Grateful Dead

It gets an A for overall vibe.

I did revisit 4/7, 5/11 and 5/26. First, I always held Rotterdam in the highest regard but giving a relisten to the whole show and man, start to finish it's great. So is 5/26 but unlike Oro I have tried really hard not give this too many listens. When you finally hear that suite in the second set, in it's whole it's more like a symphony than a rock and roll show. Nothing leads, nothing follows it just flows, moody, brawling, reflective, sad and hopefull from minute to minute. 5/7 is another other big favorite. I think I like 5/3 a bit more than a few. I like to listen to 5/4 with 5/3, 5/10 with 5/11, etc. It's hard to discount the final four shows of the tour too.

I also fit in the 85 Red Rocks show the folks at the DaP 47 thread were howling about (8/7/85). A fine little show with some memorable highlights.

I agree with the comments on 73 v 72 also. To me, when they took off in January off, they left behind the smooth continuity of 72. They had a really good show and set structure going and the new Wake and other material they brought into the fold took some time to gain it's footing.
The beginning of the year was rebuilding, where are going to put Let Me Sing Your Blues away and You Ain't Woman Enough for example. A little of this disjointedness continued into '74. Nonetheless, '74 was the polished version of this era and direction of the band with their new Grateful Dead Records material.

Speaking of which.. David Gans played this passage from I think January 73 on the radio a month or two ago. It was a really good performance of King Bee I had never heard before. Supposedly, it was lifted from a practice session. Any guesses to who sang vocals? I was kinda floored by it.

This vinyl was part of the big box "The Story of the Grateful Dead". I almost ordered it, then checked the box and there it was. So if you already have the box,,, UB set on Without a Net.

Nice work OB and Firstshow. What a feat! I am sure you both will need a break. It is quite the box. Not sure if they will ever put another box like this with a full tour.

Go Twins. They are due. They have lost 18 straight playoff games.

5-16-72 Lille: Lively, despite sound issues early on. Again every song played well. Energetic, these guys are durable! Classic Truckin' with Jerry going off on it. The TOO seems advanced for '72, short but completely fully developed. Some of this tour's TOOs rival Dark Stars in this regard. Best yet TOO? It's a contender. Hurts Me Too was stellar.

5-16-72 Luxembourg: Were those first two a sound check? The treatment of Big River I could see as a regular thing but sadly no. Almost starts like the '77 intros to Jack-a-Roe, and Bob gets an interesting part not seen later. Radio broadcast maybe quickened the pace on many 1st set songs? The TOO not nearly up to the level of the other Other Ones. A short and sweet show as I'm finishing the usual NFA> GDTRFB> NFA ending now. How many kinds of radio bandwidths did Europe have back then?

A shout out to Bluecrow who clued us in on some easy to get to petroglyphs in the front yard of his San Juan River, Utah cave up in the hills. A friend of the devil is a friend of mine. Fantastic stuff and an inspiring place for sure. I'm rejuvenated and ready to cruise through the rest of EU72.
Cheers

Good, because I finished the quest on Saturday with a sit down listen to 5/26/72.
Bad, because everything lately is a blur, so the multiple times I hit 5/24 and 5/25 are now also a blur, so I’ll try to remember some of the standouts?
5/24: variety pack = Cold Rain and Snow, Dire Wolf, Only Black Peter, You Win Again, Rocking Pneumonia, and Lovelight. Most were good with Win Again and Hurts Me Too making the album cut!
The second set sequence they do step it up, and I liked the shorter LL, sadly, Pigs last…
I hadn’t heard this show before so I did hit it multiple times, though didn’t get a great listen in…
Generally, by now, they’ve totally melded and though perhaps early on in this show you might catch a slightly passed the peak vibe, but not sure hearing it alone, out of sequence and/or casually listening you’d notice. Still mostly full on magnificent.
Part of my problem deciphering is how much these shows do sound alike, sure their all different and have unique nuances, but after so many in a row, they all sorta roll into one…
5/25/72: this one seemed like it took a bit to build up from good to RJ…, but certainly did!
Of course the second set sequence was superb, and benefited from the tour unique UJB> Warf Rat> DS> Mags variety mix. Other Variety pack songs= Another awkward Promised Land, a sweet Brokedown, the aforementioned UJB and Rat, with unfortunately the last Sitting on top (another farewell to that 60s pyscho style/energy), and a sweet Sing Me Back Home! The Dark Star of course was RJ (have you ever heard a 72 DS that wasn’t lol), and a nice slightly different GDTRFB/One Mo Saturday finale. Sadly Pigs last Good Lovin, perhaps a bit abbreviated due to fatigue, and an unusual only four songs on the night…
5/26/72: some call this the greatest Dead show ever, not sure I’d say that, but it is a beast!
Only did one listen on this one as I’ve had it, gave it a sit down, and honestly, I’m just burned out. Both in general, which unfortunately didn’t help my tour burnout. But I’ve enjoyed every note, and this one didn’t disappoint either!
Not so much variety, and sadly, only 3 helpings of grease, perhaps due to some being repeated at least a couple times here at the end: Promised Land, Dire Wolf, nice Cumberland, Sugaree returns after more regular play early on, same with Loser, and of course THE Dew! Another sweet Sing Me, and another OMG second set sequence that is definitely RJ! It’s all most too much, when some shows, they basically play another small set AFTER these big powerful sequences, but here they do it again, though why they had to repeat Me&My Uncle yet again I’m not sure? They just did it a year before on Skullfuck so why use up so many slots on this tour that might have made room for another, possibly THE version of something different to make it to vinyl?
Anywho, A great show and proper fitting ending to one of the all time greatest tours! They Hit most of the usual suspects of the tour, and even managed to nail some album worthy versions, including that magnificent Dew!
Oh, and how could I not mention the consistently hot PITBs, everyone RJ fo sho…

Well, this was bittersweet. I’m glad I finally went for it even if the timing was poor and I didn’t feel I went as deep as I usually do when hitting a tour. But I did hit every show in order, including a few I hadn’t gotten to yet, though I did miss some of 4/7 and 4/8 which I’m going to do this week, perhaps with a couple other partial rehashes, though I really need to hear some other Dead for a much needed cleanse…
I’ll, prolly think of more insights, but for now I’ll just comment on something I kept thinking of that DR said awhile back about post Pig Dead. After hitting all those amazing but long 73 box shows, then hitting all these amazing but long 72s,
Pigs departure really did affect the flow and energy of those long shows. As awesome as those 73 shows are, they can sometimes be a bit monotonous, so they definitely miss not having those little Pig interludes to break things up, keep things moving, add more variety, and give an occasional energy boost. It also made me think a lot about what if Pig hadn’t checked out? By this point in their trajectory perhaps the overly long repetitive nature of LL and Good Lovin, and the old, overripe straight blues numbers, maybe needed to take a break, but think of all the sweet alternatives they were coming up with that just shown so brightly on this tour: Hurts Me Too, Mr Charlie, China Town, 2 Souls, and some old chestnuts like Lied Cheated and Big Boss Man. And who can forget the few but enjoyable Cautions, a tour highlight for me personally.
You have to wonder what if…what if he was healthy and kept writing and growing as a writer etc?
I think he would have had to have grown as a byproduct of just being in the band and how they kept changing etc.
He may have transitioned from being the main focus, but there probably would have been some monumental new stuff that might even have been better, but alas we’ll never know…
Well, hopefully we didn’t lose ole 1stshow in some unknown rural border jail lol, and he’ll fill us in on his travails.
Until next time, keep it forward, never straight…and get yo self a shotgun and a pocketful of shells ; )

I heard on the YouTube broadcast from the In Groove in Phoenix, AZ that Without A Net is coming to vinyl November 17, 2023 as a Brick n Mortar release.

stMade it to the halfway point, but they started playing 10/18/74 on SiriusXM, so I hit pause. They were out of the gate with a bang. High energy opener with some Healy vocal distortion on Hey Pockey Way. Nice high energy Jack Straw too. I never made it to the Kaiser.. caught news years at the Auditorium, never the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center.

Man, Jerry's tone on that October 74 run, just love it.

I'll hit the second set later this afternoon.

Enjoyed the revisit of 9/18/1987 at MSG Jim. If you ever watch any shows from 1987 you can see Jerry trying to find his form. Looking back I still can't believe how much they toured right after his coma.

Looking at 11/7/1987 Oakland for today if there is any interest out there.

Still think we will get a 91 show released soon. Although the talk is 1988 is coming soon.

In some ways the E72 seems like the last tour that nodded back to the 60's. The Caution jam seems to conjure up the old psychedelic vibe the most. Both Dark Star and The Other One sounded very different from how they had sounded in 1969. An incredible transformation for both songs.
Although they brought back songs from Aoxomoxoa after 1974, they too had lost the psych vibe by then. As had everything else, come to that.

Yes that 5-11 show is my new favorite. That just exactly perfect pace and performances on the 1st set matched with the killer 2nd set does it all. Everyone in fine voice and harmonies as well. I knew it was going to be good when the first song was Playin' and the first song of the second set was Dew. This show alone could have filled the EU72 album all by itself and wouldn't have shorted us one bit.
Cheers