OK, what's going on here?!?! Phil sings this pretty well. Maybe I'm giving him a handicap...I can't even tell. Am I crazy?!
The November Winterland stuff is as good as it gets! Winterland 1973: The Complete Recordings - Wikipedia
I'm only a minute into it, but I agree. This is unusually well sung. EDIT: Like, in the genuinely tuneful sense. I have a very soft spot for this song, such that I can overlook versions with iffy singing (to a point). But this one is really quite lovely.
Finished 1974-06-23 today. Nice Ramble on Rose opener for a change of pace! The only Let it Rock, of course; I dig it, but I admit JGB doing it circa 1990 is much better! I think I oversold the Cumberland last time I did this one; this time I thought it had very hot moments but falls a bit short of the Hall of Fame. To Lay Me Down really hit me hard on the way to work yesterday...I don't know if I'll ever again consistently have the kind of feeling I used to have for the Jerry ballads I've heard ten zillion times now like I did when I was a teenager, but this brought me back to that place, this time. Blessedly so. I teared up. WRS>China Doll...awesome. Not as outstandingly awesome as the WRS from 06-18, but it'll do. The first Seastones is great, with a short, very nice jam in between, and then one of the best Ship of Fools. I took the long way home from work today--as sometimes happens I couldn't tear myself away, and my 40-minute drive took a few hours. As I did last week, I interspersed 1969-02-28 with the 1974, so I started the drive with 1969 TOO>Dark Star, then back to Miami 1974 for DS>US Blues etc. (very hot OMSN! UJB didn't knock me out though), then the rest of the 1969. I have come all the way around on Dark Star: I appreciate the 1969s almost as much as--sometimes as much as--the ones from 1972 now. What Garcia does on the SG is inutterable, and Phil. Listening to this and then the Miami DS back to back it struck me that in 1969 it's really about Jerry and Phil, whereas the 1972-74 DSs are much more a collective effort, particularly an instrumental jam like this one. It's like a bunch of guys with instruments who say "OK, we can do anything we want here--what should we do?" and figuring it out together, whereas in 1969 it's held together more by the structure with Jerry and Phil stepping out around that. What is the key is learning to appreciate that within those confines things happen that are just as interesting and moving--or at least the latter, anyway--as what the later approach yields. Sorry, I'm going to go a little long if I say everything I want to, so I'll try to wrap up. The Alligator>Caution from 1969-02-28 is one of the pinnacles of Western culture, I hope the world never ends so that this won't vanish into the abyss. The Alligator jam between 5 and 7 minutes the duet between Garcia and Lesh is remarkable and leads to the thrilling slide towards Caution (they always seem to be playing Caution for several minutes before they fully commit to it). I cannot think of anything more exciting and fulfilling than this music, and what it became in the next few years fulfilled every bit of its promise...I've said before that they lost something every time they changed, so it's not possible to live without late 60s Dead...and the same goes for the 1980s.
I love the song but generally unless I'm in the middle of a set and it pops up, putting on the studio version once or twice a year is all I need. This was a nice surprise. It just popped up when youtube does that thing where they pop something up on you after something else.
Yeah. Same here. It's not an easy song to play. It's not something that you're going to pull off in a live setting with any regularity. And then factor in Lesh's vocal -- um -- challenges -- well, then you've got somewhat of a rarity in a good live version. It's all good. The studio version is an extremely well-executed piece of music. It serves its purpose perfectly.
Indulge me for a moment, or else skip this entirely, but I feel the need to post a brief comment with a little detail on Alligator Jam>Caution from 1969-02-28....really just a few pointers throughout a particularly exciting passage of music... ...listen particularly to the Garcia/Lesh duet section at about 4:30, and then how Jerry is playing these repetitive lines at 5:45, and then how he's playing sort of gently as he kind of lets it unwind, and then reels it back in to this really repetitive riffing at 5:28, then at 6:32--6:48 hits these double stops/chordal stuff, then unwinds it again until at 6:58 he again starts playing a repeating lick, until at 7:07 Weir finally returns and drops a chord with the first rumblings of "Caution" and the whole thing just takes off from there... after all that, with the whole band back, listen to Jerry play that repetitive (listen to how he uses repetition in general on this jam!) lick at 7:20--7:40, and as he comes out of it he slaps on the bridge pickup--the money shot!!* One of the most exciting moments in musical history! *yes, it's a gross metaphor
I'm listening to Garcia/Saunders play the Weather Report track "Cucumber Slumber." As I brushed up on the original first, I was particularly curious how KHAAAAN!!! would handle the bass part....when I heard it I thought "Wow, he really plays this stuff!" But the first comment on youtube is from "Tony Saunders" who says he's Merl's son, and that he is on bass on this recording (he says KHAAN is off with Brewer and Shipley!). In any case it's interesting to hear Garcia tackle straight up jazz fusion with a band that attacks it in earnest... @ianuaditis posted this yesterday, here's the link again for those who are curious:
I like the bonus discs. :0( Anyway, sounds like some of you guys need to get the Relisten app. Sound quality is what it is, but it’s basically all there. You’re welcome.
My Dad worked in Mamaroneck when I was growing up. Sal's is good, but there are places like that all over the Tri-state. N/W of Norwalk you get cross-pollination with New Haven style, and I'd bey you can even find New England Pizza House pan pizza down in Westchester. (There's a place that does a great version of that in what used to be called East Port Chester and have a CT lifetime. My top place is Glenville Pizza ( still cash only,) right off the last CT exit on the parkway, so a convenient stop for any on the way from New England to the Capitol Theater in PC. It's pretty much impossible to park there, and there's only like 3 tables inside, but it's been there for more than 40 years! I believe i posted it was Tony Saunders in the other thread. He's also playing on that Garcia/Saunders take of All Blues, which I think is 6-4-74, though I'm not somewhere I can check.
There is not consensus on this here, but there is enough of one in Deaddom that it is not rare for them to do otherwise...
13 September 1993- The Philadelphia Spectrum. For some reason this first set, concise with great song choices, has always landed well in my ears. And I love the jam on the final section of Tubular Bells the boys deploy out of Space. Shut you eyes and listen to the color of your mind... Now into Days Between.
Timewasting trivia time. Which versions of Dark Star are these? 1. "Dark Star flashes..." 2."Seasons tatter..." 3. "The transitive diamonds of nhhmm-hmmm..."
9/17/83> Bowie in Oakland> drove after the show up to Grass Valley for a fun filled night and the really interesting Terrapin> Drums> Space! of the next afternoon 9/18. Stayed in the parking area comforted by the Redwoods and coolers full of fresh imports until energized to drive home...
