I preface this ridiculous faux statistic laiden post with.. I love Wolf... Amazing guitar! Hands down it set the pace for great things in both The Grateful Dead, and the guitar world as well...
This also does not take into account any Garcia Band, Jerry & Merl or LOM gigs...
Out of the roughly 2318 known performances with the Grateful Dead Wolf was played roughly 218 times between 1973-1995. Thats about 9.1%...
By contrast Alligator was played roughly 134 times between 71'-73...And the Travis Beans were played roughly 84 times between 75'-78'...
Tiger of course got the most consistent use with roughly 764 gigs between 79'-95'...
We all have our legendary "go-to" gigs that we either love to listen to, talk about, share.. or were actually at, and had our noodles baked. How many of those were shows where Garcia used Wolf?
I have my personal pecking order of shows i always listen to more than others...
9/28/75
2/15/73
6/14/76
5/15/70
1/25/69
4/25/77
10/12/84
9/4/80
2/26/77
7/19/74...
I love anything from the fall of 73' and ALL of 74'! So Wolf totally delivers there...
I also saw my first show in 79' at MSG, Keith & Donna's last tour and Garcia was using Wolf there. So i have a fond and close association of Wolf being the guitar used at my first Dead show.
But what about those legendary shows? The ones that are on everyones lips when they speak of "must listen" to gigs? Any of those with Wolf?
Before you blast or flame me...you should know this is totally to generate some cool analysis of those gigs with Wolf. I love Wolf...and I consider myself pretty hardcore on any and all levels GD or Garcia related...
But is Wolf really that significant?
