My kind of town.

I was barely two months old when the deal went down, but 5/8/1977 is a date I know. Not because anything especially monumental happened in the crib that day, but because later on my brother would indoctrinate me with the finest of Grateful Dead bootlegs, and Barton Hall was among his most cherished cassette tapes.

Flash forward thirty years later, and far from having eschewed its hippie roots, the town of Ithaca, NY has made itself pretty dang cool by declaring May 8th "Grateful Dead Day" to commemorate that hallowed performance. The event was marked by a concert by Dark Star Orchestra, in which the band covered that classic show in its entirety. Mayor Carolyn Peterson is responsible for the declaration, and she issued the following statement to introduce the show:

Whereas, the Grateful Dead have been recognized by many highly credible organizations, individuals and entities including the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as significantly important and integral to the musical and social fabric of our contemporary culture, and

Whereas, on May 8th, 1977 the Grateful Dead performed in Barton Hall on the campus of Cornell University in the city of Ithaca New York, a concert that is widely acknowledged and regarded as a defining and transcendent occasion and example of the art of contemporary musical improvisation, collaboration, musicianship, and performance, and

Whereas, many tens of thousands of individuals who were not in attendance that night in Barton Hall, have become knowledgeable & familiar with the extraordinary nature of the performance on May 8th 1977 through the trading and sharing of recordings of the show, and

Whereas, the cultural identity and perceptions of Ithaca as a community, have been informed and bolstered by the widespread acknowledgment of the magic of May 8th, 1977, and

Whereas, it has been said many times by many people that, “there is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert”,

Now therefore, be it resolved that as Mayor of the City of Ithaca, and in heartfelt recognition of the thirtieth anniversary of the May 8th 1977 concert performance, I declare May 8th 2007 as Grateful Dead Day in the City of Ithaca.

The setlist included treats like Dark Star, Row Jimmy> Dancin' In The Streets, and They Love Each Other. You can download the entire Dark Star show here, or you can head over to Setbreak.com and with one click, add the original Grateful Dead classic to your personalized podcast.

And while we're on the topic of the Grateful Dead, I figured you all would enjoy this unbelievable snippet of Bobby Weir being... Bobby Weir. It came with a personal guarantee that there would be laughter out loud. I pass it along with the same guarantee to you, dear reader: