Grateful Dead

That's a good descriptor and this would have been a cool show for said destination. After my morning listen (twice) I found the '75 excerpt from the Bonus Disc to illicit multiple feelings/reactions: this having been only one of very few '75 performances, it must have been a 'WTF' moment when they started playing Blues for Allah - it just sounds SO DIFFERENT than anything they had done before (or ever did after, for that matter). With the Mid-Eastern vibe it seethes with mystery and then it gets into a magnificent meltdown that eventually opens up into the groove of King Solomon's - definitely the highlight in there. It covers a lot of ground in the 31 minutes or so, but again the 'feeling' of this performance is entirely unique.

Good call on the callback here.

Sixtus

back in college days (82-86) i had a tape of 3/23/75

during a visit to Lysergia, i experienced that tape.

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Hey ICECRMCNKD, You were probably referring to the link I posted last year to Woodstock Project’s “Woodstock Complete”. WS Complete is a very cool bit of sonic archeology by a handful of hardworking members. They’ve been unearthing audio from 1969’s 3-day festival since at least the ‘90s. Its skeleton is comprised of official releases beginning with the original WS Soundtrack, WS2 and subsequent official releases by individual artists, plus the 25th & 40th anniversary collections. Then, for any performances/tracks without official releases, audience recordings of varying sound quality have been inserted (sound familiar? SBDs vs AUDs). It doesn’t stop there – stage announcements, TV & radio reports/interviews, pre-festival radio ads, etc., etc. are all part of Woodstock Complete, and yes there’s sometimes an unavoidable discontinuity in sound quality. There are some pretty cool gems preserved in Woodstock Complete which is updated every few years with new (re)discoveries. It’s uncertain how the recent box will affect its future, but the most recent WS Complete ’16 still includes a lot of amazing historic artifacts that dovetail nicely with the WS 50 Box.

The just released WS 50 Box (38CD Woodstock - Back To The Garden: The Definitive 50th Anniversary Archive) that Rhino released this month is a whole ‘nuther animal. Here’s what I’ve gleaned from looking over several shoulders. To begin with, the idea of releasing ALL of the official multi-track stage recordings has heretofore been understood to be an impossible dream. Altho owners of the tapes (Atlantic/Cotillion at the start – now WMG/Rhino) have always owned the multi-tracks, they still need approval from each of the artists (or their reps or executors) to release their individual WS performance. Just one holdout would scuttle any en masse release of the tapes.

Brian Kehew, who remixed every performance for this box (except for the Hendrix set which includes the Kramer mixes), put it this way on Steve Hoffman: “One of the tenets of getting this many parties to agree to a release was the LOW number of complete boxes being made, a very limited number just for the 50th, no more - and NO downloads or streaming rights at all. I'm not privy to their discussions, but as Mr. [Andy] Zax has most-subtly hinted at over and over here: This is not coming out again, in a reduced or easier form. A small team at Rhino fought and fought to keep this on course, as they knew it deserved to happen. It wasn't easy, fun or even rewarding.”

ICECRMCNKD, back to your question about sound quality: Zax, Kehew and the Rhino team have produced noticeably improved sound using technology that was not available even for the 40 anniversary release (Polyphonic Tuning for instance). Andy Zax (again, on Hoffman): “Everything was completely remastered from scratch for 2019. The 2009 box was the best we could do at the time—it suffers from the fact that I was forced to include a number of non-Brian Kehew mixes that I don’t like; that we were unable to include three of the artists; and that I was obliged to use the Fillmore versions of “Sea Of Madness” and “Wooden Ships”. All of the audio has been extensively reworked to my satisfaction since then.”

The Dead’s set is actually pretty good and the Dark Star seems to be a lot better than Jerry remembered. Lovelight’s still a train wreck, but then the Dead was somehow playing while being slowly electrocuted and forgot "when" they were.

I can only wonder whether the team that pulled off this box isn’t (unofficially) OK about their historic, definitive release of ALL Woodstock official stage recordings now being available as a bootleg download for free. Kinda appropriate considering how tickets for the original Woodstock worked out. . .

Perhaps my favorite WRS Prelude. It's a keeper. I used to have that disc in my CD alarm clock back when I was flying coast to coast every week.. waking up at 4:00 am every Monday. It had a soothing way of brining me out of my needed slumber without shock and awe, as in awe shucks it sucks to wake up at 4 am.

It's a classic.

Hope everyone (in the Northern Hemisphere at least) is taking good advantage of the end of summer.. the days are getting shorter and the leaves are starting to turn here in the mountains for the weaker or sickly trees.. a sure sign that summer is short and fall is on its way. Which dovetails nicely into WRS, Darkness falls and seasons change... Did I ever mention I really like top shelf 1974 Grateful Dead? There's something for all seasons.. I think I will play some.

One other tidbit I did not know. I was driving home from a back to school thing last night at 7 when TIGDH came on and Lemieux played parts of 8/21/68 Winterland. Apparently, this whole run was recorded on 1" 8-track tapes.. so the whole run was recorded in multi-track similar to Two From The Vault. I did not know that. Honestly, what I heard (at least initially) was not quite as compelling as 2/14/68 and TFTV (both recorded on 1" 8 Track, and both slack-jawed stunners), but still it was a holy shit moment.. like holy shit these shows have to get the Full-Norman, Plangent treatment and get released.. now.

Not if but when, they have to get released.

Those were the Spinners.....who thought JG was God, and would start to hallucinate after spinning so much. They preferred the concourses so they could congregate and have more room etc, and of course eventually the band started putting speakers out there. Not sure when/where that all started? I think I recall seeing them in the early eighties, but
A) my memory is always suspect, and
B) early on I probably was clueless, and
C) we usually went up front early on so didn’t get out in the halls much..
That is a great question though!

Check your pm..

I thought everyone knew about the Beyond Description bonus disc. The WRS prelude features the best vocals I've heard Bobby sing on this piece. It's from the October '74 Winterland run, but not the version that ended up on the movie soundtrack.

IMHO The Blues For Allah is much better than One From The Vault. The keyboards are stunning. The sound is great - I actually emailed Lemieux a couple of years ago to see if this was a multi-track recording. He said it's not, but it is that good that I couldn't tell.

Showboat features Keith on vocals with Donna; Jerry plays on it. Not a fantastic composition, but an interesting listen to hear Keith sing. He doesn't sound bad at all, augmented by Donna, but I'm thinking it probably demonstrates the limit of his vocal range.

Uncle Gary gave me that one. Everyone should have an Uncle Gary. Friend, mentor, DeadHead, good person.

Oh - what I came on here for - one of my most distinct memories of the 11th from last show in 1995 at the Knickerbocker Arena was all of the twirlers on the concourse. I suppose they were all trippin. At the time I thought it was odd that they we're not inside the doorway of the Arena area to hear the sound better. Yet there they were, hundreds of them around the entire circumference of the concourse of the arena. My question - does anyone know when this behavior started at Grateful Dead concerts? 70s? 80's? 90's? I saw them at JFK in 89, but there was no concourse to speak of that I was anywhere near.

Never knew about the bonus disc,,, I also hauled down my copy of Beyond Description,,, not there :-(

Can anyone out there tighten me up?

Hard to believe 6/17 isn't in the vault,,, my copy sounds pretty damn good.

Interesting discussion regarding this short/sweet 75 show. As soon as I read this I went and dug out my Beyond Description Box and sure enough, there was the bonus disc hiding away unknowingly for how long...a decade? I've popped that sucker in and am chilling to the WRS opener. I don't recall ever having listed to the '75 piece, so now I'm intrigued.

Always a stone to turn over on these boards and find a gem. Thanks All.

Sixtus

P.S. Daverock - check your PM

I never knew it had been released already as part of Beyond Description. I had to look up what Beyond Description was, actually. I hesitated over buying it whenever it came out, and then forgot about it. Had I known about this bonus disc, I might have shelled out. Oh well-saved me some money!

Another interesting thing about the show is that it features both Merl Saunders and Ned Lagin on keyboards, which adds a very different flavour.