Your 5 favorite Grateful Dead Europe '72 shows

Jarhundert Halle is just all premo 72 Dead.

Possibly the greatest Other One they played in the long strange Dead history.

 

It really is a perfect show

 

5-25-72 has far too few votes.

Rockin' Pneumonia? Hey Bo Diddley? Top of the World? The most tripped out Dark Star of the tour?

 

I feel pretty lucky to have acquired four of those five at reasonable prices quite recently. My daughter was in college when this stuff came out [I wasn't buying too much music at the time] and I never went back and sought-out any shows until this past year. It's interesting that you pick the April 17th over the April 14th Tivoli shows... I have the earlier one, I like it a lot, and it got more votes in this poll.

Anyway. It's all good stuff.

 

Yes, they are all good shows.
My March 2018 rankings would sort them into "A" shows and "B" shows.
Not too many "B" shows!

Europe '72 "B" List
4/7 London
5/13 Lille

 

There have been some nice surprises for me, especially April 16 – Stakladen, Aarhus University, Denmark. It was such an odd and intimate room, a long and narrow space. Clocking-in at under 3-hours is unusual, it's a relatively concise performance. I wonder if the cafeteria workers were busy in the kitchen during the first set... I hope they pulled-down the shutters.


For me, the shows that were recorded in acoustically rich theaters have an edge over the concrete sheds and convention halls. The Newcastle show (Weir: coldest audience ever) sounds relatively stiff, but it's fun to hear the band trying hard, maybe struggling to focus with lousy on-stage sound.

I wish I'd splurged on the complete box back in the day, but I didn't anticipate becoming a bigger Grateful Dead fan in my dotage.

 

Heads up:
7Digital.com has these concerts available as FLAC downloads for $27.49 each. So before you pull the trigger on an eBay auction for a tidy three-figure sum - pause - inhale - consider...

 

I realized the other day I meant 5-23.

5-25 is pretty good too, the Dark Star still has a spacy Tiger jam, but not those other tunes.

 

Yes! The Aarhus show has gained quite a following here at SHTV over the past several years.

 

I want to thank everyone who voted in this thread and pointed me in the right direction on which shows to acquire. I wouldn't have been confident in my purchases without it... I've now got all of the highest-rated shows in this poll.

I recently got a package of 6 OOP sets on eBay for $230, a good price these days. I got May 11 Rotterdam last year for $40. I had the original Rockin' The Rhein release of April 24 Düsseldorf, and I've downloaded FLAC files from 7 Digital of May 4 Paris, May 7 Bickershaw, and May 26 London.

2. 
April 8 – Wembley Empire Pool, London, England 


3. 
April 11 – Newcastle City Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne, England 

4. April 14 – Tivoli Concert Hall, Copenhagen, Denmark 

5. 
April 16 – Stakladen, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark 

8. April 24 – Rheinhalle, Düsseldorf, West Germany 

9. April 26 – Jahrhundert Halle, Frankfurt, West Germany 


11. 
May 3 – L'Olympia Theatre, Paris, France 


12. 
May 4 – L'Olympia Theatre, Paris, France 


13. 
May 7 – Bickershaw Festival, Wigan, England 


15. 
May 11 – Grote Zaal De Doelen, Rotterdam, Netherlands 


22. 
May 26 – Lyceum Theatre, London, England 


I think that's more than enough for me, although I might spring for this one too...
14. 
May 10 – Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, Netherlands
...it got 20 votes here. The vote count on the remaining ten dates are all in the single-digits or low-teens.

I still have a ways to go before I'll feel like I "know" these shows, but it's been a great exploration so far.

Thanks again.

 

The second set jam from May 10th makes it worth the price of admission!

 

This thread is twisting my melon, man.

But if them's the breaks...

1. Bickerhaw
2. Århus
3. Rheinhalle
4. Jahrhundert
5. the rest?

Best tour ever by anyone. Up with people!

 

On topic then:

 

Always, my friend. I live for being on topic (and I couldn't very well write 'downs with people', now could I?).

I love Oneida, BTW.

 

Bobby's performance in Rotterdam was excellent. I judge a Europe 72 show by Cautions and that one is astounding.

However my hands down favorite show from that tour is Hamburg. That Caution defies description. Pigpen is UNHINGED. His vamp is so free-form it sounds like a dug-in vintage blues freak. He rides a banzai pipeline of delta blues and it is FRIGHTENING. Lesh is assaulting the edges of the beat with so many bass fills and chords and will not let go of the steering wheel what so ever. Garcia doesn't have anywhere to stand with the two of them going completely insane and just colors what's going on. It is an exercise in complete and utter bravery to listen to that version of Caution as I did leaving the July 1989 Die Hard 500 with the hammer down on an old F-150 filled with extremely sunburnt and heavily intoxicated Mississippians. With that version of Caution blasting we made it out of that chaos intact but our synapses were shattered.

I'm glad no one knows about it from the looks of that poll. Hamburg Caution is one of my favorite all time recordings by anyone ever. It's that good.

 

May 11 Rotterdam is excellent. Opening the sets with Playing in the Band and Morning Dew, ending the concert with Uncle John's Band... the concert has a wonderful flow and a rather unique character compared to the rest of the tour.

Has anyone else noticed digital glitches at the end of Disc 2, on Next Time You See Me? Was there a recall/replacement by Rhino? I ended up buying a FLAC download of that one track from 7Digital and burning a CDR. No glitches on the FLAC file, the CDR plays fine.

 

I DL'd a copy of the Munich show, and it hasn't "wowed" me either, although Sing Me Back Home is really beautiful... a richly dynamic performance. They seem to cut the second set short due to "time constraints" - I suspect that they were watching the clock, which is an unwelcome tether on the Grateful Dead. Bill goes into a short drum solo 30-seconds after Morning Dew reaches it's conclusion, the telepathic interplay doesn't seem to be there. They may have started a little late due to the tech problems that are mentioned from the stage at the beginning.

I like Garcia's guitar tone during the first set... it has a rough, bluesy feel.

I'm sure the audience was on Cloud Nine after three-hours of great music. It's sweet being able to compare these concerts 46-years after the fact.

 

Great show (and Dark Star) 46 years ago!

 

4/8. Also has the best Playin’ from E72. Insane show.

 

This was one of the first GD shows I bought. Terrific IMO.

 

Can we also extrapolate people's least favorite shows from this list? If so, and not counting the Beat Club curio, they would seem to be Luxembourg, the Wembley opener, and Munich. Does that seem right, and square with everyone's impression? I agree that opening night is no great shakes, and while I need to relisten to Luxembourg to give a fair assessment, I would stick up for Munich.

 

I disagree about the opener. April 7 is a very fun concert. They played with abandon on this one. It is perhaps a little looser/less tight, but the wild rock n roll vibe (maybe excitement about starting the adventure or a hangover from the Hell's Angels show in NYC?) makes up for it. Plus the 2nd set jam is as good as any other from the tour.

 

I'm only through the Rotterdam show so far, but I'd say that my least favorite so far are: 4/17 and 5/4.

And yet both of those shows have some amazing stuff on them!

 

Interesting. I will have to re-listen to the Wembley shows back-to-back.

 

The Other One>El Paso>Other One on 4/7 is as good as it gets.