Grateful Dead 5/8/80 Set 2 Analysis & Setlist - Grateful Shows

Episode 8

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Published on:

12th Mar 2026

It's a Wonderful Live | Grateful Dead · Glens Falls Civic Center, Glens Falls, NY · May 8, 1980 | Set 2 · S1E08

🎸 MAY 1980 · GRATEFUL DEAD ·BALTIMORE > MAINE

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📍 YOU ARE HERE: Show 4 of 6

Grateful Dead · Glens Falls Civic Center, NY · May 8, 1980 · Set 2

Previous: Glens Falls Civic Center Set 1

Next:

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🗺 NAVIGATE THIS TOUR

🎯 New to the show? Start at the very beginning!

S1E01 → Baltimore May 4, 1980

📋 Tourbook 1 Index (all 6 shows in order):

Tour Playlist

Grateful Shows covers Grateful Dead touring history - on tour at a time.

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🎸 OFFICIAL SETLIST:

Grateful Dead - Glens Falls Civic Center, Glens Falls, NY, May 8, 1980

Set 2

  1. Uncle John's Band>
  2. Estimated Prophet>
  3. Eyes Of The World>
  4. Drums>
  5. Space>
  6. Truckin'>
  7. Stella Blue>
  8. Around And Around>
  9. Johnny B. Goode

🎵 Encore: U.S. Blues

═══🎙 CONCERT ANALYSIS

The Grateful Dead appear at the Glens Falls Civic Center in Gens Falls New York on May 8, 1980 as they roll through their first complete spring tour of the eighties. Night four of tour on May 8th, one of the most auspicious dates in Grateful Dead history, and in Upstate New York! Set two, night four of tour, and the beginning of a three night Civic Center extravaganza. Glens Falls welcomes back Deadheads for the second time in less than a year for some minor league hockey rink action.

UJB provides the emotional relief necessary after the rather heavy ending. It segues magnificently into Estimated and the show is on the run. The Dead deliver an emphatic Truckin' because they can and the comes Stella. Once again words:

"Jerry kindly propels it for us: simple notes, simple phrasing, and a brief dip into the inevitable choir of angels. Oh, they are among us, urging us to hold on to Garcia’s voice for very long, for it will not remain this way forever.

As his voice deteriorates to the point where newcomers think the band would be better off without that Garcia guy singing, we will also notice our mental acuity fading; things once taken for granted are now a chore best left to the younger generation.

The disconsolate feeling of lassitude that clouds nearly every aspect of our lives is voiced in one of the most devastating, fuzz-laden Stella outro solos Garcia has ever performed. The as-yet-to-be-experienced pain of growing old resonates. A stratospheric emotional high—behold a Stella to remember, a moment that few of us will ever forget."

It's that kind of night. Check it out.═══

📚 LINKS & RESOURCES


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🔗 Navigate The Series

🗺 NAVIGATE THIS TOUR

🎯 New to the show? Start at the very beginning!

S1E01 → Baltimore May 4, 1980

📋 Tourbook 1 Index (all 6 shows in order):

Tour Playlist

Grateful Shows covers Grateful Dead touring history - on tour at a time.


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───────────

🗺 EXPLORE OTHER TOURS

Shall we go - to other tours? Why not. So far here's what we've got:

🎸 Grateful Dead May 1980 East Coast Tour— Complete Playlist:

GRATEFUL DEAD MAY 1980 EAST COAST

Gritty, underrated Grateful Dead. From Baltimore to Maine, heady times in a downtrodden America's election year.

── WATCH THIS SPACE FOR MORE ──────────────

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Grateful Shows
Poetic Meditations on the Grateful Dead...and Life
Grateful Shows is a tour-by-tour deep dive meditative analysis on selected Grateful Dead live concerts.

Each season covers one tour in depth-six shows, fully experienced, with setlist analysis, historical facts, philosophical and fictional rumblings. Companion ebooks go even deeper.

Season 2: March 1986 -The Grateful Dead welcome spring with six shows at two of the East Coast’s most renowned venues: the Hampton Coliseum and the Philadelphia Spectrum. Packed with energy and featuring a number of bust-outs, the tour was unforgettable, including the legendary “Box of Rain” in Hampton. However, a closer look suggests this might not have been either the highlight or the best show of the tour. Make sure to check out all six shows!

🎸 Grateful Dead live history · concert documentation · music history podcast
🗺 One tour at a time · six shows per season · VW bus not included

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J.Y. Pod

J.Y. Pod is the author and narrator of Grateful Shows. Let him guide you into a dreamland blending fact, fiction, and the distilled memories of countless deadheads into the world known as Grateful Shows.