I can’t disagree with that, as I’ve been mainly listening to ‘80-81 the past week. After watching the RockPalast 4k remaster, it struck me that the early 80s really are about cocaine and as you listen to everyone embellish or seem bored with their parts, there’s no real psychedelic group mind that most of you 70s guys are into. It’s all ego driven singularities that kinda get that GD dna to click a bit, but it’s different. When you think of ‘78 vs ‘81, it’s amazing to hear how different a band they had become.
I’ve long thought 10/31 needed a full release on CD/DVD both, just because the video of the whole night exists. Whether it’s a great enough show to justify a full release is another story. It’s OK. Watched Dead Ahead again recently, and it wasn’t all that exciting. Love the acoustic sets from those runs, but once you’ve got two or three of those, you’ve likely got it all. If there’s going to be a 1980 release, it should really be Baked Alaska. Or if there’s a Lewiston SBD in the vault now (I don’t think there is?) that would be a must.
The lads went to Essen fer that gig, they done...MOST of them lot... Dabney had enough of The Gratefuls by the late 70s what with the dodgy tunes, yer man on the bloody keys turnin the West Coast lot inta bloody Toto, Dabbers said if he WANTED to listen to bleedin tosser music he’d bloody put ON bleedin tosser music, my sons...the lads at the arms would stare into them ales when yer man got right goin...so yer man skipped Gruggenhalle he done...lad also had a upcomin reservation at the bloody HM Scrubs he done...seems them Thatcher narc bobbies got yer man on some powder charge from the Torquay days the twats done...Dabbers always denied them charges..he’d say “Duff me boy, NEVER put powders up ye snout...it prunes the ole twig n' berries it will"....Uncle Dabbers a solid Mandrax/Whiskey/Lysergic bloke he was...he was workin on smokeable mandrax with Bubbles from what was left of the Glastonbury lot...THAT plot was ended when Bubbles caravan bloody exploded from some well daft chemistry jobber...Nigh, by the 80's most of the bloody music was right bollocks it was....the lads hunkered down at the arms, a right steady soundtrack of "Europe 72" and "Space Ritual" was on loop, my sons...there WAS always good whiskey and Lysergics ta be had in Cornwall that'd put ya right as rain rain as right....might as well ride it out till the end....where else we goin, Lads?
Today I checked out 9/20/70 (Fillmore East). Great show. Highlights includes Uncle John's Band, Deep Elem Blues, Big Railroad Blues, Dark Hollow, Ripple, To Lay Me Down and New Speedway Boogie. This was a fantastic listen. The acoustic set in particlar was really good. The Ripple is almost studio-quality and the Big Railroad Blues might be one of the very best versions. 'Sounding very unique as an acoustic rendition. And speaking of sounding interesting as acoustic, the Truckin' certainly fits that mold as well. Other highlights includes Friend Of The Devil, Rosalie McFall, Not Fade Away and Caution. The electric set was also terrific, but it actually didn't blow me away as much. This is def a show I'll revisit. Can't believe I've slept on this show till now. Earlier in the day I checked out 6/21/89 (Shoreline Ampitheatre). Terrific show. Highlights includes Scarlet Begonia, Hell In A Bucket, Ship Of Fools, Eyes Of The World, Deal, Row Jimmy, Estimated Prophet and Morning Dew. This show's full of hot jamming, and it features Clarence Clemons sitting in as guest. The second set is just bonkers from beggining to end, with an excellent Scarlet to start it and a magnificent Dew, Estimated, Truckin' and Eyes are incredible versions. And it ends with a strong Brokedown Palace. The first set is great as well. The Deal is a good one and the Row Jimmy's one of the best versions. Jerry's in great shape vocally and playing-wise throughout the whole show. As a whole this is a winner. 1989 will always be one of my fave GD-years.
With two different, early excursions into the Elastic Ping Pong jam, one in Dark Star on the 26th from ~10:10-16:14 (starts in 5 then changes to 6 at 11:10 and sort of meanders in and out of it) and the other in TOO on the 28th from ~4:42-6:00 (all in 5).
After the discussion in the thread this week regarding the acoustic set I decided to give the whole a spin today. It’s made for great Sunday listening. I’m really enjoying the electric set, I know it’s (rightfully) not as legendary as the acoustic set but it’s very solid. Adventurous and spritely. This is one of those shows that I know like the back of my hand. It was the first GD show that I ever had video of! It was a god knows how many generations old VHS copy, acquired ca 1995. It some how didn’t have Hideway on it, though it did contain a bit of pre show footage of the crowd inside the venue. We watched this tape all the time in high school and college, it was one of only two videos we had. Halloween 1995 the local pbs affiliate aired Dead Ahead, so we obviously all recorded that. I think those two were it until Downhill From Here came out freshman year of college in 97?
I’ve been neglecting the Dead lately. Two from the Vault August 23 & 24 1968 Vintage Psychedelic Dead You can hear them stretching. First set killer no filler. Pigpen stepping out front first song and smoked everyone. Good Morning Little School Girl Dark Star ( Short) St Stephen The Eleven Death Don’t Have No Mercy Songs played with quicker tempo. Second and Third sets has gems too, New Potatoe Caboose, Dew, Alligator and Turn on your Love Light. I really dig PigPen’s organ playing. Nobody was doing what the Dead was doing at that time. I saw them consecutive weekends in April 1968 and they killed. First night they only did 7 or 8 songs in their two sets. More early Dead please!
Thanks for posting that. I love that solo at 1:08. First a jazzy B minor arpeggio and then a chicken picken minor blues?! Jerry was so eclectic its ridiculous.
Concerning the 1974 Winterland videos This project was an attempt to assemble as much of the available concert footage from the officially released Grateful Dead Movie and the Bonus Footage included with that. Then sync the audio from the officially released soundtrack to the concert footage. Many of the songs in the Movie were cut and edited with various interviews and other documentary footage. Some graphics and a blend of graphics and repeated video were used to fill the areas with no video available. The objective of this project was to make all of the available concert footage into an enjoyable somewhat seamless concert video that will serve as a document for those shows VIDEO files taken off Grateful Dead Movie dvd's using mkvmerge to extract vob files. The movie video files are 16:9, the bonus video files are 4:3 and were left that way. AUDIO Official release soundtrack with the exception of Sugaree, which was not included on the soundtrack, and a few intros and talking. The audio bitrate of the sound track was 1411 Kbps, the audio on the movie is 448 Kbps, a worthy upgrade. The sound is very nice on this project. Sony Vegas was used to create the video and audio files, video exported at 8 Mbps Audio exported as 16 bit flac mkvmerge to combine audio and video and to place chapter markers. setlist Part 1 Sugaree 10-18 China Cat Sunflower 10-17 I Know You Rider 10-17 Scarlet Begonias 10-19 Playin in the Band 10-16 Eyes of the World 10-19 Weather Report Suite 10-18 Part 2 Uncle Johns Band 10-19 Dark Star 10-18 Morning Dew 10-18 Goin Down the Road Feeling Bad 10-18 Weirdness Jam 10-17 The Other One 10-17 Stella Blue 10-17 Truckin 10-19 Sugar Magnolia 10-20 Sunshine Daydream 10-20 Encores Casey Jones 10-17 One More Saturday Night 10-19 US Blues 10-19 Johnny B Goode 10-20
The Grateful Dead movie of course. Ticket to NYE (which had been a PPV) and So Far (not that that is really a full show) also came out before Downhill. And there was a nationwide telecast of NYE '85 on USA cable I think it was.
6/21/89 was aired nationwide as a cable Pay Per View event. I was at the show, but luckily my parents recorded it to VHS for me, and Hideway is on my copy. Fun show, although Bucket rather than Fire was a bit disappointing, and I think Clarence is a better fit with JGB than the Dead (I'd also seeing him join them on 12/31/88). 6/19/89 was the best show of that run, a sleeper '89 favorite of mine.
A friend of mine posted this today... not a new video/recording but I'd never heard it before. Pretty cool.
