Grateful Dead

I for one welcome this pick. It’s a unique and different show and it fills in another gap in my collection. I enjoy all these 80’s releases and would even love something from the 90’s. Maybe 93 that would be sweet. But come on Dave we seriously need some 1979. I don’t care what show. Just something from 79.

I for one welcome this pick. It’s a unique and different show and it fills in another gap in my collection. I enjoy all these 80’s releases and would even love something from the 90’s. Maybe 93 that would be sweet. But come on Dave we seriously need some 1979. I don’t care what show. Just something from 79.

a 1969-06-21 Fillmore East to close out the year?:o)

Got this Monday and put it on late that night. I liked the first disc enough to stay up way too late listening to the entire show. By the time Baby Blue came on I had a huge smile on my face.My sweet spot is the Godchaux era and that's mostly what I listen to but I enjoyed this show very much. The sound quality seems to vary throughout and it's not among my favorite releases but this is what the Grateful Dead was in 1983 and it's a fun listen. At this point I feel like not every release has to be a grand slam. I have so many big time shows in my collection that I welcome an occasional release like this. Kudos to whomever made the joke about Jerry's voice in Black Peter. MHammond maybe? That's some funny shit. Having said that, i really had a good time listening to disc 3. Now...how about Feline Field '73 to close out the year?

Ain't Bettyboard quality sound, but there was more to the 30 Trips than the Betty period.Jerry ain't his 60s/70s self, but I prefer Brown-Eyed Women at this tempo rather than that slow 70s style. That was the first BEW I have put in my iTunes in many years! Micky hobbles Billy pretty much, but brings his special percussion sauce to some vital moments. If this was my first year of Dave's Picks and I couldn't afford to spend crazy money on the mostly "out of print" GD back-catalog, then this release would be an unhappy event for me. As someone who has pretty much every GDM release since the mid-90s, this DaP is what I want now. I have more great '70s GDM shows than I can actually listen to. I have nearly enough 60s GDM shows... But I don't have enough 80s/90s. (My CharlieMillers/etc cover all the gaps, but there are important things about the released-by-GDM status...) There certainly should continue to be Bettyboard releases for the soundquality-heads and peak period releases for the peakonly-heads, but there is room in the release schedule for telling "the rest of the story" for the GOGD-heads. Thanks again Dave for this DaP. Sorry it bothers some people, but I hope they can tolerate more 80s/90s releases down the road. They should remember when enjoying another 73/74/77 DaP, that Seth Hollander and others are "tolerating" it (except the included "The Other One"/"Dark Star"/"Slipknot!"/"ScarletFire" - I'm LOVING that part).

....good to hear from you. Spot on, as usual.

Ha, I guess I'm also reassessing my "loyalty" as a Dead Head. This Deal barely made it into my top 100. It's easily the worst I have. And when I sort iTunes by song I have 99 versions. Has nothing to do with the audio quality. While it is poor, I can still hear everyone but Weir, and he's inaudible half the time anyway. This is played so fast I expect to hear the chipmunks start singing the vocals, like when you play a 33 1/3 LP at 45 speed. But that tempo might be fine if they were tight, but they're not. It's just this big garbled mess where everyone is playing something different and off time. The rhythm section is in chaos. Space Brother I don't know how you do it, but shit, you definitely like it man, good for you my friend, gooood 4 U. Wang Dang Doodle was nice. Brown Eyed Women, yikes the chorus sounds awful. In fact most of the chorus vocals sound awful, just a bunch of people shouting out of sync and resulting in nothing that sounds like harmony. Jerry slurs through half the vocals. First set among the worst of Dave's Picks. Help and Slipknot! are decent, but vocals are uneven and slurred half the time in Help, so that's a bummer. Franklin's sounds good. I feel tired and pressed by the tempo, but all the other shit I complained about isn't happening too much on this one, but really, that only demonstrates they're not so far gone that they can't manage a two chord song. It hurts to hear them like this. Estimated Prophet oh boy what a travesty, I won't even get into Brent's voice, apparently it's awesome to everyone but me. The sound is getting worse on this one. It's clear as a bell but for some reason I barely recognize what they're playing. Maybe that's the muddle, mix, sorry. Phil's laying down a groove, that's nice, oops, where'd it go. Why doesn't the output of these four musicians make music???? I'm not a musician somebody help me out, is it all in the same key or whatever? I hear four guys playing on this Estimated Prophet outro but it's not making cohesive music like on Crimson White and Indigo. Eyes of the World chorus, okay, now we're sounding good. Dig what Brent's up to on the keys, this has potential!!! WHOA Noooooo!! The patch is at the sometimes the songs that we hear verse???? And I've just been utterly kicked in the balls. That is the story of Dave's Picks 27. Right when you think they've caught the old lightning, bam! Night in the ruts. I get why Dave released it. He's got lobbyists. By rights, this historical snapshot should be relegated to the Download Series, as it doesn't hold up to the quality standard of a Dave's Picks release, either sonically or performance-wise. The DaP series would certainly not have subsisted this long on 27 picks of this caliber, but that's okay for me, because the game is to keep as many people happy as possible, and this will keep the hardcore 80s fans coming back for 2019. Wait, caught the groove on Sunshine Daydream. I better cover my nuts, here it comes. This version of the band never would played their way out of San Francisco if this was the beginning. But this was not their swan song. They still had In The Dark and Mega Dead on the horizon, and they kept it together on the road for 30 uninterrupted years, God bless them.

Haven’t posted in awhile but there’s nothing like an ‘83 Idaho firecracker to ignite my two cents worth on this release. So briefly- Is the recording good? Not really, no. It’s unbalanced, lacks clarity, and sounds like- it was recorded on a cassette, because it was. On the bright side of this sonic experience, this show feels far from the best of what exists in the vault from the first half of Brent’s reign. There is however almost a manic energy to the performance itself that’s exciting at times. So, for me, it’s a worthwhile release, because it’s another snapshot of history, not a modern professional recording. And here we’re given another portrait- this time from Idaho in 83. Do I think people that attended this concert heard it like this? Not by a country mile. To me it’s no small coincidence how highly regarded the Spring of ‘90 tour is, coupled with how well recorded that tour was. The recordings are our map- our snapshot of history. And this recording unfortunately paints a foggy picture at times, whose landmarks are tougher to discern through the somewhat blurred imagery. But it’s a fun night in Idaho, sounding as best as they could make it. So I enjoy it for what it is, and regret how good it could have been.

As someone who listens to a lot of jazz from the 1920's and 1930's, and who came to love the Dead through cassette bootlegs, I've discovered that once the music begins, your ears adjust to the fidelity of the recordings. Issues like hiss or limited dynamic range, for me, fall away quickly. This release, though not from my favorite period (I love '76 shows best) surprised me with the energy and occasional novelties of the performance. There are downright rocking songs and Jerry gives several songs a real workout (looking at you Big RxR and Deal, among others) and some fascinating moments (Bobby's slidework, the sinister Slipknot jam, the fragile & pleading LL Rain, a spanking Minglewood, and the post-Eyes jam into drums as well as Bobby's unusual riffs in the Space portion) It's a show that deserves to be blasting out of your minibus while you're parked on shakedown watching folks spin and dance by.

I think the song you've quoted is by The Plasmatics. I think they chain-sawed a car in half while performing the song?