Known Grateful Dead Performances
of Louie Louie
Date | Venue | City | Time | Notes |
02/02/69 | Labor Temple | Minneapolis, MN | ?? (short) | "There is a brief Louie Louie tease in the pause following Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" |
09/07/69 | Family Dog at the Great Highway | San Francisco, CA | 3:02 | Grateful Dead with members of Jefferson Airplane |
06/07/70 | Fillmore West | San Francisco, CA | 0:31 | Another "Louie Louie tease" |
04/05/88 | Civic Center | Hartford, CT | 3:58 | First performance of Louie Louie in 18 years |
04/15/88 | Rosemont Horizon | Chicago, IL | 4:07 | |
04/22/88 | Irvine Meadows Amphitheater | Irvine, CA | 5:03 | |
05/01/88 | Frost Amphitheater at Stanford Univ. | Palo Alto, CA | 4:43 | |
09/20/88 | Madison Square Garden | New York, NY | 7:55 | |
04/09/89 | Freedom Hall | Louisville, KY |
Most of this information was originally gathered from http://deadlists.com/
There is a version from a bootleg called "Smokin' Covers vol. 2" on which a version of Louie Louie appears, but I have not been able to verify which, if any, of the above versions it is. Based on the style, it's got to be contemporaneous with the 1988 versions listed above. The track length (4:57) corresponds with the Irvine or Palo Alto versions, but I have the Palo Alto version, and it's not the same. Anybody out there know the answer to this mystery?
There is also a recording of a Brent Mydland solo performance at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, CA on 10 July 1988 in which he sang Louie Louie. Brent was a member of the Grateful Dead from 1979 until his death in 1990, and did the vocals on all the 1988 Grateful Dead performances of Louie Louie listed above.
Finally, there is a recording of Robert Hunter doing a brief version of Louie Louie during a solo performance at the Boarding House in San Francisco, CA on 8 May 1982. A member of the audience yells out "Play Louie Louie or I'll kill ya," and Robert obliges with about 30 seconds of the chorus.
Last Updated
16 July 2005
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