Dylan & The Dead on the Fourth Day of July (by Jesse Jarnow)
Volume 3: Rich Stadium, Buffalo, New York, July 4 1986
“We carried you in our arms on Independence Day”
“Leaving Texas, fourth day of July”
Both Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead have iconic Fourth of July songs. No, Dylan didn’t bust out “Tears of Rage” at this Independence Day gig, but the crowd-pleasing Dead opened with “Jack Straw” (huge cheers at the key line) and encored with their other holiday song, “U.S. Blues.”
This was Dylan’s first Fourth of July show ever in America, and he played it backed by the Heartbreakers and co-headlining with the Grateful Dead. In the third installment of his Dylan & the Dead ’86 miniseries, Grateful Dead scholar Jesse Jarnow dives into the Independence Day festivities in Buffalo.
Dylan and the Dead ‘86: Rich Stadium, July 4th
by Jesse Jarnow
Also big. 70,000 people in Buffalo’s Rich Stadium. Also hot. Even hotter than Akron, really, because it’s an afternoon show, so not even the headliner (nor the audience) gets the respite of the cooler evening temperatures. Plus it’s the Fourth of July in the Reagan 1980s. Gotta be some fireworks and shit.
The Rich Stadium gig is choreographed around an event some 1,500 miles to the south—the second edition of Farm Aid and the telecast thereof. The Dead are up first, and play two sets, anyway. Dylan doesn’t play with them. They do open with “Jack Straw” (“leaving Texas, fourth day of July”), they do not play “Truckin’” (“...up to Buffalo”), they do encore with “U.S. Blues.” A thunderstorm rolls in at the start of the Dead’s second set, providing only brief relief; the Dead play with “Cold Rain and Snow,” obviously. “Fire On the Mountain” is a rare version that doesn’t come out of “Scarlet Begonias” and they seem to struggle to find its groove, lurching a bit until they make it into the jam. There are no train wrecks, but certainly some unpleasant tempos. They make it to the telecast in one piece.
“America is, in fact, an agrarian nation, let’s keep it turning,” Bob Weir declares, introducing “The Wheel” and leading off a shockingly tight three-song sequence with decent transitions into “I Need A Miracle” and the ever-popular “Uncle John’s Band.”
My scene reports for these shows are drawn from Deadhead memories posted on the Internet Archive and the band’s official website, so they’re certainly Dead-biased. Nonetheless, there are a number of fans who recall coming into these shows as Dylan fans and exiting as Dead fans. There are even more memories of people attending these gigs and becoming heads for life, a reminder that the Dead could still set off sparks in people’s imaginations, even if they weren’t at full strength themselves.
One report I quite enjoyed, from user Hazardrock: “My biggest memory occurred when Petty started to play after the Dead. This skinny deadhead, in full panic mode, scaled a very imposing chain-link fence in a matter of seconds. He couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I’m sure it was the fastest this kid ever moved in his life. I’ll never forget the look in his eye. It was the same look I saw when I side-swiped a deer. Poor creature. One minute you’re running free through the woods and the next Bam! Right out of nowhere!”
There’s a Dylan soundboard from Buffalo, too, and (at least among this very limited set of tapes) it’s nice to have better versions of “Trust Yourself” and “Band of the Hand.” It’s the first “Emotionally Yours” of the Dylan/Dead shows, fully half of Empire Burlesque in the set for once (though never its most obviously arresting song, “Dark Eyes”). And there’s also a full pro-shot video, a remnant of the Farm Aid telecast, a decent visual representation of rock in the ’80s—band on a very high stage, rows of monochromatic empty seats in closed-off sections towering behind them, plus some excellent close-ups; including the wee revelation that it’s Heartbreakers’ bassist Howie Epstein playing mandolin on “I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know.”
Outside the covers, the “Ballad of a Thin Man” from Buffalo might be the first performance of Dylan repertoire to really grab me from these shows, finding his way into a big, fluid phrasing where he feels inside the lyrics’ rhythms, instead of just barking them out staccato. It’s a subtle shift, and perhaps totally subjective. But I like this version a lot.
1986-07-04, Rich Stadium, Buffalo, NY [Dylan set]
1986-07-04, Rich Stadium, Buffalo, NY [Dead set soundboard, archive.org link]
Jesse Jarnow co-hosts the official Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, and is the author of Heads: A Biography of Psychedelic America, Wasn’t That A Time: The Weavers, the Blacklist, and the Battle For the Soul of America, and Big Day Coming: Yo La Tengo and the Rise of Indie Rock. The Invisible Hit Parade: A Taper’s History of Music will be published next year. The Frow Show can be heard every Tuesday on WFMU (including Bobsday celebrations).
We drove in from Toronto and arrived late, I mean very late, missing the entire Dead’s set. No tickets and there were no scalpers in sight. But because of the mass exodus of deadheads deserting the show, we were able to just walk in. Only faded memories but I recall that despite a dynamic show by Bob and the heartbreakers, there was lack of energy in the crowd due to the heat and rows of vacant seats.
Grateful to have been in attendance.