POLL away the dew... Best Grateful Dead recurring live jam/transition piece

Kinda feel likeChina/Rider is the mayonnaise of these options. Not super flashy but oh so essential. Ties a lot of things together and stands the test of time.

This is like Mornington Crescent for American music nerds

I could've added more options but they didn't seem to quite fit. St Stephen going into the eleven was awesome and done a lot in 69 and spliced among other tunes after that, but I think of it as more of a contained song than a jumping off point like I was reaching for with this poll. Terrapin is usually a set highlight for me but it's more epic than jammy. Truckin' was a big jam vehicle for awhile, going off into nobody's fault but mine or whatever, but it's also their hit single and I figured no one would pick it from this list. As second set jam vehicles go, maybe China>Rider doesn't fit with the others because it is so consistent and often was a first set treat. And NFA doesn't really fit because it was mainly a second set closing steady beat sing-along, but whatever, plz post more examples of songs & transitions that get so far out that you forget what they are until they come back again. That Cornell scarlet fire Alice in wonderland video above is super trippy.i love it.

Only other thing I can think of is the ending jam to Eyes O the World but that was p much limited to 73 and 74 so it lacks the staying power. Same goes for St Stephen>Eleven imo.

Not Fade Away is the Margaritaville of the dead repertoire btw. A cheap sugar high that has no place on this list of epic visionary super-jams.

generally agree with you ... but this NFA sequence is kinda unbelievable: https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2013/09/05/dead-notes-4-91970-fillmore-east-nyc/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeE6QysNp24

I feel like once I opened the door to Lovelight, I had to let Not Fade Away in too. At least I kept out sugar magnolia>sunshine daydream off the list.

I dig the 77 swing help>slip>Frank:
https://youtu.be/VFuECv5sB2o

& that show has a great eyes of the world end jam as mentioned above w/ bass solo!

One for the Dark Star contingent:
https://archive.org/details/gd72-08-21.sbd.hamilton.150.sbeok.shnf/gd72-08-21d3t01.shn#

Berkley '72

happy 8/27 eve everyone

China>Rider

China>Rider

bill! hello!

Uncle John's Band might fit in this list. Don't know if it was as predictable a jammer as some of these, but I know I have a bunch of shows where it gets out there. More than China Cat>Rider, anyway (though I'll take China Cat>Rider over UJB any day!)

I want to get into live Grateful Dead but they have like 50 billion live albums. Where the hell do you start? Live/Dead? Europe 72? One of the Dick's Picks?

"sunshine daydream"

the sunshine daydream "playin' in the band" is what i use to introduce people to the live dead; they get it or... they don't

some people just hear noodling but i hear free jazz spaghetti nightmare

I want to get into live Grateful Dead but they have like 50 billion live albums. Where the hell do you start? Live/Dead? Europe 72? One of the Dick's Picks?

― Mr. Snrub, Thursday, 6 September 2018 22:59 (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Live/Dead and 72 are both decent starting points. Different styles. Give both a listen if you can.

I mean, if you don't like either of those official releases, you won't like the "best ever" live recording that any given Deadhead recommends from three decades of gigs either.

sunshine daydream (which is also 72 fwiw and pairs nicely with officially released europe comp from that same year) is the gateway imo. Skip right to the second half to see what the fuss is about. Best "Dark Star" ever, maybe

Even better: watch the movie of the concert. I feel like if you watch that and don't come away a Deadhead, it's not gonna happen

What’s the version of “Dark Star” that’s on the Zabriskie Point soundtrack? I like that one.

that's from Live Dead, I think

It's from Live/Dead.

As much as I love Sunshine Daydream, I'm completely unconvinced that it will seduce anyone over any other Dead album. That "holy grail" song search is for Deadheads only

watch the movie of the concert

warning if you are alienated by the fans of this band, don't watch the movie of this concert

"live/dead" is the easiest answer but i'm hesitant to recommend it because i don't like it!

i was already a convert by the time i heard the live/dead dark star but it is really great and accessible-seeming

i put it on sometimes when i'm writing

I was trying to think of an 80s answer to this question, taking to heart Duke's comment above, which is probably OTM. What came to mind is the first set of the pay-per-view from Summer of 1989 at Shoreline. The date is 6-21-89, I think. Pro quality video and a completely solid set of tunes, several of them catchy and upbeat. Jerry is lively and smiling a bunch, and is having a pretty good hair day.

weird as it is i think i just don't like constanten. i've only recently been able to get into stuff from his time in the band - the dark stars from 1969-06-14 and 1969-08-23 are pretty good, but even then... the june 14 is so concise, which is sort of the opposite of what i like about later versions of ds.

The zabriskie point sdtrk Dark Star is a 2 minute edit of the 23 minute Live Dead Dark Star though, so unless you like it in such a way that you wish it would go on for 21 more minutes, you might just prefer the edit. Constanten doesn't bother me. I like the brevity and raw, rough tone of the early Dark Stars, like this one: https://archive.org/details/gd68-02-14.sbd.kaplan.15640.sbeok.shnf/gd1968-02-14new-d1t03.shn#

My dead listening habit now is to just pull up whatever show has the most views for today in history on the archive instead of putting on the official live recordings. It's like listening to broadcasts of every game in a baseball season - a lot of it just blends into the background and some of it is so bad you just want to turn it off, but occasional moments of joy and brilliance shine through. And between the commentors recalling the scene at each show and the voices caught on audience recordings, it's fascinating beyond the music.

I want to get into live Grateful Dead but they have like 50 billion live albums. Where the hell do you start? Live/Dead? Europe 72? One of the Dick's Picks?

This is a random one I’ve always liked a lot: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick%27s_Picks_Volume_12

the big jam from that one is good

i guess i'll ask here - any suggestions for someone who a severe cherry-picker who likes some (but not all) versions of "dark star" in terms of where to go from there? i like the second set of avalon ballroom 1968-10-12, "playin' in the band" and "bird song" from veneta, the entirety of 1975-03-23... basically i don't want to hear their shitty singing and mostly cherry-pick (already cherry-picked!) comps from "save your face". favorite years are 1970 and 1972. have a really hard time with anything post-'75. what's gold?

Three of my favorite moments in GD jammery:

12-2-73 playing in the band
2-18-71 the second half of dark star, after wharf rat
5-9-73 help on the way, slipknot, franklin’s

These are all pretty well known and it’s for a good reason

5-9-77, the third one should be

xp Well, the gnarliest Dead stuff I know (in terms of stuff that sounds more like Sonic Youth or the Dead C than anything "hippie") is third disc of Rockin' The Rhein (which is 72). Check that out and see if I'm on the right track. There's also a very gnarly jam toward the end of Dick's Picks 1 (Tampa '73) that's pretty dark and scary iirc.

My suspicion is that you're a Deadhead in waiting. In my experience it's a tough band to like only casually. Today you're saying you don't like the shitty singing and limiting your listening to the pre-hiatus years, tomorrow you'll have a Brent Mydland tattoo and a favorite "Black Throated Wind." I've seen it happen.

at my age? i don't think i'm a deadhead in waiting. i had somehow missed the 12-2-73 "playin" and the 5-9-77 help suite - the latter i'd confused with cornell the previous day, which i listened to and left me so underwhelmed i figured '77 wasn't for me. should've started with 5-9, i really like the "blues for allah" material...

the live vocal stuff, i don't know, i can respect it - i get the appeal of that kind of ragged roots approach - but there are so many folks who do that kind of sound better. i'd rather listen to old sacred harp recordings. of course the dead have songs, some of them very good, but listening to them live is like listening to bob dylan's songs via never-ending tour recordings - it doesn't tend to improve the songs, and at worst what comes out are travesties of great songs.

on the other hand some of the songs themselves are just awful imo. even when the songs are serving as jam vehicles, if i don't like the vehicle i'm not going to get very far with it. beyond its legendary status that's what made it easier for me to start with "dark star" - a lot of days the single version of that song is my favorite, and i'd rather hear them jam out a song i like rather than, say, "eyes of the world" which is a song i can't fucking stand. (yeah, probably not a deadhead in waiting...)

regarding that jam on dp1 - is that the jam -> other one -> jam sequence? the first jam reminds me a little bit of that dark sequence in some of the "dark stars" from 72 - is it the one the fans call "tiger"? i can see the sonic youth/dead c comparisons but i don't really go in for those bands :) (the noise stuff i go for is grungy aud tapes - there's a may '70 aud dark star that's been compared to les rallizes denudes - accurately! those super-distorted phil bombs, fucking amazing shit) the jam after the other one actually encapsulates the aspect of jerry's playing i don't like - he does this thing that sounds like, i don't know, triplet scales, he's just going up and down the fretboard in triplets. i fucking hate that! nails on a chalkboard to my ears, so it's kind of weird that i've listened to as much dead as i have because he does that sort of thing _all the time_.

what i like, though, is i went back to dick's picks 12 for the "spanish jam", which burbles along nicely for a couple minutes and then phil for some reason decides to start playing "the other one" and it all falls apart. that's not necessarily the part i like, though i do appreciate self-sabotage. what i like is that after that there's a lengthy sequence of absolutely gorgeous minimal dead - jerry isn't really a shredder to my taste (another reason i don't go in for "live/dead", too much shred), but is, i think, super underrated as a minimal/ambient guitarist.

also, having criticized the jam on dp1, i will say that it was a surprise to actually listen to it - i do think it's underrated, for some reason it got a lot of fan backlash because, i guess, the fans had ideas invested in their head about the show they wanted to be "first" and mostly this wasn't it? which is ridiculous, it opens with the consensus best-ever "here comes sunshine" which is a fucking great song, and it's also got an absolutely top-notch "playin", which admittedly stands out less in their catalogue.

I think the 12-2-73 jam might be up your minimalist alley. It’s very quiet and mellow and spacey. No shredding until the meltdown much later in the set.

the "playin" jam? yeah i'm liking it a lot!

"eyes of the world" which is a song i can't fucking stand. (yeah, probably not a deadhead in waiting...)

ha ha ha, probably not. Eyes is one of my favorites, I can listen to it endlessly. Different strokes, I guess

regarding that jam on dp1 - is that the jam -> other one -> jam sequence?

that's the one I was thinking of, yes!

he does this thing that sounds like, i don't know, triplet scales, he's just going up and down the fretboard in triplets.

Good ear. Jerry does indeed love the triplets (and pull-offs). But he'll often throw an extra note in, or take one away, or jump a few intervals, or something. His unpredictability is one of the qualities about his playing I love most. Whatever you can say about Jerry, his playing was never 'stock.' No tired blues licks (ahem, Allman Brothers), no cliches, no machismo. Just endless openness and a lot of heart.

I'm sure it's not just straight scales. Honestly, it reminds me a little bit of early period Coltrane - a lot of the stuff Trane plays can come perilously close to scale exercises. I'd have to say, though, that I like Coltrane in spite of this tendency rather than because of it - he's playing fast, he's playing a lot of notes, and most of them don't really add anything. It's still better than a sack of blues cliches, because at least there's _something_ there, but it's a lot more work than it should be to hear it.

I think in a lot of ways the Dead have a good attitude towards playing. They're very open to failure, and that openness takes them to places most other bands wouldn't get to. However, I do find most of the actual failures to be, unsurprisingly, pretty bad. That's why it's easier for me to listen in retrospect, because I can just get the bits where they went somewhere cool. It's sort of like a retrospective version of the editing Holger Czukay would do on Can's endless, aimless jams. For the old-style fans who wanted the actual uncertainty, of course, there's nothing left, that trip is over, but I find that I have enough genuine uncertainty in my life.

Gang I think I’m becoming a deadhead at age 45

hell yeah

the new PNW set (the 3-disc version, I can't afford these huge Dead sets) is a great listen. one of the best "bird song"s ... incredible 40-minute "Playin" ... sick jams.

best "Bird Song" ever, I think, though I think the PitB is more long than essential. I can't afford the box either, hoping I can get a rip for someone who can, this is a great period

I passed out last night listening to the Live Dead Dark Star while reading 'Children of Dune' and felt like I was sufficiently living my best life, Sunday Night edition

^^^^

the new PNW set (the 3-disc version, I can't afford these huge Dead sets) is a great listen. one of the best "bird song"s ... incredible 40-minute "Playin" ... sick jams.

― tylerw, Monday, 10 September 2018

PNW? I should know this....!

Pacific
North
West

Aha! Thanks

my beloved homeland!

Late 80s/90s “good lovin” another good example of Bobby going off the rails vocally

doing a dive into the ‘77 performances of Help/Slip/Frank and they are absolutely stomping.

the Dark Star at Pirates World is jolly good fun, 1970-03-24, Dania, FL.

https://archive.org/details/gd70-03-24.sbd.miller.32054.sbeok.flacf/gd70-03-24d2t01.flac

xxxxxxxxxp I think 1st August 73 was a Jerry's birthday show. I think I noticed more of a soul influence on teh night when I was listening to it a few years ago. Used to have it on a cassette tape so that goes back several years.
JUst remember having it playing as i was on a bus through kilburn . Which is a snippet stuck in my head.
Anyway good gig.

as to introduction live sets
I think Two From The Vault which is them at a peak in August 68.
Dick's Picks vol 4 which is another peak in may 70.
I guess the peak for 69 is Feb/March as utilised for Live dead and the Fillmore 69 sets.

not really sure about peak months for later years.
Do think that Veneta set that is Now Sunshine Daydream which conveniently comes with teh film as a dvd in the package.
Was listening to Pacific Northwest 3cd earlier which is good but not sure about best for year. oh yeah it spans 2 for one thing.

I meant to pick up the 50th anniversary sets but haven't done so so far.
Good to know most stuff was up at archive.org if it still is. Was stil streaming the sets that were offically released last time i looked while they had removed the ability to individually d/ld those gigs.

WOW this is the best sounding AUD i think i have ever heard

https://archive.org/details/gd1975-09-28.fob.menke-falanga.motb-0069.91769.flac16/gd1975-09-28.motb.0069.d1t01.flac

Don’t have the details here in front of me but there is an audience recording of a 1971 show from Hollywood Bowl that is unreal. Super crisp and it puts you right in the belly of the beast, so to speak. Check it out.

8/6/71- the hard to handle on it is great, haven't listened to much of the rest because i don't dig that era too much

'71 is a tough year for me to fully love. A lot of the primal dust has shaken off by this point, but they've yet to launch into the expansive explorations that would come in '72. Which isn't to say there's not a ton of good material to be found, but there are a lot of shows that feel like two first sets instead of a first and second set flow.

Is there a name for the extended jam they sometimes do at the end of Eyes of the World?

'stronger than dirt' i think, and they always play it tremendously sloppily

someone is going into labor in the crowd in this show. music stopped while they call for a doctor. followed up by 'music never stopped' haha

I like how that 1975 show begins with two minutes of tuning and noodling so obvious that even I, a non-Deadhead, would know "oh, they're opening with "Help on the Way."

Isn't stronger than dirt a commercial jingle that teh Doors also used in places. Presumably for a domestic cleaner or bleach or something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToNNpP6DVsw

This Other One Uncle Sandwich tho... https://archive.org/details/gd71-11-14.sbd.miller.23568.sbeok.shnf/gd71-11-14d2t05.shn
(killer 1st set too)

bit frustrated the Mountain Goats singer introduced me to headyversion on a jamband podcast and just furthering my rabbit hole descent.

78 Unidome IA has a hot fire Scarlet/Fire and terrif The Other One

Gonna allow post-jerry dead incarnations in this thread as well, because this slipknot from dead & co on 9/18/21 checked all the right boxes for me: https://archive.org/details/DeadCo2021-09-18.travitz.litz.schoepsCMC64v.flac16/DeadCo2021-09-18t17.flac#

I'll bite, since I was at Wrigley for both shows. That was indeed an absolutely killer "Slipknot", even if I'm loath to even try to compare this configuration to the Dead proper. But having seen Dead & Co 8 times now, I can confidently say that they have never sounded better than they did during that second set Saturday night. The band is on fire right now and locked in on a lot of levels. Yes the tempos can be slow, no it's not Jerry (and quite honestly, I think more Heads would appreciate this band if they didn't go into it expecting them to be, but that's a discussion for another time), but they have really congealed as a unit. It felt like Bobby was giving John much more leash (especially Friday night) and Jeff and Oteil are both stepping up. There was a moment during one jam where Chimenti and Mayer were locked in and sharing huge smiles, it was great.

I think the second set was a bit of a way to make up for the rain/lightning shorted first show - one set with a "China > Rider", "Estimated > Eyes" AND "Help > Slip > Frank's"? Yes, please. The only misstep is that "Days Between" was not the ballad I'd have hoped for coming out of that "Space > Milestones" jam.

Anyway, this is now likely the most words written ever on this forum about Dead & Co and will likely be the only ones, between these last two posts. :)

I have never seen Dead & Co but caught my first JRAD show a couple weeks ago. Loved it. It was almost like they were teasing me by basing the second set around my least favorite subset of the Dead's repertoire - 80s Bobby songs. Set started with Feel Like a Stranger and the song they wove in and out of other tunes was Throwing Stones. But the musicianship, ideas, energy were so top notch that it was great. Plus the songs peppered in between those - Help/Slip and Shakedown St - are some of my favorites of funky Dead.

Oh yeah, JRAD are fucking phenomenal. I hope to get to see them live soon. They can stretch out the least likely, most hated 80s songs and take them in fascinating directions. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if they could turn a "Day Job > Samba in the Rain" into an absolute half-hour gem.

Do SBDs float around for these shows?

also lol in the recording reviews:

Reviewer: Devil's Friend - ★☆☆☆☆ - September 20, 2021
Subject: Balloons and Barking
Where's the recording of you wrecking Death Don't Have No Mercy for everyone in your section at Noblesville? I asked you to STFU before things escalated. Idiot. For a dude that tapes and probably goes to a lot of shows, you are most "unDeadhead". You came across like a man-baby fighting with seat neighbors over a BALLOON. Your woman looked completely ashamed and embarrassed by you. She deserves better.

lol tapers

At the JRAD show I went to they played Comfortably Numb - as best as I could tell it was a debut? I read somewhere that they played an all-Floyd set at a festival or something, so probably it grew from there, but couldn't find any indication that it had been played at a regular show. Anyway, after that funk melange of all those songs I listed above, second set ended with Comfortably Numb>Morning Dew. They got all the soaring guitar heroics out of the way in Comfortably Numb so they then took Morning Dew in a totally different direction, with a funky, rhythmic guitar/keys duet. It was unique and super cool. Here's the full setlist: https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/joe-russos-almost-dead/2021/westville-music-bowl-new-haven-ct-438cc777.html

Do SBDs float around for these shows?

I mean, I'm sure they do. I just wait for them to show up on the Relisten app or site (highly recommended for Phish, Dead and JRAD too!) and listen from there. Definitely not SBD, but surprisingly decent quality for the most part (I know the said 9/18/21 show is up there and sounds good). You can pay for SBD from nugs(dot)net if that is your thing though.

I cannot recommend the Relisten app enough though, if you are into this stuff.

I haven't listened to much jrad but their guitarist's sets with kruetzmann & billy strings at red rocks definitely piqued my interest.

Yep guitarist (Tom Hamilton) is great, and Joe Russo (drums) and Marco Benevento (keys) have been playing together in various configurations for 20 years or more, I think, and are both masters. Benevento has a lot of tricks up his sleeve that I haven't heard in other Dead-adjacent projects. They can get very jazzy.

Yeah I first saw Russo and Benevento when they toured as GRAB with Trey and Mike from Phish about fifteen years ago, they were pretty good then but I've grown to like them even more since.

Between Billy & The Kids and the Dead & Co tour, 2021 was a great summer of new shows for old deadheads, I only made it to Pine Knob for Dead & Co, but listened to almost every show of this tour when it came up on the archive and I watched most of the free set openers on nugs to get a feel for the scenes. I went to Wrigley in '17 and '19 so I didn't mind missing that so much, but I really wish I'd gone to Blossom and Deer Creek on this truly special tour. Oh well, summertime done come and gone my oh my!

I get that Wrigley may not be the ideal setting for a show, but I've grown to like it and appreciate it - easy access, plenty of food and drink options nearby for before and after a show. As opposed to Alpine Valley with no convenient non-venue places to meet up, sitting in a parking lot for two hours after a show and either springing for overpriced hotels (which still aren't even within walking distance of the venue, so you still need to either drive or arrange for transportation) or making sure you have a sober group member to drive every back home late in the night.

I loved seeing them at Wrigley, as a Cubs fan it was amazing to dance in the stands and go out onto the field, to experience the friendly confines with a extra dose of kindness. But Deer Creek was the only place I got to see Jerry ('93) so I was thinking it would be cool to go back there again, I was just too worried about Covid - but I would've risked it for that second set had I known: Sugaree>Dark Star>St. Stephen>Eleven>Drums>Space>Dark Star>Death Don't Have No Mercy!