Here’s the 22nd lossless, good for a week.

The first show of 1974, with only three new songs (Ship of Fools, Must’ve Been the Roses, U.S. Blues), isn’t as (y)era-defining as the first shows of 68, 71, 73, 76, 77, 92 or 93, but, in addition to being a test run of the 74-defining Wall of Sound, it also has some cool of-their-time genealogical curiosities:

U.S. Blues replaces its direct ancestor, Wave That Flag. The peppy version of They Love Each Other retires tonight, to be replaced by its slower, groovier descendant on 75-09-28. During the soundcheck there’s a Jam on the chords that would become Estimated Prophet. And, during Playin’, the band takes a first stab at what would become Slipknot.

The Miller on Archive has the soundcheck, which, in addition to the Estimated Jam, includes Let It Grow, a great They Love Each Other, two takes on the new U.S. Blues, and a long run through of Roses.

Not played since 72-10-28, Attics is sound-checked as well. They decline to play it at the show — it’s clear why: the vocals are rough — and shelve it for 15 years (89-10-09, one of the Warlocks shows).

Speaking of the vocals on Attics, Let Trey speak:

“The three of us [Bob, Phil, and Trey] sat down to discuss what to play and Phil said, ‘All I know is, I want to end with ‘Attics of My Life.’ I’m like, ‘Great, I’m crying already, but when are we gonna learn the harmonies?’ Because that song modulates and it’s a capella three-part harmony! I offered to write a chart and they were like, ‘That’s kind of geeky. We’ll figure it out.’ We sat down at a piano and it was cool but I knew everyone would forget his parts and lo and behold, we tried it again and nobody was taking Jerry’s melody.”

“These guys don’t rehearse much because they don’t really hang out, so we had five days for five shows and never got to ‘Attics.’ Phil said ‘We’ll sing it in soundcheck every day.’ Soundchecks came and went, and we still didn’t know it. So I called [Trey collaborator] Jeff [Tanski] and said, ‘I need an exact transcription of the album version.’ I didn’t even tell the guys. I just handed a copy to Bruce: ‘This is your part and this is my part. I’ll hit the highs and the other guys will fill in the notes.’ I was reading off the chart because I wanted someone to sing the melody!”

(I flew across the planet for those shows, and winced through my own tears a bit when they started singing it. I imagine it would have been a complete disaster if Trey hadn’t stepped up. Whew.)

(Over its career Attics never did get played much: 16 in 70, two in 72, and, after its return in 89, a couple of times a year.)

The first set is a little shaky. It shows they haven’t played/sung some of these songs in a few weeks. It gets better, peaking with Eyes, China>Rider, Nobody’s Fault, and especially Playin’, into which the first Slipknot barges — pretty sloppily — at 10:00. Jerry must’ve been working on it over the new year, but it’s unclear if the band knows it. Bob sits out the beginning, and it takes Keith a minute to catch on, although it improves when he does. The transition out sure beats the transition in.

Here’s a cool summary of the show with some song timings.

I include in its entirety a review of this show from Archive. (Incidentally, it’s from 2007, the year before Obama won the Presidency and the year after Democrats took control of both houses of Congress.) Behold:

We need some objectivity. The problem with these postings is that they are WAAYYYYYY too subjective.

Person 1 raves about the first set, person 2 says the ’74 show was almost as good as a show they saw in ’87 (WTF?), person 3 posts just so they can use the word “lysergic” in a sentence, person 4 complains about the 1st set, person 5 posts how stella blue and china doll rock out, person 6 waxes about the van ride to the show, person 7 compares Bruce Hornsby to Pigpen, person 8 bitches how Garcia flubbed a lyric, person 9 points out that it was Weir singing the song, person 10 raves about Keith and Donna and praises atonal jamming, and person 11 writes that Donna sux and the atonal jamming was actually the band tuning up.

long story short, the posts become almost a pointless Babel-like guide as to whether the show is any good or not. And this is why the democrats can’t get elected. Even though you’re on the same “page”, no one is one the same page.