One for the Deadheads - top 10 tunes

Hi Gary and company-

If you don't know it already, the four disc mini box set called "Steppin' Out With the Grateful Dead" is taken from the band's tour stops in England on the Europe '72 tour. This may well be my favorite of the GD box sets out so far which chronicles a single tour or event. They worked from the multi-track master reels, so the sound is superb, and the songs covered are far more representative of what the band was playing live in those days the much beloved "Europe '72" record as it was released by Warner Brothers back in 1973. Europe '72 is one of the few Dead live albums which included new, then unreleased songs of theirs, in fact Robert Hunter has long said that he regrets that they never took the batch of new material such as "He's Gone", "Tennessee Jed", "Jack Straw", "Ramble On Rose", "Brown Eyed Woman" etc. into the studio.

While the band may well have rehearsed more than normal for that tour, what is not as well known about "Europe '72" was that because they had recorded all of those shows on a Mobile Truck with multi-track tapes, that gave them the chance to go back into the studio and clean up some of the vocals in the fall of '72. Thus, the album we all grew up with was not a "warts and all" transcription, but a created document. If you want to hear the band from that tour in an unedited version, take a listed to the two excellent whole show releases from that tour; "Rockin' The Rein" from April 24, 1972 or "Hundred Year Hall" from two nights later.

Depending on which night you were fortunate enough to see at the Lyceum, you may have seen the great version of Morning Dew which was released on Europe '72. There are other performances from the Lyceum on "Steppin' Out" as well.

For fans who can't get enough of the Dead from this era, there are four other releases in the Dick's Picks series which cover 1972 shows: Volume 11 is from New Jersey in September, Volume 23 is from Baltimore a week earlier in the fall tour, Volume 30 is the Academy of Music shows one poster has already recommended above, taken from just before the band left New York for the Europe tour in March, and Dick's Picks Volume 36 is from Philadelphia in the fall tour.

The legendary "Kesey's Farm" show from Veneta, Oregon on 8/27/72 has not been formally released, although it has been widely circulated on both tape, CDR and even on video as some underfunded hippies with movie camera's did film the event. It has long been rumored that this film, which is titled "Sunshine Daydream" is being edited for a release, but I don't know that it will ever see an official release. That show has clearly touched many people profoundly. An American Deadhead named John Scott, who edited and released a series of books he called Deadbases, which cover exhaustively all of the song lists the band played at all of their concerts, and included many passionate remembrances by fans has written a huge essay on this show, in which he seems to argue that it is somehow a shamanistic portal to another reality due to the number of people in higher states of consciousness, the band included. That is a huge upside, the downside is that that show was played on a makeshift stage in a field which was normally a dairy farm on the day of a rare Oregon heat wave, and the band had to try to keep their instruments in tune under the blaring sun on a day which reached 105 degrees or something similar. So, musically, a show from a beautiful small theater in Europe may well have been a better way to bottle lightning.

Good listening!

Bruce

A other amazing cd is the tourdocument from the Gizeh Pyramides by Cairo in 1978 "Rocking the Cradle".

FT-08

A better document from the Dead's late 70's incarnation, for my tastes, is the "Closing of Winterland" release, which is out both on DVD and CD. It was the final New Years Eve celebration from Winterland, and 1978 was really the end of the Dead's youthful phase. Unlike Egypt, where the band had a hard time developing powerful grooves, at the Winterland show they played through most of their better songs from that era with great energy and enthusiasm. I love the Terrapin Station in particular, but there are tons of highlights, including the rarely played 60's classic St. Stephen, which would remain the most elusive of the band's signature pieces.

It is, like the Egypt release, a bit homemade in the video quality, but the audio is superb, particularly on the CD release where the bandwidth is not limited by the need for massive video files.

Egpyt does have a certain elusive quality, but it wasn't their best material or performances. Garcia never approved those shows for release, and I can see why. The band had two huge problems that weekend: the pianist Keith Goddchaux was sliding into indifference and plays very basic and rudimentary accompaniment, which was quite a contrast to his brilliant playing from the early 70's. Worse than that, drummer Bill Kreutzmann had broken his arm that summer, and had to play one handed, which really enfeebled the Dead's drive and energy.

Good listening,

Bruce

Over the years I had only a tape in bad quality of this show. Therefore I am very happy over the good soundquality of this cd.

And, an other aspect for me, Mickey Hart wrote in his book "Drumming on the edge of magic"inspired from his magic moments in the desert.

You are right,there are better shows , as the Gizeh concerts, in the late 70`s.

FT-08-

If you enjoy world music, my favorite recording which came out of the Dead's visit to Egypt is Hamza El Din's Eclipse album, which was recorded by Mickey Hart on that trip. Simply stunning, hypnotic music. He includes the song the Dead jammed with him on, which was the high point of the Egypt shows for me. On Eclipse, you get to Olin Arageed in a more traditional setting.

Best,

Bruce

thank you for the tip