I'm sure there must be a few more from the later years, I see some people chimed in with 88 and 93 since I started writing last night. There's got to be a couple from 78-80, and I'd bet from 91 also.
My theory is there's got to be at least one or two in one of those jams they did between the last song before drums and drums itself. There are a couple of times where space comes before drums in that era; I'll check my notes, I will usually note that kind of thing, though I wasn't necessarily listening for that specifically. There's almost one in the 1-15-78 playin in the band, but it's not quite all there, Garcia's the only one who builds up the intensity and it returns to more of a Playin' theme rather than going all the way to meltdown mode.
1/15/79 Playing gets pretty frenetic from what I remember, but not sure it gets near a meltdown. The January 79 Dark Stars maybe in the ballpark too.
Gah! I got so caught up in the 4/8/72 omission that I forgot to mention the 3/23/72 Dark Star from 11:30-15:00.
I know I keep going on about my enlightenment, but this was THE single most Dead "awakening" I ever experienced. Skull and Roses> WMD> DP1> THIS. For years I thought it was a complete concert and was stunned when I saw how much more material there was.
It's funny; every time I listen to the 4/8/72 Dark Star, I feel like I've just eaten 50 lbs of ribeye, mashed and an entire field of corn. I rarely make it as far as the Caution, but my oh my, this Caution is mighty. And as monstrous as Phil is, it's Jerry doing most of the heavy lifting. I would expect a 32-melt tournament to require a solid 2-3 months to complete.
11-25-79, at the end of the Other One - ~10:00-12:30 on this track should probably count: www.archive.org/details/gd79-11-25.sbd.miller.25609.sbeok.shnf/gd79-11-25d2t05.shn The Other One second verse ends around 4:25, the rest of the track is in that vein, but spacier, and there are a couple of not-quite-peak meltdown attempts before the end. The actual Other One is pretty intense too.
Just listened to it...it was pretty good...not quite a meltdown. I could add it but I don't know if it really qualifies
That's cool...you made a clip and uploaded it to youtube (just for this?) It sounds great...but not sure if it's really a meltdown.
I feel it is important to point out that the Meltdown Tourney is really oriented to loud, frenzied and chaotic breakdowns of the Space-Time continuum (Tiger Jams and the like). This stands in contrast to melty, gooey dissipations of matter into energy (formless reflections of matter).
Listening to this now.....it's great. Its more like an extended space segment. For 6 minutes or so prior to the Drums segment they really get out there. Not sure if there is a specific meltdown segment. There were lots of "Spaces" that sound like this. It's really damn good don't get me wrong!!!!
Another example of a very good, fun PITB it kind of just melts and flows away into a space segment, prior to going into Drums. Part of the problem is understandably defining what a meltdown is...and doing it in a way that prevents opening up every Space segment out there and space like sounds. A good example of a meltdown, one that will prob go the distance to the final 4 if I have any accuracy in predictions, would be 12/2/73. utter meltdown and then....from the gooey drippings of nucleic acids floating around in mud and grime arises a beautiful Phoenix called the MLB jam.
Good DS, not quite sure if it's an actual meltdown. More of a tuneup. practice for when they go to Europe. not sure it would crack the top 32. We're at 34 or something. I'll post the list shortly.
Speaking 0f the tourney....how are we supposed to rank these? And does someone (or me) post a poll or a PDF bracket or something? How is the competition actually carried out? How were they done in the past?
For help, @bmoregnr can weigh in hopefully. See the Peggy-O tournament format here: Grateful Dead 2018 Peggy-O Funiculi Funicula Four Tournament. Somehow, you need to seed these with four of the obvious standouts as a #1 in each quadrant of the bracket (1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, etc.) - as to what goes where, we could spend more time debating that than the tournament will take. Criterion for participants is simple: which one do you like better? For example, the 12/28/91 Peggy-O won't likely appear in the annals of history to be one of the best versions of this chestnut, but Phil offered up this delicious slice of masterclass in bass playing that propelled it to an unexpectedly deep cup run in 2018.
Also I know there’s been talk in the past about limiting the next tournament to 16 to make it more manageable and attract a larger group of participants. Not sure if the meltdown segments being relatively short would change people’s thoughts on that.
I don't really maintain a list per se. Everytime someone mentions Veneta DS as the best ever....I listen to it. And I just don't understand why. There are probably 10 versions in 1972 alone that I think are better. The sound quality is pristine which helps in the argument...but I consider 8/27/72 just basically one long extended exploratory jam with little innovative stuff save for a nice Tiger at the end Off the top of my head...the DS that I go to to make me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside are, in no particular order 11/11/73 12/6/73 9/21/72 (sometimes I just skip to the final 7 minutes and listen over and over - it's just a glorious day when I hear this) 10/31/71 5/11/72 2/18/71 (the second part...duh...it made Phil cry and makes me cry too) these are the ones I know quite well in my head. There are others I really enjoy but don't know them as well 11/13/72 3/28/73 4/8/72 10/18/72 8/24/72