podcast session dedicated to all the great performances and performers who played on the stage at the legendary Philadelphia Spectrum Arena. The Spectrum held numerous events and concerts over its 40 plus years of existence, earning the nickname America Showplace. The Spectrum was a special place for music fans and bands. Tonight let's talk about the Grateful Dead and the Spectrum.

0:38 SPEAKER_04: And uh unfortunately, bassist Phil Lesh passed away recently as of this recording, and he, of course, was a founding member of the Dead. Uh Phil was instrumental in bringing the San Francisco sound to the masses, his innovational bass and how he utilized it in the band. Uh, especially during the jam and improv parts of their sets. Very, very influential. He kept the dead's music alive with his solo bands and projects, so he will be sorely missed uh by faithful Deadheads and fans, and Phil, we appreciate and uh thank you for the music.

1:19 SPEAKER_04: Uh so in honor of Phil and the Dead will feature them on today's show, and I think it's really about time because the dead is one of the most important bands to play at the Philadelphia Spectrum. They love playing the Spectrum. I think they performed the best when they rolled into South Philly. And there's a lot of recordings out there to prove it. Now the dead played the Spectrum more than any other band or performer. They played fifty-three concerts, all sold out. And in honor of that, the Spectrum personnel um honored the dead with that feat of playing the most concerts by creating a flag to hang in the rafters in the arena.

2:02 SPEAKER_04: The uh Spectrum raised a banner with the dead's name on it, and it says uh 53 Spectrum sellouts. You can go out on the interwebs and pull up that image. It's really, really cool. The uh flag banner, it's in uh orange and black, which is the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team colors. And I believe it hangs in the new arena for the Flyers, and I do remember going down to the Spectrum for many concerts, looking up into the rafters and seeing the dead banner hanging right beside all the Flyers Championship banners.

2:40 SPEAKER_04: Again, it was in orange and black, which was really cool, so it kind of fit in with the aesthetic of of the Flyers banners um sitting up there, so I thought that was really cool for the Spectrum uh personnel, and um also the dead was really, really uh grateful, no pun intended, uh, that they did that. I again I think the dead performed the best when they they played the spectrum. It was comfortable, uh they felt at home, um which uh you know doesn't equal them being lazy, uh, because that's not true.

3:18 SPEAKER_04: Some of their most standout performances uh on a tour and even in their history of live performances, um it is a fact that uh they absolutely loved playing there, it was comfortable, the crowd uh, you know, enthusiastic, party outside, party inside, and it was just really a great time, and it was just a really nice and relaxed and and fun, and uh, you know, the band was loose and they were jammy, regardless of what era, seventies, eighties, nineties, etc. The dead really just felt comfortable playing the spectrum, and uh again it was reciprocated with a uh a nice batter that the spectrum personnel uh created and hung in the rafters, and so it's really, really cool.

4:11 SPEAKER_04: So a lot of love, uh mutual love for the dead and Philly. And the band uh, you know, again developed an affinity for all the dead heads in the Philly area. They were always comfortable in what I think is their prime time East Coast home, the Philippine Spectrum. As far as the dead's uh shows at the Spectrum, their first show at the Spectrum was December 6th, 1968. And they were on the bill with Iron Butterfly and Steppenwolf uh for a uh festival called the Quaker City Rock Festival. Great night of tunes right there.

4:47 SPEAKER_04: Um however, it was the band's next Philly show on September 21st, 1972. This was a three-set spectacular show. It was immortalized on Dix Pix Volume 36. And the uh 92172 is a show is widely considered one of the greatest shows, not only on that tour, but in the band's history, and it just goes back to what I said uh prior. Uh, you know, the dead, uh some of those spectrum shows, regardless of era, were some of the best in their history, not just on that particular tour. The 92172 show uh was also later released as part of a uh part of the 30 trips around the Sun Fox set.

5:38 SPEAKER_04: So great show, very important, one of the best in their history. Um so let's get to this great performance out of this uh this set. Um really so many to choose from from this spectacular show. I picked Cumberland Blues, uh, just for its bouncy and cool vibe inside the room, and you kind of get an idea of how cool and jammy and and fun they were that night um inside the concert room, the spectrum. You know, I'll I'll put a link at the bottom of the show notes with the Grateful Dead links, um, including XX36, which this full show is featured on.

6:21 SPEAKER_04: Um so this is gonna be a lot of fun. The scene inside the spectrum, of course, outside the spectrum that night was electric inside. The band was uh jammy, they were fun, they were feeding high uh feeding off the high energy of the crowd. And the dead at this time were kinda like that. You know, they were youthful with uh mature songwriting in this area. Um so I I think this would come through. It's a cool version of Cumberland Blues, it's a cool song. So I hope you enjoy this. Let's get to Cumberland Blues.

6:52 SPEAKER_04: Here's the Grateful Dead on the Spectrum stage, September 21st, 1972. And as Phil Flesh would say, Hello, kids, I can't say much.

7:41 SPEAKER_03: I can't help you with your joke, you won't help with I gotta get that one I gotta get down to the city.

11:31 SPEAKER_00: Some of the fellas make up.

13:10 SPEAKER_03: Just the face you know, I'm gonna put it back again.

13:50 SPEAKER_04: Okay, and there it is. That's just like I said, a great little performance, um, fun, very cool, sounded great that night, um, spectacular show at the spectrum. Um I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you were able to see the dead back in the day, regardless of the era, uh, with their long history, and um you know again I just want to reiterate how important this band was to the area of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia S uh Spectrum in particular. We're forever intertwined uh the two of us. And um we are uh so proud that we uh were able to host 53 sold-out shows at the spectrum uh by the Grateful Dead.

14:42 SPEAKER_04: Uh and it's we're just very proud of that. So um thanks again for tuning in and listening. I appreciate it. We have a lot of great things coming up, more featured performances, some interviews. And um I'll definitely put up another show of the dead, maybe from a later era. Uh I'll pick out a nice one maybe from the 80s at the Spectrum, something like that. So look forward to that in a future show. Uh please go out and subscribe, and uh feel free to leave a comment too in a reading. I do appreciate it.

15:19 SPEAKER_04: And thanks again for tuning in. I'm Bob Hill, and this is the concert.