Grateful Dead live, Dick's Picks etc - S&D

Thank You

Does this new version sound better:
Europe '72 Remastered with bonus tracks?

And LS, Europe 72 sounds better (though the original still sounds fine to me) and the bonus tracks are worth it.

YOU DON'T HAVE TO SPEND MONEY ON GREAT LIVE DEAD RECORDINGS. Archive.org and Furthur both have plenty of 1st rate SOUNDBOARD and other high quality recordings.

Download these for starters FOR FREE:

1977-05-08 - "one of the best" (5/7 and 5/9 were good, too)

1972-05-26 - soundboard

1977-05-26 - (same month/day as above, but different year)

1977-11-06 - "one of he best"

1970-05-02 - Harpur College (hard to find, but available as a Dick's Pick if you can't find it as a free download)

1971-04-28(?) - Fillmore East

1971 - Port Chester

1969 - Ark

1973 - Pavillion

1978 - Red Rocks

1973-11-11

1972-05-26

1968-02-14

1969-03-16

1970-02-13

1970-05-06

1981-02-21

1985-04-08

Lots of these are available as soundboard (SBD), just look for it. The Soundboards from 77 were especially high quality.

Sorry the dates are not in chronological order, but I started out doing it highest quality first and then I just went through my discs and chose the best for sound quality and performance. The above represent a good many hours of great live Dead: flub-free, energetic and good singing.

... and YES, I did learn all about bold punctuation from comic books!

As far as paying $$...

I think "Go To Nassau" is just FANTASTIC! "Live Without A Net" is way overlooked, too, although I can see why people wouldn't like it. It grows on you, though.

1977-06-09 - soundboard
1977-02-26 - soundboard
1977-04-22 - soundboard
1969-02-22 - soundboard

all totally killer quality top notch, but I'm not familiar enough to tell apart the 77's yet. I think 06-09 is the one that really is blowing me away lately.

'77 - '78
'72
'69 - '70
'74

I like the warmer, funkier mid-70s stuff more than the turn of the '70s acid, I guess. Curious if there is anything in the '80s that might interest me. Downloaded a couple of supposedly great shows from '79 and Jerry was already sounding pretty rough.

It's incredible: early Dead at their greaser/psychedelic-Tex-Mex best. The fidelity is insane too, it's like these cuts were recorded yesterday. It sounds way better than even the stuff on that Birth of the Dead comp. so crazy. There's a slowed down version of "Cream Puff War" on here that's great, a studio "Standing on the Corner", a version of "Stealin" that has an arrangement that's totally cooler than the one from the 1st single!!!!! I am not shitting you! this version of "Stealin'" is just tough ... it's just incredible. Any 1st album fan (and if you're *not* a first album fan yer nuts, get outta my face) needs to get this at once..

Two From the Vault (1968) - really good

Grateful Dead Download Series Number 6 (also 1968)- also very good

but Dick's Pick's 12 (1974) - which is a favourite of Suzy Creamcheese, I think , from another thread - is a soft ultra-noodley show.

Which were the more harder jamming/ rocking years?

in his autobiog Phil Lesh sez that 74 (the 'wall of sound' era) was the Dead's finest year musically, and i sorta agree w/ him - personally i like the noodle-jazz stuff they got into round about 72-74, def. post-Bitches Brew rock music (and they cld still get pretty intense when they wanted to - just a diff. sound/emphasis). garcia certainly swapped gtrs round abt 70 and that seemed to make a major diff. to his playing

I'm looking for the best recording of Dark Star - other than Live/Dead (which is just incredible). Is there another recording that is nearly as awesome, yet different?

Is the Greyfold 1-hour remix any good?

And I don't know, '73 Dark Stars are my favorite ('73 was my favorite year). There is a capital Dark Star from one of these '73 DPs ... Dick's Picks Volume 19, maybe? '73 was a great year for Playings and Eyes, both of which are represented well on this DPs.

I bought one but I'm keeping it in shrink-wrapped mint condition as an investment for the time being.

Has anyone heard Three From the Vault yet? I'm definitely going to pick this one up.

RELEASE 8/27/72 SBD WTF
35 YEARS SOONE HOMMIE

lots on webarchive.org, tho i think i've got several (on ancient cassette, so mebbe time for refreshments)

Ugh, that's a sore spot, dow. Archive.org used to have about 1,000 soundboards up; thanks to Bobby, Archive took them down a few years ago.

I haven't been keeping up w/ the Dick's Picks for the past few years, but no doubt they've probably released some good ones. Don't have the patience right now to rank all of the DPs, but off the top of my head I love DP 12 (Boston '74).

Jesus Christ "He's Gone" on Europe '72 is so, so solid & great

Yeah, it's incredible. If you can get this bootleg from later that summer, 8/27/72, in Oregon (after Pigpen really is gone), not only is the "He's Gone" ever better, there's a ridiculously great cover of "Sing Me Back Home"---it's also on the So Many Roads box set, but the whole show is that great.

"He's Gone" is originally about their tour manager that swindled them, Mickey Hart's dad. (/grateful dead pedant>

Hence, "steal your face right off your head..."

So what's up with this new series? This seem worthwhile?

Here's the deal: We all loved the Dicks Picks series. Over the course of 36 amazing releases between 1993 and 2005, GD archivists Dick Latvala (R.I.P.) and David Lemieux continually blew our little minds plucking one righteous show after another from the vaults

With Road Trips we're going to try something a little different. We want to plug in a few more pieces of the Grateful Dead puzzle by putting the spotlight on different tours and series of shows that have been neglected through the years. Take Road Trips Volume 1, Number 1, for instance. This two-disc set (plus a special Bonus Disc for a limited time only) was culled from the Dead's blazing fall 1979 East Coast swing, when the band was just hitting its stride with new keyboardist Brent Mydland. You'll find killer versions of "Dancing in the Street" > "Franklin's Tower," long exploratory jams on "Playing in the Band" and "Terrapin," a rattle-your-brain "Shakedown," and lots more, all pulled from the master tapes in the vault and expertly mastered in HDCD for maximum power and clarity by Jeffrey Norman. The Bonus Disc offers another hour-and-a-quarter of highlights from the tour.

Also, every Road Trips release will come with a beautifully designed booklet containing an essay about how the music on the discs fits into the Dead's long history, plus many rare and never-before-seen photographs.

We think you'll agree it's a pretty cool package.

Is this the first big release post-archive-org-zapping of all GD SBDs?

Should be just as great as the DPs, although it's tough not to want complete shows; but, <i>Europe '72</i> is their best live album in a lot of ways, so who knows. It's a shame that they don't have the same over-dubbing options that they had for Euro '72.

Awful press release fwiw.

Has anyone heard the 73 Winterland recordings? I could get a reasonably inexpensive copy of the complete box and am very tempted. Been listening to a lot of live Dead lately (with the few discs I have).

This says it's good: http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wxfixzujldde~T1

But I very much empathise with this statement:

Donna Godchaux. Oh dear, oh dear.
― James Ball (James Ball), Tuesday, 1 July 2003 18:14 (6 years ago) Bookmark

Been really appreciating Live 72 lately. Especially disc 2, from the point when Truckin' melts into "Epilogue" and "Prelude", finished off with a lovely "Morning Dew".

There was a time in highschool when I memorized Sunrise (a Donna singing song) off of Terrapin Station. I think I just wanted to teach myself how to sing.

I've never heard Terrapin Station. I thought it best to stop at Blues for Allah as far as the studio albums are concerned...

hmm too this day the only Grateful Dead albums I have ever purchased are (chronologically) Workingman's Dead, American Beauty, Skeletetons from the Closet (their first greatest hits), Blues For Allah, Terrapin Station, Dead Set (I prefer the slow version of Friend of the Devil on this cd), and Dylan and The Dead (real mediocre if I remember correctly). I might own Aoxomoxoa as well.

The first time I heard the dead was when some guy at my highschool let me hear his walkman during class. I was surprised.. it was really the first time anyone had ever suggested 'soft' music. I was expecting something much harder (I had no clue who the grateful dead were).

I don't think I could ever collect live recordings and try to find the best version of dead songs (too much work).
I do have The American Book of the Dead: The Definitive Grateful Dead Encyclopedia which has a little write up for every song and recommended concert performances of each song... but I can't help but want a second opinion -who's to say which performance was the best? Seriously who. I mean, you would have to take 200 hardcore deadheads who have collected everything and have them vote or something.

New to me, the "Dark Star" from 2/21/69 at the Dream Bowl. Really liking this version a lot, feels like one of the earliest versions where it feels like the entire band is locked into the improv.

Thanks, Jon!

https://archive.org/details/gd69-02-21.sbd.owen.7859.sbeok.shnf/gd69-02-21d1t03.shn

Not the longest version, but nonetheless an epic, prismatic one.

Thanks for this. I needed a good Dark Star>St. Stephen>The Eleven to lift my spirits. That last one is just so joyous to me.

Listening to without a net, was wondering who the smokin trumpet player was on “let it grow”, realized it’s Jerry’s midi guitar lol