I sang a little while and then flew on.

I was surprised there were as many highlights in this show since I've never heard it get much mention, aside from the Rubin & Cherise being an Easter Egg on the View from the Vault II DVD. It's one of the best '91 shows and since 3/31, 10/31, 9/10, 4/28 & 6/28 are often the ones cited, this one is something of a hidden gem.

This was their second time at Legend Valley (there is no "valley" though it formerly wasn't on a "lake" either). The songlist of the big 1:45 2nd set doesn't necessarily impress so it's great when this band proves a list irrelevant - when a "bathroom song" got wild, out there or beautiful and your hive said, sold! But with heat index in the triple digits I'm glad I missed this one. Speaking of the sun, Violent Femmes opened. The 1st LP's a classic and Gano & Ritchie were always great . I'm surprised to see they've reformed (given that they sued each other). I'm high as a kite and I just might stop to check you out. Let me go on like I blister in the sun.

First Set. Picasso Moon picks right up and tightens, followed by a monster-jam version of Sugaree. Sometimes Vince was puzzling and sometimes this good; and check Bobby - making up for the slide playing on Minglewood (Buckeye Fillies). His fills are cool on Ramble, however. This was the final Rubin & Cherise, as somebody didn't like it - erm, we're looking at you, Phil. It's okay but Orlando is the hot one (as already pointed out by cb18201). The playing is good on Let It Grow but I'm not big on Bobby's approach.

Second Set. Bang. Samson in a crazy ensemble version with everybody wrestling. THIS is what they sounded like in spring' 91 with Vince, when achieving levitation (the odd mix is the same on the AUDs). The machine powers through to a perfect tranny into Playin' and Bobby plays quite differently on He's Gone - his era of starchy chords and tremolo harmonics. Bruce is great because he's choosy. Check the brief Spoonful tease. It's a 32min jam into Drums and one of the top sequences of '91, as other commenters have noted. In Space, Jer quotes Bach's Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben. Specifically, the cantata's Movement 10 for chorale (the section that was rewritten for piano in the 20th century under the nonsensical title "Jesus Joy of Man's Desiring", and which my little brother called "The Jesus of Mayonnaise"). Listen to Wharf Rat and you'll see Bobby's just having a great set, on his Casio Blacknife with his new Floyd Rose floating bridge (and able to stay in tune, whammies-in flocks of birds). They start sounding tired and off by Around & Around and while odds are somebody somewhere likes Bruce on accordion for Knockin'... I posit it's based on whether the tonality is a dead fit - I liked it more in person than archivally. Granted this is probably the best song for such wheezings and the pacing is much better than it would be a few years later.

1st Set:  C+
2nd Set: B+
Overall = 4 stars

Highlights:
Samson & Delilah>Crazy Fingers>Playing in the Band>He's Gone>Drums - Great ensemble playing and segues. Bobby's the glue.

SOURCES: The dusborne is a crazy-but-good 3-source matrix (usually you can't keep a triple in phase). It beats the SBD for depth and image, but the balance is off in places and it lacks the crispness and clarity. Of the SBDs, unknown.12756 is preferred as the least boomy. There is a glitch@11:27 in Drums and Space has a fade out/in @2:11. "He's Gone>Jam>Drums>Space>TOO" should be labeled "He's Gone>Drums>Space >Space contd>TOO".

my 21st birthday… spent it with 2 of my best friends and also saw a couple friends that I hadn't seen in a few years. funny how many times that happened on tour. Traded a extra ticket for a 1/4 of mushrooms….. going good before the Violent Femmes even started. Haha. They rocked a 45 min set from what I can remember…. very close to album quality. I grew up listening to them so it was a cool surprise when they opened. A lot of the older heads were over it before they even started. There's always that handful of purist who were never satisfied or could always find something wrong. All in all a pretty good show and certainly a FUN one! If I remember correctly, that's what it's all about!

What a show. The family and a few friends piled in our VW bus from Deer Creek and I took a detour to check out the Serpent Mound in S. Ohio. After a trippy ride through towns like "knockemstiff" ( no lie) we got to the mound and thousands of cicadas had just molted and the place was buzzing. We said our prayers and made it to Buckeye with enough time to hit shakedown, take care of business and frolic in the heat. Just then we hear the sound of the Femmes and its find the gate thyme! - Like a blister in the sun! In Oregon I've seen folks playing piano in the woods at the Oregon Country Fair and I knew I've seen that before...thanks for stirring up the memories folks. Those Cicadas came back 17 years later in 2008...and return in 2025! And the music never stops....

He's Gone++

Favorite part was bumping into the Femmes hanging out in front of the taping area. Just chilling out.

though much of the show is smeared by sloppy garcia guitar and almost unbearably overexuberant weir singing, the wharf rat is incredible. The moment where jerry sings "I know that the life I'm living's no good" is terrifyingly stopped in time.

this show is well played through out. a great rubin and cherise & let it grow and a standout crazy fingers > playin > he's gone. this is probably the best performed version of crazy fingers from 91 and the 2nd best rubin and cherise. the best one is from 4/7/91 in orlando.

I remember the screens fondly from this night.....during the Drums-->outro, the screens featured a sphere on a grid and, as the band wound their way towards the TOO Space, the perspective of the sphere on the grid changed dimensionally in relation to the sound as it was broadcast over the speakers (from front to back and side to side). Truly a multi-sensory multimedia experience....long live the Grateful Dead!

4/7/91 version is the best played. tight all around and NO CHEESY VINCE SYNTH on the outro jam. just jerry's lead and "fanny" chords. This show does however have probably the best late era Crazy Fingers. incredibly well sung by Jerry and harmonies from Vince. Jerry NAILS the solo. decent show.

Great recording. Folks were frying their minds and souls at this one. SERIOUS MELTDOWN. Thanks for those drops Mr. Charlie...

Grate show.Pretty nice sound quality too. I was there and it must have been real close to 100 degrees. Ruben & Charise was the high point for me.

what a dandy! i remember being bummed by the picasso opener, but surprised at how good weir sounded. man, he was really tight that entire summer tour! picasso, minglewood, masterpiece (! - GO BOB) and let it grow all sound great in the first.

jerry's guitar is down in the mix for the first three tunes. i don't think that's just this board mix -- i recall that at the venue too. bob seems aware of this and steps it up a bit (as does bruce), but jerry busts out the midi and comes roaring back for RoR. this was such a great go-to song for jerry in this period.

jerry's vocals are strong throughout the entire show, which was not always the case during this era. this is also the best (and last) reuben they ever did (out of four total). what a treat.

and what a second set! a strong samson, crazy fingers sets up a great playin -> he's gone segment. holy moly! good stuff. i love how the other one drops into wharf rat.

this is really among the top shows of the era. i find it hard to assign five stars to any of these, however, so let's say 4.5

you can download this on bt.etree.org

Can Any one tell me where I can get the download for this show? This seems to only be the streaming version...

awesome venue! expansive with trees and woods on the inside of the venue. Was there in 91' and 92'. This was certainly better than the show here in 92'.
Lots of happy trippy people frolicking about!
many great sounding sources of this out there. Highlights for me were the Femmes, Sugaree(Jerry does some crazy fanning at the end of this tune), Minglewood(Bobby nails the Buckeye fillies parts), the Rubin(shame they couldn't have explored this tune greater than what they did), Let it Grow(played nearly flawlessly), He's Gone(mellow & sublime), Wharf Rat(interesting rendition), Around & Around(rockin' foot stompin'///I remember dancing fiercely towards the end of the tune. Very fun show
great fun at this show ~~ music only 3.5 out 5 stars though. Because of the scene inside the show prior to the Dead coming on.(trippy scene & the Femmes opening) is enough to sway on the side of 4 stars. Certainly not the best show of 91' but I have fond memories of this show and for musical content it blows 92's Buckeye Lake show out of the water.

After being woke up by dirt bikes at 6am at our camp ground Honda Hills we indured a smoking hot day. To our suprise the V.Femmes opened with a ground score of some sniffy It was the perfect band for that find. The Show was rocking thank god for the free water. Rubin & Cherise was hot as well as Sampson. I still get the chills from that he's gone. Buckeye left me with a huge smile and a Bad Sunburn

Both sets are nice. Another great Bruce encounter. liked the R on R in the first set. 2nd set opens with high energy with Sampson. The Other One gets pretty sick. Wharf Rat strutts its stuff and A and A is fun. I really enjoyed this show.

YOU'D KNOW IT'S TRUE! Cherise there's none except for you.

Nambo, you are correct. This show rocked and was trippy to say the least. My resin stained mind does remember the piano dude in the woods. Very surreal scene. Sold Labatts blue on left side of hill in parking lot. I too came down from Buffalo with girlfriend and a very seasoned DeadHead, Tom. Sonic Garden, hell heah. Use to see em at Broadway Joes along with the Crumbs of Insanity. I might know how you were? Did you eber catch the Infediels? They use to play in our big basement on Elmwood Ave. It was out of control.

Back to this show. One of the better Playin's I heard during summer. The Rueben was sweet as was the Sugaree and Let It Grow 1st set.

Wish I could remember a bit more, enough of my ramblings
Download this show and enjoy the Grateful Dead~

wish they would have done "R & Cherise" more often, a gr8 Jerry tune.

wonderfull, tight, lots of energy

worth a listen

Voodoo was right. Naked girls in the woods giving massages on big wooden tables, a guy playing a baby grand piano in the woods, very freaky, very, very hot that day...dosed hard and one hell of a show..With my friends from Buffalo, Kevin from Sonic Garden is the MAN!

real name-- ken from central catholic h.s. grad 1991 - steve , helen, jen , beau mr. georges: just say hi if you see this -- would love to hear from you

Wow, one of the strangest trippy scenes I can recall. It started with gel hits where one of my good friends asked if I wanted one: "sure, I'll take one", Ed replies, " open up,,,,(I comply and stick out my tounge) you'll take two!!! (ed laughs wildly)" Yikes, what a wild ride. Violent Femmes totally freaked me out. When they finished I was going strong. There were topless girls milling around our area. There was also a shirless freaky dude playing what looked like a childs plastic guitar. He was singing some evil sounding tune and licking his guitar every so often. I never wanted the band to come out more than I did at that time. WOW!

Great show, great venue, great friends.....

Good show... Reubin was such a good treat, very impressed. Picasso Moon Opener, well it started the night...we were a few rows from front, very cool, chanting Bruce during song breaks, he liked it. Jerry's hair flying in the wind like a like a sail. Violent femmes, good time...I really had a comedic night , we all did, nothing getting strange, Rueben and Cherise really made the show, ....Long drive home after this one..Peace

Sting opening? I guess that wierder things have happened .... I hope you sampled my open Wok out in the venu ,,, The music was great,Nekid laides too! To Dave .. thanks for the Elictric Kool-Aid... made My show ,,, as it was rainning Mr. Natural all day! Oh yea ,, who turned out the lights ? Have a great one folks ! I got to miricale several folks too hope ya'll had a great show! Now on to Pine Bluff!

My wife and I drove all night from MO to see this show. Needless to say we were pretty tired by the time we got there. I remember Gordon Gano's voice (Violent Femmes) piercing through those speaker stacks prior to the Dead coming on. One of the best He's Gone's I ever heard. I also remember a gorgeous chick walking around topless before the show :)

The definitive R&S (albeit not that many to choose from), a dueling banjos quality "Sugaree" and Jerry "lays on the horn" during Ramble On for a trippy, midiflavored groove. The more I listen to this era the more I realize that Bruce's contributions to the more focused first set tunes was greater than the stretched out jams typical of set 2 where the 'structure' of handing off leads was less prevalant. All that said, great first set punctuated by the aforementioned.

Set 2 has a nice fingers>playin>he's gone trio, weir steps on the into into O1 and the cut intro to Wharf Rat causes a slight downgrade.

It's really 3.5, but I'll round up to 4. Other summer shows worth your time are 6/17 (creme de la creme) 6/20 and 6/22.

Yes, it was the Violent Femmes that opened. I wasn't familier with the band but they didn't appear to be either.

If nothing else, check out the He's Gone. Jerry's soulful moaning and playing along with the melody makes for one of the most sublime He's Gone's I have ever laid ears on. Jerry's rendition of Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" during Space is pretty cool too. Reuben is awesome as well!

Without a doubt. Beautiful version in a great venue. Didn't the Violent Femmes warm up at this one? Those were indeed the days.

I used some stink bate andd HOLY JAHOVA I caught 180 pound catfish show rocked and I cooked catfish all night only me Mr. Alexa knows how to party!!!!!!!!!!!

Awesome sound, but Wharf Rat's intro is butchered for what sake I don't know. I'm guessing to be the start of a 3rd disc, but Wharf Rat-> Around and Knockin do not a fulfilling disc make.
Additionally disc 2 track 7 is 16 seconds of Space before The Other One. What the hell?
I'm sure someone out there can remedy this.

Bob Weir had an amazing sound that summer. His guitar just seemed to scream how I felt. I am so grateful to be able to acquire this show today.

What a great place to see a show. Just the general admission speaks for itself. Seen every show from 91 on. You can always find me front row Jerry. While 91 was not the best Buckeye Lake show of the ages it definitely stands out, the highlights including a nice Sugaree and New Minglewood, with the rare and probably "best ever "Reuben and Cherise" The Samson was a nice kick into set 2.

Easily the best Reuben and Cherise that the boys did. They also did it at Cap Centre 3/17, Nassau 3/27, and Orlando 4/7. Nice Sugaree and Minglewood as well. This is a show where you can obviously hear how Bruce livens up the band. Hornsby is on fire during 1991. Nice year!!

Not necessarily a real standout show (though the Ruben & Cherise was cool), but one that was big fun to attend. After the mad dash for the all-general admission seating (a tsunami of Guatemalan clothes and patchouli if there ever was one), speculation immediately began about a small drum kit, acoustic guitar and bass up on stage in front of the Dead's gear. Eventually, someone came out and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, the Violent Femmes." The Femmes popped out and played a surprise, dynamite 45-minute set that had all of us pogoing along. And just off of stage left stood Bruce, Mickey and his son laughing their asses off for the entire set.