DeadBase Search Manual
I have set the search up in a 3-pane window. The panes (all resizeable) are as follows: Search, Results, Setlist. Future versions may use separate windows instead.
I have tried to balance ease of use with facilitating as many different types of searches as possible. In the present incarnation you can perform complex searches, such as all shows from 1970 through July 4th, 1992 played on a Friday or Saturday at which they played Other One, but not Truckin.
Comments are most welcome. They can be emailed to me at john@deadbase.com, or posted to the DeadBase Bulletin Board.
Date - The date search has been changed (improved, I hope) as of May 20th, 2002. There were many complaints that the "YYYY-MM-DD" format was confusing, and a couple suggestions that it would be nice to be able to search on certain calendar days. I believe the 1.1 update adresses both issues. You can now easily find all shows they performed on your birthday (just leave the year blank), or every March gig played in California (leave the day and the year fields blank).
Day of Week - search for shows played according to the night of the week. Thus it is possible to search for all versions of Samson not played on Sunday night.
Venue - venues may be searched in several different modes:
  Full Venue the full venue field as it would appear in the Setlist section of DeadBase.
Venue the name of the venue only, as it would appear in the Places Played section of DeadBase (egs. "Madison Square Garden," "Greek").
City the city; this mode can be useful for finding venues whose names have changed
State the state has been fully spelled out in this mode (eg. Colorado). Note that the state is abbreviated in the Full Venue (eg. Co.).
Setlist - search for songs, or sequences of songs as they appear in DeadBase.
  eg. 1 (Setlist contains Estimated> Terrapin)
eg. 2 (Setlist contains Scarlet) AND (Setlist does not contain Fire)
Comment - this field can be searched for any information found in the DeadBase comments, including shows with special guests, benefits, song revivals, etc..
  special guests ["with Bruce Hornsby"] note that you can search for "with " to find shows with any special guest, but you will also retrieve other shows such as "'Built To Last' with no vocals."
  firsts search for song debuts by entering [first "The Weight"] - note: you
  revivals search for songs revived after significant lapses [last "Saint"]
  final versions search for the last time the Grateful Dead performed a song [final "Gimme Some Lovin"]
Ranking - the rankings of shows the Feedback section of DeadBase X. Tape Raniking - up to twenty favorite tapes; Year Ranking - 3 best shows from each year.