Grateful Dead - Listen to the River Live in St Louis 71-73 Box Set

To me, all shows in the box (though I still haven't heard 10/19/72) are kind of equal. Every one of them has a certain quality and hold its own.
Only 12/9/71 stands out a bit being so short, but I bet I'll be spinning it very often when I am in a mood for dose of raucous, punchy early Keith Dead.

 

It was Grant Green for hours; Alive! from the Cliche Lounge in Newark and the Lighthouse.....70 and 72 appropritely. Serious. Then this>>>>>>>

 

Other than Discs 5-6, all of mine arrived with at least some minor scratches and/or spotting. I’m up to Disc 2 of 10/17/72 in listening to the box (haven’t ripped anything yet) and all play fine so far, but the worst looking discs are yet to come. 3 or 4 look pretty darn bad, the rest not terrible if they’d been In my collection for 10-20 years but disappointing for being brand new. I’m probably going to request replacement discs for most - hopefully this will be a good lesson to the powers that be that good quality control up front will make good sense in the long run. This seems to have increasingly become an issue in the last 2-3 years or so. It sucks that I can no longer have any faith that the discs are going to arrive in decent condition.

 

On a positive note, as expected these shows are musically great. Deep into the 10/17/72 Playing at the moment and it is fantastic.

 

10/29 is my fave 2nd set of the box, which I wasn’t expecting as I generally favour Dark Stars!

 

Ripped the first two shows of the box and will finally get around to listening to the first show while riding around on my mini-tractor and smoking a cigar.

Rant.....who is ripping their CDs in iTunes and appending/postpend/suffixing the song title with the " [Live]" verbiage and then uploading that list?

i.e "Betha [Live]"

Might as well just tag all the studio tunes with the " [Studio]" tag there would be far less of those.

Come on, now I got to edit all those songs and rip that off each song.

 

I find myself frustrated and astonished reading about people receiving a box full of defective discs. I ripped the box set last night and on visual inspection all my discs look as they should- clean and tidy.

Rhino needs to step up their game in regards to disc production and distribution. It's simply unacceptable.

 

Mine get tagged in the following format:

Song (Live at [venue], [month], [day], [year])
Jack Straw (Live at Winterland Arena, December 29, 1977)

 

Am now listening to the 73 Other One night. Black Throated Wind was surprisingly strong in set one. Anorther tasty Eyes. Now on to the main course.

Am I crazy or are there a LOT of audience patches in this box? Like maybe the most ever on a vault release? I might have hoped for some commenting on this in the booklet.

 

that always drives me crazy too (and I use dbpoweramp to rip and download metadata). I understand when this is done on a track that is on a studio album (like lots of bonus tracks on some rereleases). But it never made any sense to add that when the entire album is a live album. I too edit this out of track names.

 

I do that only when there are tracks that are NOT from the main show. For example, if the entire disk is Winterland, 1977-12-29, then I wouldn't add anything to track name (as I would have that date in the ALBUM title, even if a Dave's Pick, or listen to the river, etc, I still add the show date in the ALBUM title). But if, say a Dave's Picks has some bonus tracks from another night, I'll add the info to track name as Freebird does.

 

Perhaps a few more patches than in the past, but the quality is fine, they were done well, and the continuity of my listening experience is undisturbed. YMMV.

 

Some of my discs have a few light scuffs on them but they've all ripped fine. I haven't played all of them yet but I've played the '71 and '72 shows and they've all played fine on the Bose Wave in my office, which will barf quickly if a disk has minor damage.

 

I quite agree.

Respectfully disagree on Dew and Dark star. These versions just have to be up there. There is no single best version anyway, and the pool of top versions can be of a significant size...

 

There are tag editors like Yate that can remove that for all songs, all discs with essentially one button click.

 

Good to know. Thanks.

I’m with @garymc I only tag the additional filler songs on a live release or random live songs on a studio release with any date or venue info. But never a “Live” tag as it’s redundant. To me anyway. We all have our own way to document our song libraries. Just a pet peeve of mine. No harm.

 

Amazon Music lists all Jerry Garcia Band albums with the Artist name: “Jerry Garcia Band Featuring Jerry Garcia”.
Brought to you by the department for redundancy department.

 

yep, for windows, I'm a big mp3tag user for easy tag editing (but sophisticated enough to create "actions" to automate almost anything, including removing (live) from every track in a batch, one click manner. Note that mp3tag is an unfortunate name, as it handles almost any codec (FLAC, WAV, OGG, ALAC, m4a, etc.)

 

If the shoe don't fit, man, then don't wear it and let it go. I'm sure that you're a man of steel and only take umbrage when reasonable to do so when confronted with discs that look like they were handled in the factory by Catwoman. If you're received discs are contenders for the gold medal for gouges then, by all mean, contact Dr Rhino and put in a request for replacements. That doesn't negate the fact that there are more than likely more than a few here who get worked up into a fit of hysterics over the most faint and inconsequential of visual imperfections.

PS:

 

The last disc of the 72 shows from my box had visible scuff marks, but it appeared to rip successfully. I haven't listened to it yet.

 

10/18/1972 time... The first set pretty disappointing, with Keith largely missing in action (mix?) and the band speeding through their standard repertory. Thankfully around "Bird Song" they calm down a bit, solid "Loser" and "Jack Straw" follow, and finally they take off on "China Cat / Rider".

And then starts the second set... Soaring "Playing in the Band", free-improv heavy "Dark Star" that goes through several 'jamming over a theme' segments, finally seguing into a sublime yet powerful "Morning Dew" rendition, which morphs into another subtle improvisation capped with "PitB" revisited. Even though I wouldn't put it at the very top of my 1972 heap, this is a thrilling stuff.

The third disc is short, but it is no jaded conclusion after the successful touchdown. The playing retains the spark, the singing is strong, and suddenly Keith is back on stage too. Where have you been, my friend?

 

Since Keith is mixed prominently throughout the box, I don’t mind having Bob’s guitar being louder than Keith on this one show. It’s the “Bobby” show!

 

This box really got me into Bobby's playing style, such an amazing stuff he is doing on the songs.

 

Hello, Axiom !!!

 

"The Other One" from 10-19-72 gets pretty deep. Fall '72 is still the heavyweight champion, as far as I'm concerned.