Very little has been released officially from the first show: the excellent "Playing In the Band" included on the soundtrack set, and "Scarlet Begonias", included as a bonus on From The Mars Hotel. The only complete show from that run that I've listened to is 10/18/74, which includes my favorite "Weather Report Suite" ever and a astounding "Seastones">"Dark Star">"Morning Dew". Edit: Gee, I've repeated the word "include" far too much.
Some additional transition nominations: Shakedown->Franklin's Gainesville 11/29/80 Alligator->Drums->Jam->Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad->Cold Rain and Snow 4/29/71 Lovelight->GDTRFB Jahrhunderthalle, Frankfurt 4/26/72 There are a bunch of great ones involving Dark Star ('72 and '73 in particular) and The Other One with El Paso and other cowboy tunes, as well as various others, but none are particularly jumping to the front of my brain over any others. And of course I love the Mountains of the Moon->Dark Star transitions from the Fillmore West '69 Feb/March run.
Seastones and Space isn't my thing, but the space jam out of Seastones before Wharf Rat on this night, 10/16, is freaking awesome. Should've been released, imo.
10/16/74 - Winterland This Eyes is magical. 20 minutes of blissful, chill, jazzy perfection. Wasn't this released on So Many Roads? Or was it one from another night.
Favorite transition DS>Wharf Rat>DS. 2/18/71. Especially the 2nd transition, the perfectly-named Beautiful Jam. The MOTM>DS is way up there, too, especially with J having to switch guitars.
This morning: I have spent my life Seeking all that's still unsung Bent my ear to hear the tune And closed my eyes to see When there were no strings to play You played to me
The one on So Many Roads is from 10/19 (same version as on the movie and soundtrack, but it is from an unedited two-track source while the movie has a section edited out).
10/17/74 - Winterland Listening to the soundboard. There's a good bit of crackle and static issues for the first two or three songs. Hmm. Doesn't matter, this Black Throated Wind is great.
10/17/74 - Winterland Listening to the SBD, there's all kinds of occasional "skips" and glitches. I keep checking my computer to make sure I'm not running too many processes making foobar "slow". I remember hearing about tech issues in regards to these shows - is this recording perhaps one of the victims of which was spoken? It sounds like either a blown speaker or a loose jack that isn't in all the way or something.
Here I go spamming this thread again, but I've gotta ask, is 8/27/72 really as great as it's made out to be? I hear it hyped up like it's the second coming of Christ. I'm going to listen to it after this Winterland run for the first time, but I'm curious what everyone's opinion of it is.
And a killer Bird Song, and a killer China Cat->Rider, and a killer Greatest Story, and a killer Playing In The Band, and a sublime Sing Me Back Home. Among other things. Heavy circulation relatively early on helped spread the word on this one, compared to other shows from this era that are probably its equals or at least close, but there is certainly good reason for the hype.
Yup, that Bird Song I keep hearing about especially. I've been sold for a while, just curious about others' thoughts.
Fall 72 is one of my favorite era's of the band...a Fall 72' boxset (of some sort) is very high on my GD wish list.
At this point in time, I'd prefer a '74 set. '72, for whatever reason, seems a bit over-released to me.
