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

Tyler, they were going for 90 euros. Might be a little cheaper in the US, but prob still over 70 dollars.

Interview with Dick Latvala (from 1996, but just posted)

Those prices are outrageous.

This morning I was thinking I would really like to listen to a '73 show (haven't heard any from that year yet) and figured I'd come here for a recommendation and looking back through the thread there are plenty from that year. So now I'm kinda overwhelmed and don't know where to start!

― xanthanguar (cwkiii), Thursday, January 3, 2013 11:16 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

FWIW if I had to pick just one GD year to keep / throw out everything else, '73 would probably be my keep year-- non-jam songs sound tight, jam songs vary a ton from performance to performance. The jam stuff is especially good if you like that "Huh wtf song did they start this with?" feeling; the '73 Playing in the Bands are just about my favorite GD things from any era.

Think you can pick any of the '73 Dick's Picks at random and you're bound to find a great show. You could do worse than DP Volume 14, Boston Music Hall Dec. '73 (haven't checked to see how many of these are on Spotify).

>lonngggggg nyer dead article: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/11/26/121126fa_fact_paumgarten?currentPage=all

Not a deadhead at all, and never really listened to them recorded or live, but read this great article last week. Anyway, I sought out the live recording the author was talking about, and listened to the mythical "transition" that the author and his high school buddies worshiped. I wasn't impressed by it (like most Grateful Dead fans, according to the author)-- but loved the idea that I was somehow listening to a 'sacred moment' that had been listened to millions of times and obsessed over by this guy and his high school. Really fun.

hadn't really been in the mood for these guys for months but had "bird song" going in my car yesterday and now i'm all in the mood.
ordered dead set this morning which though maybe not quite as great as reckoning is ten times better than without a net

these are great:

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2012/12/28/moog-intros-grateful-dead-expansion-pack-for-animoog/

The Denver Road Trips set
Universal Amphitheatre, Los Angeles, CA, June 30, 1973
DP Volume 14, Boston Music Hall Dec. '73

Really dug all three of these! Thanks again, everyone, for the recommendations! I think I'm gonna get lost in archive.org this weekend...

http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrack/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/gratefuldead_may77_productshot3-575x575.jpg
http://www.dead.net/may1977

Saw this link posted on another thread - good stuff.

https://listentothedead.com/

xpost Nice! I just heard 5/8/77 for the first time last week (actually the first '77 show I've heard so far) and really enjoyed it; it has an absolutely transcendent version of "Morning Dew", the best I've heard, which was not played at any of the shows in that box, unfortunately.

spring 77 is slightly overrated, maybe, but it's still a pretty awesome period for the band.

I was pretty much about art rock and new wave in '77, never saw the Dead during this period (or at all until way after Jerry died,) but seeing Dark Star Orchestra replicate the St. Paul May '77 show turned me around on the Dead a bit.

I've finally been broken down and, at 32, gotten into the Grateful Dead.

As I dig in deeper and buy more albums, I notice that I like the slightly jammy blues rock performances just fine, but the ones that really hit hard for me are the real floaty/pretty performances of tunes like 'Dark Star', 'Bird Song' and 'Morning Dew.'

Anybody fairly well-versed in the Dead able to recommend a live set that focuses more on this side of the band?

There's really no on show that does this, but you wanna hear some second sets in general. First sets were primarily (but not exclusively) straighter material, singalongs, rockers, covers, etc. Second sets were when they got weird / out / spacy. I'd be happy to list you some favorite Dark Stars if you like.

Also, John Oswald's Grayfolded to thread. Do you know that one?

err, really no "one" show that does this, I mean....

what JD said. austin, this is an all-over-the-place thingy i've been playing the hell out of the past week or so. super-spacey "playing in the band" performance

http://www.dead.net/30daysofdead

Cool, I figured as much, but thought it was worth a shot at asking.

I picked this up this morning and had to fight the urge not to just skip straight to disc three. "Dark Star" just started and I got a little goosebumpy.

"Morning Dew" changed character markedly from 1968 to 1972; not necessarily qualitatively, just a change in perspective (went from agitated to reflective). But if you're looking for an epic "Dark Star," the one on Rockin' The Rhein is pretty amazing (and the rest of it isn't too shabby, either).

I'm a broken record on this, but check out the Veneta Fairgrounds 8/27/72 set (recently officially released in the Sunshine Daydream with the movie of that name finally released too). It's the best Dead ever. Even on the first set, the "China Cat Sunflower" hits the groove you're seeking. Then from "Playing in the Band" to "Sing Me Back Home"---nearly two hours of music---they ride this groove. it's the best.

Ahh! My choice this morning at the bookstore was between the Fillmore East and the Veneta set. I went with the Fillmore East set because it was the better buy (four discs $35, as opposed to the Veneta set which was three discs at $40). I'll start saving my milk money back up and get the Veneta set soon. The packaging alone is very enticing on that one!

Anybody fairly well-versed in the Dead able to recommend a live set that focuses more on this side of the band?

'72 Cleveland Dark Star, just so perfect: https://archive.org/details/gd72-10-28.sbd.cotsman.20301.sbeok.shnf

Veneta set is 3 disks plus the dvd of the movie and the movie is dope, much naked hippie

THe only disappointment with the Sunshine Daydream Veneta set is the absence of a booklet on the more widespread version. That's probably because the deluxe limited edition thing came with a substantial book, but still I'd've thought they could have included something with background etc written in it.
The tracklisting is only printed on the back of the trays.
But it is a great set.

I was thinking 74 or 73 might have some more drifty stuff. It's when they were doing rock as jazz in something of a Bitches Brew style but the bass may be too bubbly to allow it to be really ambient. Really like those 2 years in places anyway, not very big on the added horns on '73 though. But I guess taht was pretty short-lived anyway.

Second or third the Venta set - all time top ten Dead show, and the newly released version sounds GREAT

I also second Rockin' the Rhein, which is the Dead at their Sonic Youth-iest

Austin, you have Europe 72, right?

Austin, you have Europe 72, right?

And Volume 2, yes. Great 'Dark Star' on that one. 'Loser' too!

veneta is so good, i love almost any version of "bird song" but that one is insane. ditto "dark star." garcia turning rays of sun into pure sound. did any of y'all get that acoustic 1970 show they put out for record store day?

Also, John Oswald's Grayfolded to thread. Do you know that one?

Seconding this.

did any of y'all get that acoustic 1970 show they put out for record store day?

I've become so bitter towards RSD that I wasn't even aware it.

But we've already discussed that elsewhere.

For all-acoustic GD, all I know thus far is Reckoning (the expanded two disc set) and yeah: to fall back on simpler terms, it's hella good.

Listening to disc 3 of Rockin' The Rhein right now, super jazzy 40 minute "dark star". dudes are freakin out.

Yeah, Godchaux's the hero of that one.

re the question that revived this, would suggest Dick's Picks 4.

My guess is that Sunshine Daydream will be the centerpiece of a future Dead box -- it is great!

― Mark, Saturday, February 5, 2011 9:26 PM

Called it.

Great AUD recording right here, download it:

https://archive.org/details/gd1971-08-06.fob-SonyECM22p.miller.88816.sbeok.flac16

Mountain Bus' lp Sundance should appeal to people into the early Dead. Version have has several live tracks on it.
But Hexahedron the long lp closing instrumental is the bees knees.

Yeah, that Mountain Bus LP is great - and they were from, like, Philly or something, right? Definitely not SF.

RSD acoustic Dead release (not 'officially' a Dead show, as it was billed as Mickey & the Heartbeats with Bobby Ace and His Cards From The Bottom Of The Deck) is worth getting for the solo Pigpen jams, but the fidelity on the whole thing is pretty lousy, even for an archival recording. More cash grab than must-have, I think. I second DP8 if you want acoustic Dead.

yeah I just wish they'd done more acoustically in the early 80s - that Harpur set is really good, but Reckoning is just amazing.

Fans of Jerry at his stoniest and sleepiest should track down a JGB boot from 1976 called Don't Let Go - just incredibly beautiful and a nice antidote to some of the cornier Keystone boots (which I have never really taken to). Also features probably some of the best Keith playing before he started his descent into, you know, not being conscious onstage.

One day I will write an article about how underrated Keith is; he's become something of my personal crusade. It's almost criminal how ignored he is. Sunshine Daydream and The Grateful Dead Movie are perfect examples: the fucking roadies get, like, four times the amount of screen time! Every time the camera would get close to his piano, it would cut to something else. I get that he wasn't Mr Personality, but dude was probably the third best overall player that band ever had (after Jerry and Phil, and I say this as a notorious Bobby apologist). Even his lone songwriting credit, "Let Me Sing Your Blues Away" is a great and underrated song in the Dead canon; it's like Little Feat does Canned Heat!

haha, yeah, i wonder what the story with the lack of keith godchaux footage in those movies is, it's kind of hilarious in sunshine daydream. he can definitely be a great player.
here's another reallllly good acoustic dead show i discovered this year on the archive, from 1970: https://archive.org/details/gd70-08-05.sbd.jupile.17271.sbeok.shnf
http://25.media.tumblr.com/5f792089c81f51726767a8e6d604c9a7/tumblr_mpslhqrIKo1qzy30io1_500.jpg

Man I love it when they did "Dark Hollow" that year.

austin, i don't know if you have "two from the vault," but it has incredible versions of both "dark star" and "morning dew." easily my favorite live dead album, possibly my favorite dead album from my favorite dead era. another obvious live album with a spectacular "dark star" is "live dead" from 1969. tbh for me the dark stars all fell in quality and dynamism after '68-'69.

I do not have Two From the Vault, but I do have Live/Dead. The 'Dark Star/St. Stephen' on L/D is indeed very mighty.

TFtV looks to be very enticing after some research.

It was my gateway into the Dead and will probably always be my favorite.

THe Eleven on Live Dead is very tasty as is the other one on the Fillmore 3cd.
But Two From The Vault is from their '68 peak month August. I think all the live sets I've heard from that month have been quite stunning. It's also the source of the extra material on the Golden Road version of Anthem Of The Sun, but I have some other stuff from then too.
Seemed to be really hot months for most of those first few years May 70, not sure when in 69, might be February though which is that Fillmore run.

i find it pretty hard to go wrong 68-72, and these days 73-75 is sounding pretty great too.

Yeah ditto what Tyler says. I especially find 68-72 endlessly compelling, just a great run from a band.

I know it's cliche as hell to say so in regards to the Dead, but it's just astonishing how much better the live performances of most of the tunes are in comparison their studio counterparts.

I mean, I used to hate 'Uncle John's Band', but that seems like it was because I'd never heard a live rendition before.

Those harmonies! The Garcia/Weir live vocal harmonies have to be some of the most underrated of all time. The version of 'UJ'sB' on that Fillmore East set I just picked is just magnificent in that regard.

i'm generally on board with the notion that live is better, but not for workingman's dead or american beauty. even for the others, if i prefer live i still like some studio dead quite a whole lot

Has anyone else heard Dick's Picks #16 (11/8/69)? I'm curious if late '69 is considered crapulent, or if this is just an off night. It does have my favorite "Feedback" ever, but the rest, wow, the songs are barely holding together, and not in a fun way.

Dick's Picks 16 is a weird one. Some of the best noise jams the Dead ever laid down but HOLY SHIT I can't find the stop button fast enough once the encore cover of "Hey Jude" starts up.