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In a rather nondescriptly, mailed-in performance, the Grateful Dead lull you into thinking they do not "have" it that night and then one and/or another of their great songs comes to fruition via a boiling over within song -- jump-start. And then, suddenly, the top of your head is blown off, and you're wondering why you ever gauged this show as something pedestrian -- given the nature of their titanic tour. Really, it is an average show for this time, but you would be well apprised to say:



"Nope, it's all good." The first set songs are not the greatest versions but they are, nonetheless, enjoyable.



Another Jimmy Row to begin the second set leaves you dipping yourself into the marinade once again.

It's another superior rendering of this song. One of those songs, again, where you think you're done and Jerry spreads it all back open to it. You find yourself seated and that just cannot be because you thought all along you were standing.



Weather Report Suite Parts I & II -- not great, but more than passable and the Let It Grow doesn't let you down and then the band casts off into Dark Star and you're once again into the pudding. The band, like an erupting volcano, goes through its paces and then comes up with a pre-Seastones meltdown and gradually, like new shoots of grass after the first rains, the band leaves the stage and Billy does his drum solo and it quickly lands within the Eyes of the World.



What ensues is another astounding performance of this song in 1973 when the band seemed to reach its voice. Not listed in the track sheet is the king beautiful of all Grateful Dead moments: Where Eyes goes into both the Spanish Jam and back into Eyes and into the Mind Left Your Body Jam and back into Eyes. If ever I would want to turn a newbie onto classical Dead I might refer them to this recording. For this sequence alone this presentation merits a 5 star rating.



Then the band slowly drifts into a pristine Wharf Rat. There need not even be any lyrics in this tune for the music precisely evokes the inherent sentiment. I even thought I saw Charlie Chaplin whisk by in his tramp costume!!



That done Billy screams "whattya want..." and the band jumps into Sugar Magnolia and after a rocking version of it say "See Ya Later" and then come back and do a rocking version of UJB.



Thank you to the people who presented this.

- November 3, 2008The Greatest Story Ever Told