SET I — Cold Open: Front Street Breakfast
A young journalist sat in the small front room of the Dead's San Rafael offices one morning and watched Jerry Garcia eat steak and eggs five feet away.
That is how Stephen told it on Usenet three days after Garcia died. Hoboes still hosts the post under Memories, dated August 12, 1995, signed with his first name. He titled it a eulogy. He said he had met Jerry three times.
The second meeting is the one that carries the weight. The band's publicist had warned him: when Jer got there he might want breakfast, then maybe pick his teeth for a minute or two before they started. A black BMW pulled up. They were introduced. Food arrived from a nearby eatery. Stephen watched his idol eat. And Jerry did, in fact, pick his teeth afterwards.
The publicist had asked him to keep most of the questions on the then-new LP Built To Last. Stephen worked in a personal one anyway.
"Do you think you'll ever play 'Help On The Way,' 'Slipknot,' or 'St. Stephen' again, or are they gone for good?"
Jerry shook his head.
"We'll play 'em again someday."
Stephen put those sentences on the public net under his own name. The rest of this piece sits next to that claim.
SET I — Act One: The Gap on the Books
The public floor for the songs is easier to date than the breakfast.
JerryBase and dead.net keep the gap clean. The Grateful Dead last played "Help On The Way" into "Slipknot!" on September 12, 1985, at the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center in Oakland. Then nothing. Two hundred eighty-four shows later, on October 8, 1989, at Hampton Coliseum, billed that night as Formerly The Warlocks, the band opened the second set with Help into Slipknot into Franklin's Tower.
JamBase still calls the roar when those opening hits landed. The official Hampton page notes the return in one line: last Help > Slipknot, 09-12-85, gap 284. The second night of that stealth run brought Dark Star back. The first night brought the suite Stephen had asked about.
Built To Last reached stores on October 31, 1989 — later that same month, after Hampton had already dusted the songs off. Stephen's eulogy puts his Front Street morning before the return and inside the album's press window. I am not inventing a calendar day for the steak and eggs. What the setlists will carry without him is October 8 at Hampton, the four-year silence before it, and an album street date on Halloween.
Stephen wrote that less than a week after the interview, the band played Help/Slip/Frank for the first time in years. Never did get that "Stephen," though.
SET I — Act Two: The First Handshake
Stephen's first meeting was smaller and earlier.
He dated it September 14, 1988, inside the United Nations building, after a rainforest-benefit press conference. Contemporary wires put Garcia, Weir, and Hart in that room that mid-September week with Greenpeace, Rainforest Action Network, and Cultural Survival, announcing the Madison Square Garden benefit. High Times later ran Garcia from the hotel room in the days around the panel. Stephen said he gathered the nerve afterwards, introduced himself, shook Jerry's hand, and mumbled thanks for the good times.
One handshake in a UN corridor. Then the breakfast in San Rafael. Then Eugene.
SET II — Thirteen Hours Up the Coast
The last time Stephen spoke to Jerry was in Eugene, Oregon, where the Dead were set to play two shows with Little Feat.
JerryBase and JerryGarcia.com keep the run: Autzen Stadium, June 23 and 24, 1990. Little Feat opened both nights. Saturday was the 23rd. Sunday the 24th opened with Help On The Way into Slipknot into Franklin's Tower — the same suite Stephen had asked about in the Front Street room, now back in the book and sitting at the top of a stadium setlist.
Stephen wrote that he had driven almost thirteen hours straight up the coast from Los Angeles with a friend, armed only with the hope of a security guy who had promised to get them in. They arrived at 9 a.m. that Saturday. Another security person, rather than help him find his contact, let him loose backstage to look for himself. He started walking. Jerry was fifty yards away and walking straight toward him.
He reintroduced himself. Jerry remembered him.
"I just wanted to say 'hi,'" Stephen said. "Have a great show."
"I'd be happy with a good one," Jerry replied with a grin.
"Well," Stephen said without thinking, "I just drove 13 hours straight from Los Angeles to get here, so..."
"So you want a great one?"
Stephen nodded, feeling stupid, hoping he did not sound demanding. He wrote that the band cranked out two of the most incredible shows he had ever seen.
Those lines are his, dated and signed. The Autzen setlists are the public shelf they sit on.
DRUMS/SPACE — Promise, Gap, Room
Three documents in a row.
A named Usenet eulogy: steak, eggs, a toothpick, a shake of the head, and someday.
A setlist gap of two hundred eighty-four shows that closes on October 8, 1989, in a Virginia coliseum running under another name.
A Saturday morning in Eugene the next June, a thirteen-hour drive, and a man who remembered the kid from Front Street long enough to ask whether good would do, or whether he needed great.
The breakfast does not prove Hampton. Hampton does not prove the backstage grin. They sit next to each other the way Allgire's lifeline sentence sat next to a Warfield hymn — separate papers, same verb of attention. Stephen asked if the songs were gone for good. Jerry said someday. The band played them. Later, on a stadium loading path, Jerry still knew who he was talking to.
ENCORE — What to Play
If you want the return itself, start with October 8, 1989, at Hampton — Help into Slipknot into Franklin's, first time since Oakland '85. The tapes and the official page are easy to find. If you want the Eugene bookend, June 23 and 24, 1990, at Autzen with Little Feat; Sunday opens on the same suite.
On this site, the nearest playable night from that album week is October 31, 1989 — Jerry Garcia Band at Concord Pavilion, Halloween, the day Built To Last hit the street. Press play there if you want Jerry's band on the calendar day the LP arrived. Stephen's full post is still at hoboes under Memories. The toothpick warning is still in it. So is the question. So is someday.