IWT! Like many 80's and 90's shows this one worked better in person than on tape (Lake Placid even more so). What doesn't translate on tape is that Help > Slipknot! > Franklyn's had just come back into rotation, for many of us it was our first live experience of this blessed trifecta. I was sitting in the stands just off the floor at the far end of the arena, the GA floor being rather intense during the first set, and the eruption when Help On The Way began was great. Then I noticed the interesting phenomena of being pressed into my seat by the music, like the guy in the old Maxell tape ad. Only this was the full Ultrasound PA doing it's thing in a small hockey arena. Sailor > Saint had become droll by this point, but The Other One ripped a hole in the SpaceTime Coninuum. Out of which fell sheets of paper- during The Other One small advertising flyers for a forthcoming book about the GD were dropped on us from the rafters. At first this was discombobulating, then it was simply a distraction, a totally weird. Oh yeah, Let It Grow was phenomenal! "Set and setting." ~ Tim Leary. Light Medicine + GD + small hockey arena in Upstate NY = Bliss! One other memory- on the ride down from Albany, through the lush countryside of NY we listened to 18 June 1974. Such good music!
After the talk yesterday, I started in on Rango Keshavan's AUD of 05/13/83, which was a wise choice. They were definitely on. The first set was pretty solid until it really kicked into gear for the "Bird Song" and "Let it Grow" 1-2 closing punch. It all gets even better in the second set, that "China > Rider" is really hot, even though Bobby is MIA for a good portion of "China". But it's the "Eyes" that has really won me over, particularly that darn near "Space" ambient bit before kicking back to "Drums". I'll finish up "Drums / Space" and the rest of the show on the way home tonight.
Speaking of both Europe '72 and re-do's that aren't likely to happen, I was just listening to The Next Track podcast interview with Jeffrey Norman that was shared here some time ago. His dissatisfaction with how they turned out (due to the rush job) borders on anguish. You can't help but like the guy; he really seems to care. He specifically mentions the lack of piano too. Episode #74 – Jeffrey Norman on Restoring, Mixing, and Mastering the Grateful Dead The Europe '72 discussion starts around 18:20. "It's hard for me to talk about that, I was really unhappy with it." Who knows, maybe in 10 or 20 years they'll release a special remix of certain shows as a high-res download.
For free, for all those who bought the shows, of course (how are we going to prove it, I don't know, but maybe in 20 years we can show our record collection to the ever-watching electronic eye in our houses until a voice coming from an oblong metal plaque gives us the approval to get our digital files, which will be downloaded in our brains etc etc).
Free may be too ambitious but who knows once the machines take over . Maybe for the 50th anniversary they could do a fan poll to pick one show (or a top 3) to issue as a special edition remix. I'd buy it!
The Plangent Process is done at high resolutions, as were Norman's mixes. All of E72 could be sold tomorrow as hi res downloads (current mix) if they wanted to steal our money.
I still say one of these days they'll release the 16 tracks of each tape as downloads and we can all mix them ourselves.
I think doing a high resolution, remixed, remastered anniversary edition in 2022 would make way too much sense. Considering that all but a couple of shows are unavailable in physical format.
I did a quick sample yesterday and it's a great recording. It seems to pick up on everything. I could hear things that I don't usually hear that clear on a AUD recording
One other story I remembered from Binghamton (12 April 1983). The event staff were imbeciles, and were letting us in through one tightly confined set of doors. This led to the typical bleating and mooing as we slowly made our way up the ramp to the doors. Of course the show had started already, and those of us outside were eager to join the party. After finally getting into the venue I beelined to the first entry into the hall from the concourse. I found myself on Phil's side of the stage, dead even with the microphone line at the front of the stage. Just as I popped through into the arena Bobby stepped up to his microphone to deliver this prophetic line: And it's one-in-ten-thousand that comes for the show! Ah! Home Sweet Home! I knew in that moment the Universe had delivered me to exactly where I needed to be, and that it was going to be a fine evening.
The sound quality of the Complete Europe ’72 trunk shows is generally very, very good, but there are indeed various issues and problems — the worst being that Keith Godchaux’s piano is sometimes buried down in the mix. But it’s easy to exaggerate the problems (even if you’re Jeffrey Norman!)... There’s a lot of incredible piano on a bunch of shows across those 22 fantastic shows. And I suspect that, as always, some of the murky piano is the self-effacing shrinking-violet work of Mr. Godchaux himself. Dude was very streaky. It makes sense that a bunch of the overdubs added to the original Europe ’72 triple LP involved pushing Keith to be flashy and flamboyant.
I thought the overdubs only involved vocals. I don't think I've ever read that Keith's piano was overdubbed, until today.
It certainly is on "One More Saturday Night". I can't recall exactly if there were other tracks with dubbed piano though.
