Grateful Dead

[WhoTom]

On 3/19/2021 at 11:51 AM, Mr Info said:

Cannot locate the link but interesting side note that a bunch of nuns belonging to the ‘Legion of Mary’ Catholic group mistakenly showed up at a SF show and had a great time.

 

Did they go to Communion at the show? 😉

 

[Turk71]

On 3/26/2021 at 1:15 PM, WhoTom said:

 

Did they go to Communion at the show? 😉

 

They did, but instead of round communion wafers they got these square tabs of paper.

[BringMetheHeadofLeonLett]

On 4/9/2020 at 11:23 AM, The Real Buffalo Joe said:

I know I'm stepping on some toes here, but I'm honestly asking, not just trying to cause trouble. I can’t be the only person that’s tried, multiple times, to get into the Grateful Dead and just can’t. From what I've listened to, they’re just not that great. They come off as a poor man’s Allman Brothers. If there’s something I’m missing, let me know. Their guitar playing is average at best, their singing is atrocious. I consider myself fairly knowledgeable about rock music, especially from that era. I just don’t hear it.

This is a magnificent show, so if this don't do it...

 

 

[WhoTom]

12 hours ago, BringMetheHeadofLeonLett said:

This is a magnificent show, so if this don't do it...

 

 

 

I've been a fan since college and have quite a few live albums and bootlegs in my collection. This thread has turned me on to a few outstanding shows that I'd never heard before, including this one. Thanks!

 

 

[Greg S]

Scarlet-Fire Cornell 77.

 

 

[BringMetheHeadofLeonLett]

1 hour ago, WhoTom said:

 

I've been a fan since college and have quite a few live albums and bootlegs in my collection. This thread has turned me on to a few outstanding shows that I'd never heard before, including this one. Thanks!

 

 

NP!   I love this dusty, dry 'Mexicali Blues' era of shows

[T&C]

Hoover your mouse over the yellow square to the left... never have seen a concert as the reason before lol.

 

https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/traffic

[Logic]

Been steadily trucking through my chronological listen to every available Grateful Dead soundboard recording starting in the beginning of 1972. I'm up to winter '73 now.

It's been fascinating.

First of all, it has allowed me a new appreciation of just how different the Dead sound from era to era. I used to just think of a song or group of songs I wanted to hear and then pick an era of show accordingly. Or I'd just randomly pick a Dick's Picks show and listen to it. It's all the Grateful Dead. "It all rolls into one". Doing it the way I'm doing it now, by honing in on a specific era and going show by show, has already demonstrated, for instance, the differences between even '72 and '73. Heck, it has illustrated the differences between spring and fall of '72! [1972 note: The Bird Songs were so otherworldly, and the one song that I came away loving so, so much that I didn't expect was "Sing Me Back Home", which is just the most perfect and soulful gospel-tinged ballad to bring you in for a safe landing after those mind-melting '72 Dark Stars]

Most of all, it has illustrated to me what I always suspected but can now say with confidence: My favorite Dead era is 72-73. Lots of reasons. One drummer sounds much better to my ears than the "sneakers rolling around in a washing machine" sound (Jerry's words, not mine) that the two drummers often displayed. Keith's playing is much more alert, creative, and beautiful than it would be later in his tenure, and it adds SO MUCH to the overall sound of the band. Jerry is not yet opium addicted and the band has not yet fully fallen into constant cocaine use. Instead, acid is still often the flavor of the night for several of the band members. [I haven't gone through '74 yet, but I do know that the band was heavily into cocaine by that point and was having a lot less fun, so I'm skeptical about liking it as much as the current golden era in which I find myself.]

There is a youthful energy, creativity, alertness, and spark that I sometimes find lacking in later years (even the much ballyhooed '77), when the various members had fallen into their various addictions. The band is still having FUN, they're still on a grand adventure. They're still listening to each other. It's late enough into their existence that they have the skillful jazz improvisation chops and refined playing, but early enough that they're still playing Dark Stars and Other Ones and brain-frying Playin in the Bands.

I'm up to winter '73, which Dick Latvala once cited as the one era that he could spend his whole life in. I can't really disagree with him. If high energy, fun, rockin' Dead is your thing, you've got excellent renditions of Mexicali Blues, the Race is On, China>Rider (with that great "Feelin Groovy" transition that they did in '73 only), They Love Each Other (original, faster tempo), Big River, Bertha, Greatest Story Ever Told. If cosmic jazz jams are your thing, you've got Here Comes Sunshine, Weather Report Suite, Playin' in the Band, Eyes of the World, Dark Star, The Other One. If you like Jerry ballads, there's China Doll, Stella Blue, Row Jimmy, Uncle John's Band...in short, the band is absolutely firing on all cylinders and offers a mix of everything you could possibly want from the Dead. Everyone is happy, healthy, alert, and playing at a high level. The song selection is top notch.

Some great winter '73 shows, you ask? Any of them. Literally any of them. For starters, though, 11/11, 11/25, and 11/30. I'm starting December now, so ask again later.

[gdabillsfan]

54 minutes ago, Logic said:

Been steadily trucking through my chronological listen to every available Grateful Dead soundboard recording starting in the beginning of 1972. I'm up to winter '73 now.

It's been fascinating.

First of all, it has allowed me a new appreciation of just how different the Dead sound from era to era. I used to just think of a song or group of songs I wanted to hear and then pick an era of show accordingly. Or I'd just randomly pick a Dick's Picks show and listen to it. It's all the Grateful Dead. "It all rolls into one". Doing it the way I'm doing it now, by honing in on a specific era and going show by show, has already demonstrated, for instance, the differences between even '72 and '73. Heck, it has illustrated the differences between spring and fall of '72! [1972 note: The Bird Songs were so otherworldly, and the one song that I came away loving so, so much that I didn't expect was "Sing Me Back Home", which is just the most perfect and soulful gospel-tinged ballad to bring you in for a safe landing after those mind-melting '72 Dark Stars]

Most of all, it has illustrated to me what I always suspected but can now say with confidence: My favorite Dead era is 72-73. Lots of reasons. One drummer sounds much better to my ears than the "sneakers rolling around in a washing machine" sound (Jerry's words, not mine) that the two drummers often displayed. Keith's playing is much more alert, creative, and beautiful than it would be later in his tenure, and it adds SO MUCH to the overall sound of the band. Jerry is not yet opium addicted and the band has not yet fully fallen into constant cocaine use. Instead, acid is still often the flavor of the night for several of the band members. [I haven't gone through '74 yet, but I do know that the band was heavily into cocaine by that point and was having a lot less fun, so I'm skeptical about liking it as much as the current golden era in which I find myself.]

There is a youthful energy, creativity, alertness, and spark that I sometimes find lacking in later years (even the much ballyhooed '77), when the various members had fallen into their various addictions. The band is still having FUN, they're still on a grand adventure. They're still listening to each other. It's late enough into their existence that they have the skillful jazz improvisation chops and refined playing, but early enough that they're still playing Dark Stars and Other Ones and brain-frying Playin in the Bands.

I'm up to winter '73, which Dick Latvala once cited as the one era that he could spend his whole life in. I can't really disagree with him. If high energy, fun, rockin' Dead is your thing, you've got excellent renditions of Mexicali Blues, the Race is On, China>Rider (with that great "Feelin Groovy" transition that they did in '73 only), They Love Each Other (original, faster tempo), Big River, Bertha, Greatest Story Ever Told. If cosmic jazz jams are your thing, you've got Here Comes Sunshine, Weather Report Suite, Playin' in the Band, Eyes of the World, Dark Star, The Other One. If you like Jerry ballads, there's China Doll, Stella Blue, Row Jimmy, Uncle John's Band...in short, the band is absolutely firing on all cylinders and offers a mix of everything you could possibly want from the Dead. Everyone is happy, healthy, alert, and playing at a high level. The song selection is top notch.

Some great winter '73 shows, you ask? Any of them. Literally any of them. For starters, though, 11/11, 11/25, and 11/30. I'm starting December now, so ask again later.

You are definitely right about the earlier years shows. I saw them in 77 or 78 at Hollender Stadium in Rochester, although I enjoyed the concert as a whole, they sort of we're out of tune at times.

 

A few years back I did what your doing, going through the shows in some order on the Archive.org, although your analysis is much better than what I took away from it all (I thought the shows were great, they were listened to as background, while I was doing paperwork for my business)

My motivation for doing all this was that my wife brought home a box with about 60 bootleg cassette tapes that someone gave her when she was helping to clean out their dead  husbands old belongings. The quality of the cassettes were horrible

(They surely were not from the soundboards),but they motivated me to listen to the old shows.

 

[Greg S]

 

[Gregg]

34 years ago, today (7/26/90) Brent Mydland passed away.

 

 

[The Poojer]

He was the best, but i will tell you what Jeff Chimenti of the Dead & Co version is up there near Brent's level

 

On 7/26/2024 at 7:46 AM, Gregg said:

34 years ago, today (7/26/90) Brent Mydland passed away.

 

 

[Gregg]

2 minutes ago, The Poojer said:

He was the best, but i will tell you what Jeff Chimenti of the Dead & Co version is up there near Brent's level

 

 

Keith was another one who was great on the keys. Some of the best shows the Dead ever did came from the 1970's.

[The Poojer]

Yeah, let's not kid ourselves, they've had an incredible run of keyboardists, from TC to Keith to Brent to Vince/Hornsby and now Jeff C

 

2 minutes ago, Gregg said:

 

Keith was another one who was great on the keys. Some of the best shows the Dead ever did came from the 1970's.

[Logic]

6 hours ago, The Poojer said:

He was the best, but i will tell you what Jeff Chimenti of the Dead & Co version is up there near Brent's level

 

Fun Fact: Jeff Chimenti has been playing keyboards with Bob Weir (Ratdog, Other Ones, The Dead, Further, Dead and Co, Wolf Bros) for 27 years, which is as long as the combined Grateful Dead keyboard tenures of Pigpen, Keith Godchaux, and Brent Mydland.

Pretty wild to think about.

For what it's worth, I'm a Keith guy myself. His playing from 72-74 pushed the band to its jazziest, most exploratory and interesting heights ever. I appreciate and love what Brent brought to the band, but I'll always be a Keith guy.

Edited July 29 by Logic

[Gregg]

8/9/95. 29 years since Jerry passed away.

 

 

 

[Bill from NYC]

2 hours ago, Gregg said:

8/9/95. 29 years since Jerry passed away.

 

 

 

His music will live on to the next century, that is if the world still exists

On 7/29/2024 at 4:27 PM, Logic said:

Fun Fact: Jeff Chimenti has been playing keyboards with Bob Weir (Ratdog, Other Ones, The Dead, Further, Dead and Co, Wolf Bros) for 27 years, which is as long as the combined Grateful Dead keyboard tenures of Pigpen, Keith Godchaux, and Brent Mydland.

Pretty wild to think about.

For what it's worth, I'm a Keith guy myself. His playing from 72-74 pushed the band to its jazziest, most exploratory and interesting heights ever. I appreciate and love what Brent brought to the band, but I'll always be a Keith guy.

I thought that Pigpen was strictly vocals and harmonica.

[Simon]

25 minutes ago, Bill from NYC said:

 

I thought that Pigpen was strictly vocals and harmonica.

 

He was a legit old school bluesman who could also play the guitar, though he rarely did that with the Dead.

 

[Logic]

41 minutes ago, Bill from NYC said:

 

I thought that Pigpen was strictly vocals and harmonica.

Nope. He played a mean organ. In later years, when his health started failing him and as the band's sound evolved, he played organ less and often played only harmonica and congas.

From 1965 to mid 1968, his organ was a critical piece of the Dead's sound. Here's a great video of the Dead from Monterey Pop in 1967 where you can very clearly hear Pig's playing.
 

 

[The Poojer]