Grateful Dead - "contemporaneous" live albums poll

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this ought to be between Live/Dead & Europe '72 but I love Reckoning so much. the spare few acoustic sets from 80/81 are just absolutely magic, and Reckoning is just...so many absolutely beautiful renditions of top-shelf tunes! Monkey and the Engineer! The Race Is On! Dark Hollow! Deep Elem Blues, especially, just a slow-burning ripper of a version...I love that album so much. There aren't any journeys into outer space or "Deal" style rave-ups (God, what if they'd done "Deal" though, that would kill in this lineup) but what you get instead is the imaginary bluegrass Dead, the Dead that might have been if Jerry'd been closer to his bluegrass purist roots.

fucking great great record.

yeah the Reckoning "Ripple" is my favorite version, the whole album is so placid and understated but it gets into you and never leaves

Pretty much a tie between Live/Dead and Europe '72, mostly as they show different eras of the band and the keyboard player does make a difference (Tom Contanten vs. Keith). Live/Dead has the spacerock and Europe '72 the best known versions of a bunch of tunes. I'll probably vote Live/Dead as that is the one I have listened to the most.

These are probably my alternate favorites of these two live records.

Fillmore West 1969
Hundred Year Hall

My problem with 'Reckoning' is a bit like many live big room acoustic records of that era in that the guitars sound really thin. There is some nice harmony singing for the Dead on it though, especially on a couple of the Bobby tunes as I remember.

'EC was Here' is another recent listen where the live acoustic guitars sound pretty thin and it was put together by Tom Dowd.

yeah the piezo is audibly in the mix. but...the playing is just spectacular

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Sorry I missed this, Without a Net is beautiful. I don’t really count Europe ‘72 as a live album, fwiw

what about kiss alive

🤟

the Reckoning 'Bird Song' shuffled up on a recent road trip and I must have hit repeat 3 times.

yeah i wish there were more examples of exploratory acoustic Dead (as opposed to more folk/blues/bluegrass acoustic Dead). Love that unplugged Bird Song.

Tyler -- I've been listening a lot to Harpur College 1970 and the whole first part of it is an acoustic set.

I’ve discovered I really like Dead Set! I get why it’s disliked by actual Deadheads, but I dig the “set list” and the shorter song lengths, and sound quality is great.