Grateful Dead

I like the one from 9/15/78 at Egypt. Heard by me on the bonus disc of Rocking The Cradle.

The July 5th '78 Omaha version is no slouch. I haven't really give much thought to my favorite. I think you might have to open up the discussion to Eyes > China Doll and really make it interesting. There's a few Eyes Estimated's that rank too. We could be here all week on this one.

Keithfan, not sure if it's my favorite, but I gotta shout out the filler on Dick's 10 from 12/30/77. Love the jam between the tunes. Garcia builds and builds the tension like some great bird trapped in a tall glass building, slamming against the glass as he flies higher and higher until finally around the 9:50 mark he breaks through. Reminds me of Coltrane in the first act of Love Supreme.

Oh, and the eyes is followed by a nice St. Stephen.

I've been impressed with just about all of the artists' efforts on the Dave's series. They've each applied their own styles to the Grateful Dead mystique. It's interesting to read how some folks favorites make other's 'worst list' and vice versa. I thought it was pretty cool when the artwork for Dave's 18 (Orpheum 7/17/76) continued on the 2016 Bonus CD – together they sort of echo the opened up Skull & Roses cover. And, altho some have them on their 'worst of list', I always kinda liked the painterly, melty, trippy approach Micah Nelson took with Dave's 13-16. Like the music they contain, my favorite cover art is usually on the Dave's I just looked at. . .

Nicely done Copperdomebodhi! Thanks! You inspired me to go back and add a little more Gaussian Blur to my Dave's 38 attempt. The fine linework in Helen's original art (hair, clouds, etc.) look like jagged lightning bolts when you zoom in on the printed separation on the CD cover. Your balance between sharpness and blur is spot on!

Onward.

It's been awhile since I've listened to any 1977, but I've been hitting these May shows from the original box set. Shows seem to sound better when I listen on their anniversary date.

First Estimated => Eyes on this one. I love when those opening chords to Eyes of the World kick in. I'm going with Dick's Picks 18 as my favorite (more for the Estimated Prophet than the Eyes). It was also the first Estimated I ever laid ears on, and the only one I had until they released To Terrapin: Hartford '77. Actually, come to think if it, I first heard it in person at JFK 7/7/89. I'm declaring it National Estimated Eyes day. Who has a favorite Estimated => Eyes?

Billy the Kid it's really funny that you mention the acoustic stuff, because five minutes ago I put on Dick's Picks 8 Uncle John's Band as a prelude to the electric set on an hour-long car ride. The funny part is I've never listened to acoustic Dead before, except for that1980 PBS video. I don't know why. It's one of those deals I guess where I've been catching up on electric Dead for so long that I was just waiting for the right mood to hit me. This is a great Uncle John's Band!

Agree Daverock, the Dead had outstanding album art in the 70s. Tough to pick a favorite there. I guess I would go with Shakedown Street, and Blues for Allah as a second choice.

Coming on here regularly, its hard to forget what a great cover Skull and Roses has. In fact a lot of those album covers were great. I remember they used to stand out when I flipped through record sleeves in shops, back in the early 70s, before I knew who they were.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvTW5s9_Pk. One of my all time favorite shows , thank goodness they still have the recording. 5/15/70, 5/2/70, & 9/20/70 are all killer acoustic sets, hopefully 9/20/70. will be released someday. The box set should be out anytime now, I hope it is something from 1969 or 1970
.

Stumbled upon this on on YouTube. I didn't know this kind of really good footage existed. I've seen a couple of short clips similar to this in various documentaries, but certainly never this. This is from the Download Series:

https://youtu.be/sjzNsjOnX0M

To think they played those awesome shows at the Fillmore East a week after this.

AJS - speaking of Fillmore East, I am a big fan of the Dave's Picks 30 cover art. Very original, and cool that it's the Fillmore East. Definitely one of my preferred covers. 26 is cool too - very relaxing and original as well. I forgot about the bonus disc art the number 26. I like that one a whole lot. There are some really good ones. I forgot about Dave's Picks 6 - that's pretty good for having a skeleton. I kind of dig 17 too, with the Wall of Sound skeltons in coattails (but the Road Trips Wall of Sound cover is better looking to me). Thanks for the info on Colgate, that's a really cool story actually. I'll have to check it out on a map one of these days. My whole extended family is spread out across different areas of New York.

26 is the best for sure.

Top 3 would be: 26, 30 and 23

Bottom 3 would be: 20, 13 and 17

Keithfan - thank you for the kind words. Colgate has a unique affiliation with the number 13. Founded by 13 men, mostly Baptist ministers, who each contributed $1 to fund the college, who then said 13 prayers. The University still celebrates the number 13 today. It just would have been cool if it were DaP13.