Grateful Dead

Day 2 / Europe '72 / April 8, 1972 2nd night at the Wembley Empire Pool. Opens with one of several great Bertha performances of the tour. Jerry throws in some aggressive chord fills throughout that make it one of my favorites. Bertha seldom sounded better. This show has a lot of other standout performances as well. If I had to pick one of every song on the tour, I might grab a few from this night: Cumberland Blues, Deal, Big Railroad Blues, Beat It On Down The Line, and Hurts Me Too; all just super-tight. Nothing wrong with the other songs, just comparing these to other renditions on the tour. First Good Lovin' of the tour, and one of my favorites. Jerry throws in a great stab right at the "Come'on baby" line about a minute ten into the song that always begs to be turned up to 11. It's also one of the short versions (10 min), in case you're making a 4th of July mix and you don't want to impress the relatives with the Refrigerator Repairman story (although he's still going to jump in the saddle and ride). Bobby shines on the jam, and is up in the mix. I loved his sound in the pre-hiatus days. Also notable - Jerry stays on guitar for all of the April performances; by Rotterdam in May, he jumps on the organ for the Good Lovin' Reprise. Personally, I prefer him on guitar - it really gives the main riff a smooth jazzy groove (along with Keith's pie-anner) - for 2 and half minutes at the beginning and end, they sound like the Vince Guaraldi Trio. And of course the Dark Star is in my personal top 10. Great pre-vocal jazzy improv jamming for 12 minutes or so, where you have Jerry delivering those thoughtful, deliberate lead bits like only he can do (I envision him listening to what's going on around him, processing it for a moment, and then responding with these flurries of notes that somehow fill the space immaculately); underneath him you have Keith's piano wanderings providing a tranquil atmosphere like running water, unobtrusive and necessary, yet as effortless and natural to him as breathing (the man speaks piano). Then they get into Space for 10 minutes or so, but they don't go completely off the rails full-bore cacophony mode on this one (which is fine with me); and then comes some of the best melodic improv I've heard in a Dark Star, reminiscent of the core elements in Mind Left Body, Beautiful Jam, and Tighten Up. Before you realize it, they're into Sugar Magnolia and you're rewinding the tape to see if you zoned out or if it really is one of the smoothest transitions they've ever done (hint - it's both). Caution is nice, and they don't play it much on this tour, so enjoy it while you can. andoverdeadhead - thanks for the explanation. I was curious if they had reneged on the 15% off, simply because it wasn't in stock. I didn't have the Aerosmith belt buckle, but I sure had the KISS Destroyer one.

Day 1 / Europe '72 / April 7, 1972 Jimbo, 44 is the magic #. What are your favorites from this one? I like the two "clear cool water"s from Donna on this Greatest Story. Also love The Other One / El Paso / Wharf Rat medley. I ordered a Wembley Empire Pool t-shirt last week :) Anyone else diving into E72 Complete this Spring? I started last week, for fear of falling behind. I'm up to Tivoli 2, the sequel, 4/17......

Thanks for the heads up on the Europe '72 being such a big discount. I had been thinking of picking up for a while and was able to get Europe '72, From The Vault Box and Grateful Dead Movie sound track for less then Europe '72 was originally.

About the discounted E72 sets, the 15% discount ended the Monday after BFRSD weekend and it reverted to full price at that time. So I missed out on the RSD special price but went ahead and ordered one anyway in mid-December and it was not until then that I learned it had gone out-of-stock. So mine was back-ordered for about 2 months until it became available again in early Feb. But I am happy just the same to have finally gotten one of the All Music Editions after reading all the effusive posts for much of the past year or more. By the by, KeithFan, let me join the chorus of those who have congratulated you on scoring one of the steamer trunks. A good call on getting a pristine set of the CDs to go with it, while you could!

Hey, I had that Aerosmith belt buckle too - the one with the font from Toys in the Attic. I'd wear that today if I could find it. Their early work is classic. I wish there was more in the vein of their first 4 albums. Keef is fantastic, though not like the blazing lead players y'all are comparing him to. He lifted an open G slide guitar tuning from Ry Cooder and wisely adapted it to non-slide playing, thus inventing the classic Stones sound heard on so many of their biggest hits. Anyone else playing this way is instantly pegged as an imitator. His most recent solo record is his best work with or without Mick in many many years. The man has deep deep soul, and that can't be measured by "best guitarist" standards.

Just gave another listen to the full E72 box over the past month or two. 22 Monster shows that keep on giving. Lots of Pigpen--lookin' high, lookin low. Greatest tour ever from the greatest band ever? Probably. I'm in for the '78 box-set. Still listen to the Daves Pick 15 (4-22-78) quite a bit and love it. Red Rocks release--bring it! Artwork looks killer. Used to read a few Paul Pope graphic novela (allright comic books basically) awhile back. Still recall one trippy series called "Heavy Liquid." Not sure if Pope is an Iggy Pop/Stooges or Dead fan, but seems safe to assume so. Yeah, great American bands, I'll throw out The Stooges, if they haven't been mentioned. Great and pure protopunk. A little later than the Pranksters Acid Tests for sure but I believe they dosed themselves heavily and often before performing. Music still holds up well. Rush--never listened to them much--but they were huge in the day. Grew up near Boston so Aerosmith were on the turntable as a young kid quite a bit. Had a big brass Aerosmith belt buckle I used to wear back in Junior High thinking I was all that. Bought it at one of those mall smoke shops we used to have. Watch "Geeks and Freaks"on Netflix if ever nostalgic for those times. One season only, but great show. Season (and show) ends with Linda Cardellini (the "Lindsey Weir" character) heading off to follow the Dead on tour. Nice way to wrap up a cancelled show which would launch so many acting careers. Great stuff. Keith Richards gets respect for being part of "Exile on Main Street" alone, aside from technical skills as guitar-playing. Ron Asheton gets mention as a great guitarist--but enough on the Stooges. He used to always rank up there on those old Rolling Stone best guitarists lists. (Lower than Jerry, of course.) Mellow listening to Dylan's "Tempest" tonight before the final workday of the week. Yeahh, I was for UNC. Heartbreaker. Peace.

That's funny, I saw the same dancing silhouettes at the Jethro Tull show many years ago. Yeah, I got into them in '85, so they were past their major creative peak. If 2112 through Moving Pictures were five A+ records, and Signals was an A-, then the rest of that came after were B-, B, and B+ records, with anywhere from 2-4 A songs....if that makes any sense (ok, maybe a couple of C+ records in there, but there were still a few great songs on every LP). Their most recent studio release (Clockwork Angels) was probably the best record they made since Signals; I think if they pared it down to 45 minutes from 60, it could have been an A record. Personally, I don't think they ever should have let Terry Brown go (he was their producer during the golden years). But anyway, when I first got into them, they weren't really playing too much of their great stuff on stage. They smoothed themselves out on synthesizers and all but ran from their past - but they didn't get far, and my worst fear - that I would never hear the classic stuff on stage - never came true. They slowly came full circle, and by last summer, their entire two hour second set didn't contain anything more recent than Moving Pictures. They are the perfect blend of hard and prog rock.

'Course, I'm not the one to say for sure, but having completely worn out my cassette copy of 2112 in high school, I can only imagine that the 2112 in KeithFan's handle refers to the ultimate Canadian power trio. Good lord, but Neil Peart was an amazing drummer and lyrisict. Man, it's been many years since I regularly listened to Rush. ...cue harp music and wavy visuals.... When I was in college, Rush played the StarLake Amphitheater outside of Pittsburgh. Summer solstice. A buddy and I drove over from State College for the show. So there I was, way up on the lawn, floating through the Roll The Bones stuff while waiting for the "real" Rush, when I noticed on the really high wall behind the stage, these huge shadowy dancing silhouettes that were totally in sync with the music and moving in this sort of trancy groovy dance. Being in the state of mind that I was in, I was totally intrigued and mesmerized by said dancing silhouettes, and after pondering on it for some time I concluded that it was some sort of laser light show associated with the band on stage. It didn't really seem like a Rush thing, but I though it was cool nonetheless. Fast forward to the end of the show; my buddy and I are walking through the parking lot, which by then was full of deadheads who, it turns out, were there because Jerry and company would be playing that venue for the next 2 nights (and about which I was completely unaware). Turns out, some of those folks had been grooving to the Rush sound next to the amphitheater wall whilst spotlights cast their shadows high upon the wall, and some were still dancing in the spotlights to the post-concert music blaring over the sound system. Suddenly, I understood why I'd seen dancing silhouettes. Long story short, my buddy and I ended up hanging out with some deadheads in the parking lot, and I remember really digging music that I'd never before given much consideration. Through the foggy haze of memory, I seem to remember a bus coming by and... well, you can probably guess the rest. ~Quod

Never got into Dire Straits other than a few songs here and there. Decided to go see them with friends in the early 90s. Awful. Yup. Awful. Way too loud. Everyone complaining. Sheer nonsense. Got a chance to see Knopfler again on the All the Road Running tour, sadly without Emmylou. Phenomenal. ABB, Stones, etc. Who cares what they all say. Saw them all live. Listen to them rarely anymore. Just go watch Townsend disappear on stage in Germany back in 81 when he knew he was outmatched. Keith, congrats on your purchase. You will never be disappointed. A great price for a timeless tour. Clued my brother in to the offer as well and he picked up a set. Enjoy.

I had to buy a E72 All Music Edition. I already have it, but now that I have the trunk, the temptation to fill it with brand spanking new CDs - more than I can resist. I actually tried buying a backup copy back in Nov or Dec when it was 15% off. You know what came in the mail? 4/7/72 - and only 4/7/72. How I freaked out. Then they said they didn't have it in stock and that it would take awhile to get it from some other warehouse. I guess andoverdeadhead, you had the same experience, as you said you had to wait until February to receive yours. What I don't understand, is why you had to pay $450, since you had ordered it when it was 15% off? BTW there are only two left. I have a feeling there are more somewhere. I've seen these restock on the website before. Keith Richards - one of my favs. Doesn't play lead well enough to ever be mentioned in a "greatest guitar player" conversation. Agree he's in the top ten songwriters, and I would actually promote him to top 5 based on his finesse as a rhythm player and sound innovator (nobody had a tone like him, due to the open G tuning, which he brought to rock 'n roll). Combine that with the massive amount of songs he wrote, and he's got to be weighted closer to top 5 than 10 on some scale.