I love HYH. I bought the set when it was released in the Fall of 95. Some of my favorite GD music comes from this show. Arguably my favorite version of China - Rider, the band is just so on, listen to the segue as Phil leads them into I Know You Rider. I still haven’t heard a version of China Rider that affects me like this one. Even Jack Straw has a different glow to it. The Other One is indeed a monster, the little jazz jam that opens up near 18+ which sounds a little bit like Clementine is sublime GD music. The Comes a Time to follow is simply beautiful, another fav version, Jerry’s outro solo is perfect. As mentioned previously the cover art is gorgeous. A+ release!
What a Great release ! Love this release from the beginning of CD1 to the ending of CD2. Just blows my mind, how awesome this music is. Cryptical Envelopment, what can I say.
Lol..not many that's for sure. The Europe 72 tour was released in full many years ago. I'd assume you can still buy the complete shows individually through the GD website. That boxset (Complete Europe 72) might be the one piece of music I'd grab if the house was on fire!
Yeah, you can buy the mp3/ALAC/FLAC at nugs.net. It's a shame that they don't keep the CD's in print, though.
You can stream them all on Spotify. I'm on a Europe '72 entire-tour listening run right now. Currently on show #10. Archive . org has very good soundboards of most of them, too (all free).
Al, thanks for setting this up, I've been meaning to revisit all of these releases for a while now, this will help me stay structured. Also looking forward to everyone else's input, really digging what I've read so far The Lovelight > GDTRFB is still one of my favorite GD moments, even after all these years. I still vividly remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard it for the first time. By far my favorite Lovelight.
I like to buy downloads; not a streamer. Sounds like that's the best way for me to get some of the shows from that box.
It helps to have at least one old-fashioned CD player around the house for discs like this. I have a Sony X222ES for said purposes (found at a thrift store).
One of my motivations for doing this is to properly listen to each release on my main stereo. Many haven't had that attention in years, if ever.
Hundred Year Hall - 4/26/72, Jahrhundert Hall, Frankfurt A great show from a great tour. Seriously, this is an outstanding show with every song played with passion. Jerry's guitar playing is inspired but Bill's drumming is equally impressive. Phil Lesh recalled in a 1995 interview, “Billy played like a young god on this tour. I mean, he was everywhere on the drums, and just kickin’ our butts every which way, which is what drummers live to do, you know.” And on this show, you definitely hear and understand Phil's praising of Billy. The show is hot from start to end. This release was cut down to fit on 2 CDs; the show is 4 hours long! This cd was played endlessly by me back when it came out - it blew my mind! HiGH times and good times blasting this one were had. Tremendous release back then. Now go out and try to find the whole show on 4cds.
I bought this one fairly soon after it came out. There's a reason it was the first release out of the gate after Jerry's passing. Consistently great, tight, but exploratory at the same time. The opening Bertha is terrific, probably my favorite pre-hiatus version other than Skull & Roses, the Playing is one of the best of the consistently great Europe '72 tour versions, the Lovelight>brief Caution tease>NFA and GDTRFB at the same time>GDTRFB sequence is smoking and inventive at the same time, an all timer. Truckin' is also another great Europe version, and The Other One (not Cryptical) is deep enough to discover new things every time, and followed by Comes a Time as the cherry on top. I tend to listen to the full show from the trunk more often these days, but it's worth having this for the different mix (Keith a bit higher, guitars perhaps a bit lower, although I've never done an a/b comparison) and because it is a well selected distillation of the best of this show. Anyone of you know whether that's a Footprints jam at around the 18:40 mark in The Other One, or a different bass line from another jazz tune? The first half of the bass riff sounds a bit like Footprints, but I'm not sure about the full riff, only that it's familiar from somewhere else. [Edit: oh yeah, no brainer 5/5 rating. One of the best shows of one of the best tours.]
I would say that Phil is playing a bassline that is similar to "Footprints," but I wouldn't categorize it as a "Footprints jam". It doesn't sound like anyone else is playing "Footprints" and the bassline itself is generic enough that it could easily be a coincidence. EDIT: I'm pretty sure Phil played that bassline fairly often ca. 1972-73 which is probably why it sounds familiar (aside from the resemblance to "Footprints").
Yes, @Archtop has posited that the Footprints jam or, more accurately, bass line, morphed into the Elastic Ping Pong Jam and then Stronger than Dirt on Blues for Allah, and was played in Europe, I think Newcastle 4/11/72 is the first appearance. But I'm not 100% sure the bassline here is the same one. It very well could be, it's just that this time I played some snippets of the versions of Footprints on Miles Smiles and Adam's Apple and noticed the differences. [Edit: and I agree, more of a bass line than a jam.]
The first example I know of (I discovered this in the past year or so, quite a while after my initial findings) starts at 8:06 of the 4/8/72 Dark Star from Steppin' Out. That occurrence at first sounds and feels very much like the segment you are citing at 18:40 of the 4/26/72 TOO (it's in 6 and has a similar fingerboard structure element). The difference is that on 4/8/72, Phil changes the riff around 8:30 to include the b3rd (up the octave), which is a key component in the Footprints riff. I'm not hearing that in the 4/26/72 TOO. But they are clearly related ideas that, at the time, were probably evolving in Phil's mind. In any case, I wouldn't refer to any of these occurrences as a Footprints jam; it's all Phil doing that. Here are some of my updated notes on the whole thing (in the context of the 6/24/73 Dark Star): 6/24/73 – Dark Star That's the Elastic Ping Ping jam that begat KSM/STDOMTT. This is the most fully fleshed out version of the jam that has been officially released, with the resolution to A even showing up in embryonic form at 9:20. The genesis of this jam can be traced back as follows (official releases only): 4/8/72 - Dark Star; at 8:06 (from Steppin' Out), Phil briefly hints at the bass line from Wayne Shorter's Footprints; 4/11/72 - Truckin'; from 15:37-16:45, Phil gives a much more defined exposition of the Footprints bass line; 4/16/72 - Good Lovin'; from 14:48-15:22, Phil unexpectedly tosses in the Footprints bass line in 6 this time (opening the door for multiple meter interpretations of this theme in 5, 6, 7 and 8 as it became first a full band jam, and ultimately KSM/STDOMTT in 7); 11/17/72 (DaP 11) - The Other One; a ping pong jam crops up/in and out from 8:03-8:33 and then at 9:00 and 10:05; 2/26/73 (DiP 28) - Dark Star; another ping pong jam from 10:10-16:14. This one starts out in 5 and Phil switches it to 6 at 11:10; 2/28/73 (DiP 28) - The Other One; yet another ping pong jam from 4:42-6:00. This one is in 5; 6/24/73 (PNW box) - Dark Star; the ping pong jam starts at 6:40 but doesn't take properly, so Phil circles the wagons and starts it again at 6:51. Listen to his line from 7:07-7:20: he's quoting Footprints again, but now it is in the context of a developing composition. Thus, he's developed what we initially heard from April 1972 and his quoting of the Footprints line in what is now a rather developed structure gives a strong hint as to its genesis. There are a handful of other occurrences that have not been officially released, but by late '73, this jam disappeared for a year and a half until resurfacing on 3/23/75 at the SNACK benefit.
HYH was my first experience with Europe '72 and we played the damn thing non-stop for months while skipping class to pull tubes and play coach K basketball on SEGA. I compare every China > Rider to this one and it may be the single release that made me want to learn as much about this band as possible. It is also the release that was on my portable CD players years later on repeat as I studied for the bar exam. I love this release with the fire of a thousand suns.
Another day, another Discogs Order (Hundred Year Hall), all because of this thread...for some reason did not have this one. Will shortly.
Emphasis added. IIRC, Bill says in his book (Deal) that he did NOT (I repeat, NOT) do cocaine on the E '72 tour.
I have not listened to Hundred Year Hall in years - since the Europe 72 box came out. it’s very easy to lament the missing songs, and the rearranged order, however as I have listened to this album twice this past week, I am reminded of what a great job they did curating this condensed version of this (possibly the greatest show from the 1972 European tour). Which is to say I quite enjoyed listening to it, and being only a two disc set allowed me to get two listens in this week quite easily. When it was first released back in 1996, it was absolutely a wonderful companion to Europe 72.
