Leaving aside that life is short, and thus one should listen to ’73: what is there about 3/21/73 from the Utica Memorial Auditorium to recommend it to discerning Enthusiasts? Let’s see:

Improve your Utica awareness Where’s Utica? Be more specific than “Upstate New York,” please. Perhaps you recognize the city from a Simpsons joke. You’re quite sure that Utica’s not Ithaca, but facts beyond that are unavailable. Get educated by listening to the Dead and reading the incredibly depressing Wikipedia page about the town. Fun fact: one of Utica’s nicknames is “the city that God forgot.”

Dark Star>Eyes, braj There needs be no argument other than this.

Phil admonishing the crowd Phil’s mellowed with age, but he was ornery when he was young, plus his voice was sarcastic–Resting Bitch Voice–so everything he said back then comes out mean. During this evening’s performance, Phil takes askance with a crowd member’s request for St. Stephen.

“WE DON’T PLAY THAT NUMBER ANY MORE, DICKNOSE!”

Thesis: the platonic ideal Dead show must–in addition to the music–feature an introduction by Bill Graham,  Bobby telling a joke, and Phil berating the crowd. Discuss.

Mrs. Donna Jean gets a turn The lovely and talented Mrs. Donna Jean Martin-Godchaux-MacGillicuddy-McKay-Mellencamp takes lead on You Ain’t Woman Enough, and she sings sweetly. Phil gets to do a tune, too. Everybody who wanted to do a number, did one. It was a free and easy kind of night, man.

Thirty songs And two of ’em are twenty minutes long. That’s more Dead than some can handle. Quite frankly, I don’t know if you’re up for the challenge. Maybe you should stick to deviant pornographies and re-counting your kidneys. Make sure there’s two. People like you get their kidneys yoinked all the time.

I’m not shitting you Any time a stranger’s nice to you, it’s because they want your kidneys. You don’t truly get the Dead, you love scary porn, and you’re going to be harvested one of these days. I know my readership!

Stop insulting the Enthusiasts.

They brought it on themselves.

They didn’t.

I cannot overstate Utica’s shittiness (I’m just gonna let the conversation with Italics Guy die.) Utica is a typical Upstate city in that it hasn’t had a reason to exist beyond “the buildings are already there” for going on half-a-century. They used to build things there (we no longer do that in America, as it is uncouth) and ship those things out to the world via the Erie Canal (which is no longer in use).

But then the Thruway got built in 1954. It bypassed Utica, and that was a setback, but GE leaving town was a knockout. Cheaper to build your widgets on the direct opposite side of the globe and then ship ’em back to stores in Peoria. And thus the Rust Belt was born.

And I don’t even know what this bullshit is:

Utica staple foods include chicken riggies,[146] Utica greens,[147] half-moons,[148][149]

What is that bullshit, Utica?

One-beat BIODTL One beat. That is very few beats. Any fewer and they would have just started playing the song.

“Utica Memorial Auditorium” What is it with Upstate New York and dreary venue names? Both Buffalo and Rochester had a generically martial War Memorial Auditorium, Binghamton had the Broome County Arena, and Syracuse combined both tropes with the Onondaga War Memorial Auditorium. There wasn’t one guy you could have named the place for, Utica? How about Horatio Seymour? He was born in Utica and went on to be Governor of New York.

…

It appears that Governor Seymour was a staunch supporter of Johnson’s sabotage of Reconstruction. Forget him.

DARK STAR>EYES, BRAJ I don’t know why you make me yell.