And the last pre-retirement St Stephen, and the extended GDTRFB outro only done twice, I think (I know they did on 4/8/71 in Boston, not sure about any other times).
It is fantastic, but I'll take this opportunity to state that, thanks I believe to @Paperback Writer, what is colloquially known as the Tighten Up jam is more properly the Soulful Strut jam. The evidence is substantial and compelling.
Good call. That 3 set beauty from Winterland requires the proper mood and your undivided attention. The Bertha is so chill you'll be frozen to your seat!
There's something about this release that I immediately connected with. I used to like playing it late and loud (the fierce nature lends itself well to such situations) and years later I still love it.
8/17/91 – Mountainview, CA ***** (Absolutely incredible show) A very nice Help>Slip>Frank opens the show. OUCH – THAT FEEDBACK, YO! Cover your ears!!!! Thankfully it doesn't disturb the guys. Jerry's in good voice and able to maneuver his fretboard tonight! Slipknot gets HOT! You know it's a good sign when Jerry breaks out the MIDI. The rest of the band falls in behind him and we get some fantastic jamming until the sunshine returns and Franklin begins. Franklin's is just extremely uplifting tonight – noticeable so. As I'm typing this my feet are “drumming” along on their own as they are wont to do when a great version comes on. Jerry is carefully picking his lines, quietly choosing the notes instead of pouring them out. Bruce is raining piano down from the heavens when Jerry decides to pick it up a notch and up his soloing energy. Awesome Franklin's!!! After this orgy of awesome comes to an end, the guys almost immediately launch into a smoky Wang Dang Doodle. Slower and heavier than usual, this is one of those “bar band” versions. Killer. After this smokin' Wang Dang, it's on to a perfect BE Women. Check out Bruce's insane piano solo! Long and beautiful, he is basically shredding on the ivories!!! Jerry follows it up with a very nice but understated solo before returning to the next verse. Queen Jane makes her royal appearance in the Dylan slot tonight. The music is excellent as usual, Hornsby's piano really adding to it (yes, I love Bruce. Deal with it!) Bobby's vocals are impassioned, if a tad strained in places. To top it all off, Bruce takes a kickass accordion solo at the end. After T Jed, a kickass TMNS brings the first set to a close. Excellence!!! Jerry goes NUTS and the build-up section at the end is just BONKERS!!!! Woohoo! What a way to end a set! An excellent Man Smart opens set two. Jerry is playing even better than in set 1 and the guys are just full on raging. This is one of the most powerful Man Smart's I have ever heard. The crowd is going NUTS! Too bad all that momentum is immediately killed off by sighting of the Ship Of Fools. At least it's gorgeous-as-all-hell! For real, it's incredibly great tonight! The guys feel like keeping a low profile and follow up Ship with a rare Smokestack Lightning. Finally, Vince gets a chance to shine and he delivers some scorching organ soloing before Bobby and Jerry take the reigns. I don't usually prefer this kind of second set, but this Smokestack is just simmering, right on the edge of boilingly hot. Just as the jamming is about to tip over the top of the pot, He's Gone blows the bubbles back down and we have some more time to keep going. Wicked cool. He's Gone is ridiculously fantastical tonight. Just a pure 10/10 version. It is PERFECTION ENCAPSULATED. This is like 3/21/90 on steroids! It's 18 minutes long and goes into a freaking AWESOME uptempo jam for almost 10 minutes of that! The guys are drinking the X-Factor Koolaid tonight!!! This jamming eventually leaves He's Gone far behind in the dust and moves towards more free-form playing. After Drums and Space, we get a short Dark Star tease. And how perfect that we should segue from Star straight into a mammoth Morning Dew?! ABSOLUTELY MIND EXPLODING DEW HOLY HELL YOU GUYSAfter reaching the HEAVENS with that off-the-freaking-chain Dew, since you can't top that you might as well just end with OMSN and Baby Blue. Guys, I need you to hold me up. That Smokestack>He's Gone and Morning Dew have fried my synapses.
Wow, now that I'm up to 8/17/91, It's been 123 consecutive shows since I began 1990 last February. 13 months and almost two full years listened to, nevermind the other probably 200 random shows I've heard in that time.
That is DEADication. Pssst, I would stop after the 4 night run you're coming up on in Oakland for Halloween. lol
First disc/First Set from Dave's 12: 11/4/77 High energy and perfectly played stuff. Wolf is alive. Let it Grow is a perfect vehicle for the 77 sound. Love that they give us most of the rest of 11/2/77 to augment what was on Dick's 34
3/16/90 II Scarlet > Estimated > Ship of Fools > Man Smart Woman Smarter > jam/drums > Other One > Stella Blue > Sugar Magnolia
The Peggy-O from 12/17/78, Fox Theatre won't win any awards for sound quality nor intensity, but Jerry pretty much nails all of it; really sweet. I'd link to the Relisten version but those links are so wonky. Just go to Relisten/Grateful Dead, look for the date and choose the best-ranked option. Edit: Great googly moogly, the 3/18/77 Winterland Peggy-O is brilliant.
Ahhh, didn't realize this gem is available for all to see. That magical Dew starts around 1:27:20 It's a cool eerie way it's filmed. It's dark and Jerry is a silhouette, but it brightens during his solo's. The second solo starts off with Jerry retreating into the dark, comes out to hit a foot pedal, then looks over to the rest of the band with a look that says..."get ready, this sht is about to get real" Then is bathed in the right amount of light and the rest is history. It's amazing that this was caught in all it's glory. The person who recorded this captures the essence of what went down! As Kenny Banya use to say "Gold Jerry! Gold!" Set 1 Hell In A Bucket Sugaree Walkin' Blues Candyman When I Paint My Masterpiece Bird Song Set 2 Shakedown Street Terrapin Station Space Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad All Along The Watchtower Morning Dew Good Lovin' La Bamba Good Lovin' Knockin' On Heaven's Door A Brokedown House Production
Has anyone ever seen the movie PCU, - there's a character who's writing his thesis on the premise that there's a Gene Hackman or Micheal Caine movie on TV at any given hour, 24 hours a day, and then at the end of the film he sees 'a Bridge too Far,' which stars Caine and Hackman, and he flips out? "This is my thesis man, this is my closing argument!" That's how I feel about this Bickershaw festival Dark Star>Other One>(Space>Dark Star)>Other One>etc. that's on Europe 72 Vol II. In '72 'Dark Star' and 'the Other One' each became the antithesis of the other, often the antithesis containing the other. From the start of the European tour straight through September, there was only 1 show in a run of 50 that didn't feature either/or. One show that didn't (7-22,) and only one that had both. This one! (over the following 47 shows, which runs through Fall and Winter of '72 and into the Spring tour of '73 that culminated in the show featured on Dave's most recent pick, there were 13 without either 'Dark Star' or 'the Other One,' mostly in late '72, which seems counter-intuitive given the emergence of 'Eyes of the World' with its built in jam segment. I haven't heard many of those late '72 shows without the one or the other, but judging by the setlist, there are either some spacy jams in odd spots, or no spacy jams on those dates.) I guess my next mission is to look at '71, and see how 'the Other One' became 'Dark Star,' but for now it's nice to listen to the dragon eating its own tail. After the 'Spanish Lady' verse, the proceedings devolve into a lengthy space jam, until around 25:00, they seem to come back in with Dark Star, and then around 26:50 both Jerry and Phil start a very purposeful turn back into the Other One for verse 2.
I just loaded this up at the 13-minute mark and set the controls for the heart of The Sun. Thanks Dr. Archtop - you've cured my ills!
The faster you go, the Rounder you get, The faster you go, the Rounder you get, The faster you go, the Rounder you get, In the 4th Dimension!
After I'm done with my Indonesian week, which should be in a hour or so, the 9/19/70 Dark Star will segue me from World music to Outer Planetary music.
A friends son bought a used car recently with a "Weir Everywhere" sticker attached. They were clueless till I filled them in. They left it on, - I get a kick out of it whenever I pass their driveway !