I saw the Grateful Dead in concert 10 or 12 times between 1970 and 1974. Pirates World (Miami, FL ), Capitol Theatre (Port Chester, NY), Music Hall (Boston), Civic Center (Providence, RI), Red Rocks (Colorado Springs), Jai Alai Fronton(Miami, FL), International Raceway (Watkins Glen, NY) and several other venues.
When I listen to tapes of old GD shows, I prefer recordings from this era. My favorite is Sunshine Daydream from Veneta, OR (1972). I'm also a big fan of Hundred Year Hall from Frankfurt, Germany (1972). The jam on The Other One is absolutely smoking! Phil Lesh is quoted as saying that it some of the best music the band ever played.
Wow. I wish I could have caught some Dead shows in 1972! I think '72-'74 was my favorite chunk of their timeline, though of course there was plenty of good stuff before and after too. The one that Beatrice and I were watching in the video above was this one:
That is a really cool video of the GD from their 1972 European Tour. I didn't realize that any video existed of that tour other than the footage from the "Beat Club" TV show in Bremen, Germany. Thanks for posting!
The Sunshine Daydream box set also has a DVD of about 45:00 minutes of the show. It, too, has a quality soundtrack.
Never really got into the Dead. Not to be an iconoclast in this thread. But one of my fave songs regardless of artist or genre, of all time, is Ripple. It is a perfectly written and played song. IMHO of course.
Just like my alltime fav band (Zep), the Dead imo have two separate cetelogs....two completely different entities. Studio, and live. Folks way into the live stuff will differentiate the beginning of a single year's leg of a tour with the end of that same 15 show leg the same way other folks would differentiate studio albums separated by 3 years time! There are hundreds and hundreds of great sounding live recordings out there, unofficial and commercially released. (Thank God for Betty Cantner, who was the band's official archivist who had a split patch from the soundboard to her own multichannel recording desk and mixed direct to 2 track in real time. Her recordings are legendary! Just about all the live stuff coming out officially nowadays are "Betty boards". )Their catalog as a whole certainly will not be everyone's cup of tea. In fact, even though they're definitely one of my favorite bands, I have a hard time with anything later than 1979... I feel like they gradually started losing steam in the late 70s (understandably!) and then the actual tones of the individual instruments became less appealing to my ears, especially with the implementation of synth and midi.
As you point out with Ripple though, I do think that there's probably something for everyone in there SSOMEWHERE... though finding it can literally take days, maybe weeks of continuous listening
Just like my alltime fav band (Zep), the Dead imo have two separate cetelogs....two completely different entities. Studio, and live. Folks way into the live stuff will differentiate the beginning of a single year's leg of a tour with the end of that same 15 show leg the same way other folks would differentiate studio albums separated by 3 years time! There are hundreds and hundreds of great sounding live recordings out there, unofficial and commercially released. (Thank God for Betty Cantner, who was the band's official archivist who had a split patch from the soundboard to her own multichannel recording desk and mixed direct to 2 track in real time. Her recordings are legendary! Just about all the live stuff coming out officially nowadays are "Betty boards". )
I'm more into their live recordings. Studio, I consider Mars Hotel and Terrapin Station to be sonic masterpieces worthy of any audiophile's collection. Love them both. Live, I like certain stuff from many eras. I first started seeing them in the very early 80's...spent a few summers going everywhere from Alpine Valley to Hampton Coliseum. They were a bit hit or miss then, but I did like the Brent years. He provided some great backing vocals. (Never been a fan of Pigpen's singing.....or Donna's (especially when she did her occasional vocal flailing!) Europe 72 and Spring 77 are serious live career peaks. And all from those eras are tops. There are too many individual shows that stand from other eras to even start mentioning them. Just do a quick search for "50 best Greatful Dead shows ever", no $$ need be spent. They can all be easily found on YouTube, or on various sites w/ links to directs downloads of the highest quality files in lossless compression format.
In one interview he was talking about the Jerry Garcia Band and how great the vibe was and saying that they just played everything how he likes and there was total harmony and no tension. Listening, the tension of the Dead made it a lot more interesting and IMO better than JGB.
My family came to the US in August of 72. Inch war in Heidelberg geboren. My relatives are in Bad Hersfeld, Bad Wildungen, Heppenheim, Hannover, and all over upper Bavaria.My family moved to America on July 11, 1995... we still could have caught the Grateful Dead live! Geeze, mom and dad!
My family came to the US in August of 72. Inch war in Heidelberg geboren. My relatives are in Bad Hersfeld, Bad Wildungen, Heppenheim, Hannover, and all over upper Bavaria.
I'm just glad I caught a bunch of shows before Touch Of Grey came out and they became super trendy in the late 80's. I remember a lots of the older heads wondering what the hell all these yuppies and jocks were doing at Dead shows.
No...I was only 7 yrs old then. I was likely at home reading Asterix and Obelix, Max und Moritz, and Struwwelpeter!!So you could have attended any of those legendary April/May 72 Germany shows then! Ich bin aus Steinau, ein bisschen nordöstlich von Frankfurt
My family came to the US in August of 72.