Grateful Dead

Back to my point about people hearing things differently...

I've played it, not the best not the worse...It'll sit on the shelf with all the others and I doubt I'll pull it down and play it again for quite awhile...one thing it did do though was have me pull out the Santa Fe Downs Matrix shows and give them a spin...fun to hear those again...my '83 collection is a bit sparse after my first external HD crash from some time back...now I do back ups of back up etc...ya pays your money and take your chances after all...

I don't think the recording does the performance justice. The limitations of the mix make it impossible to accurately gauge how good they may have sounded that night. I get the impression Betty did a whole lot more mixing in real time than Dan Healy. Forget the cassette tape source, the show can hardly be mixed worse. The vocals on on a few of the July 1978 shows are not nearly as smooth as May 1977, and that's the same band, same songs, a year apart, recorded by the same person on presumably the same equipment. Sure, the band was a much less consistent band in '78, but the July shows are good performances. Yet to my ears, the background vocal mix on some of that box set is lacking, compared to May '77. My point is that I believe some mixing factor accounts for what I hear as inferior vocals in some sections of July '78, as compared to May '77. Even a non Betty from '77 like 4/29 makes the band sound much worse than they were really playing. We don't know what kind of audio enhancement effects Betty may have used on her mixes to provide us with the final products we have today (except the reverb, and look how different a perspective that gives us on the band). Add the same principal 10 fold to Boise '83, and what's the point of discussing how good or bad the show is? There's no way to tell as far as I'm concerned. For whatever reason, Dan Healy's mix here is so bad it does the band an injustice. Apply a mild harmonization effect to the vocals at the mixing board and maybe there wouldn't be so much distance between each vocalist. Anyway, I'm not saying a better mix would turn this show into a replica of Go To Nassau, but it would improve the performance immensely. For what we do have, I felt like many people posted. The music is so inconsistent as to be a distraction. Parts sounded really strong, but quickly turned me off a moment later. I don't think Brent's voice will ever grow on me. It just sounds so ragged and tired and overbearing.

....well?

....time to drop the volume down to 25. (sad face).

My copy made its first rotation.

....watch each release you play, and play it slow. Just wait until that Deal goes down. Who knows? On 2.24.21, you might just want to bust Boise out. Yeah, there's some dust, but at least the musics clean. 4:50 mark. The boyz huddle up and get their shit together. You know, the Dead were known to play some rock n roll at times.

....not bad. But there are tons better. More vox drops. Stay at the mic Bobby Rockstar! The coda is very nice though. Usually is. Here it comes again. I will admit, it's nice to let off the pedal. I'm a huge fan of the thunder effects Healy gave this song later on in the 80's.

....I've already sung my praises on this version, so I won't bore you.