favorite favorite favorite

this is the one you want for this show - I'm not doing a whole show review right now, just end of set 1 and pre drums 2, what I have time for



Nice energy in the Pocky Way but come on, Brent biffs basically all the lyrics and they stumble thru some of the changes. There's some good soloing though! Like really good. Brent tears his solo a new one - maybe the best I've heard from him on this tune! And then Garcia really leans in on his lead as well and peaks it with some no-bullshit heavy fanning. DAMN SON!!! So that one's in the "sloppy but awesome" category.



What an odd Samson. They start off totally out of sync, like amusingly so, in kind of a playful way. Very Grateful Dead of them. Then they kind schlub thru the first part of the song - not bad, but not really good. Then in the last jam Brent just leans hard as fuck on the B3 and it kinda blows up for a minute...



Samson Cumberland was a fun pairing they did a couple times....there is no transition though regardless of the setlist, just a stop/start



really weird piano intrusion at crazy levels early in Saint throws the whole band off for a minute and I don't hear this version fully come together like some do



savvy deadheads know that a long He's Gone in the Brent era is a good sign because of the occasional but super legit jams that came out of that song sometimes...this is not one of those times



this pre drums is wildly overrated by some people I think...I'm a fan of '89, especially as the year goes on, but I don't hear what some other folks are hearing in this one. Best things I heard were when Brent crushed a couple B3 parts, Jerry's killer lead in Pocky Way, and the Iko, which is outstanding.

- October 7, 2016definitely the better source