Grateful Dead - Fillmore East 2-11-69
Rhino Records, 1997



This 2-CD set documents the two sets the Dead played at Bill Graham's east coast venue opening for Janis Joplin during her New York solo debut. There were two separate shows that night, and the band had roughly an hour for each to get across with the audience. Despite the fact that they were never know for their brevity, they manged to do just that.

They kick off the early show with Good Morning Little Schoolgirl then dive straight into the psychedelic adventure of Cryptical Envelopment > The Other One > Cryptical Enveloment. After a couple more numbers, Pigpen riles up the crowd with a killer Turn On Your Lovelight before they close out the early show with a cover of Hey Jude that starts out kind of sloppy but reaches a nice peak as the set comes to an end.

For the late show, they opened with Dupree's Diamond Blues and Mountains Of The Moon before blowing everyone's mind with Dark Star > St. Stephen > The Eleven > Drums > Caution (Do Not Stop On The Tracks) > Feedback and finishing their portion of the evening with We Bid You Goodnight, which is followed by a partial take on Cosmic Charlie that's not included on the track listing for the disc. This track is incomplete simply because the tape reel ran out and there wasn't enough time to slap another one in place before the band finished up.

For a recording from 48 years ago, the sound here is astonishing, maybe slightly better in the second set than the first.

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Grateful Dead - Live To Air: The Ultimate New Year's Party
The Store For Music, 2011



This 2-CD set is lifted from the Dead's 1987 New Year's Eve show at the Oakland Coliseum. I attended this show, and it was a great night.

Be forewarned of a couple things if you're thinking about buying this set. First, it's a European gray market product, not officially licensed by the band. Second, this is not the complete show. What's here is taken from the VHS/DVD release Ticket To New Year's. (See video below) The show was simulcast on Pay-Per-View, and an edited version was subsequently ran as part of The King Biscuit Flour Hour on radio stations.

The Neville Brothers opened up and joined in for a nice long set of encores. Most of those songs have been cut from these CDs, however. Only the closing cover of Knockin' On Heaven's Door makes an appearance. Also cut is a stellar take on Promised Land.

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Grateful Dead - "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)" b/w "Cream Puff War"
Rhino Records, 2017





The second release of the year in the Grateful Dead's singles series, where they are re-releasing limited versions of their original 45s.

These two tracks are taken from the first LP the band put out in 1967. They have been remastered for the 50th anniversary series of releases, and the sound quality is excellent.

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Quote
Gordon Rekcikssa
Grateful Dead - "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)" b/w "Cream Puff War"
Rhino Records, 2017

Artwork looks nice. It looks like these are numbered? Both songs are good too, though I prefer the Stonesy meets surf vibe of the second one. I don't really collect 7''s anymore but I could see Dead collectors jumping on these.

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^That seven looks really nice.

Recently I was lucky enough to have received this!

The Grateful Dead ‎– May 1977: Get Shown The Light (11 HDCD) Grateful Dead Records 2017



The basics:
Limited edition of 15,000 (numbered) box set.
Discs 1-2 recorded at Veterans' Memorial Coliseum, New Haven, CT on 5/5/1977.
Discs 3-5 recorded at Boston Garden, Boston, MA on 5/7/1977.
Discs 6-8 recorded at Barton Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY on 5/8/1977.
Discs 9-11 recorded at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, Buffalo, NY on 5/9/1977.
Includes 52-page softcover booklet with notes by David Lemieux and Nicholas G. Meriwether.
An "All Music Edition" (CDs and softcover booklet only in a slipcase box) was released on the same date.

Got this as a to be reciprocated gift from Gordon. The amount of music on this is vast but disc by disc I have been enjoying the hell out of this. Each disc is a different show from the same week in a very good year for the Dead. Each song is different and like a lot of their music it's just good down to earth blues, funk, and country rock. I still have one more disc to listen to of the Cornell set and I'm saving that for tonight after work.

I realize my short review on this isn't doing the work justice but I'm not capable of expressing how cool this really is. This is the kind of music I can put on outside in the summer times and watch my kids run around and dance to or to just chill by myself in my studio, it really fits in perfectly with my upcoming summer.

Thanks again G!

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“Lesser artists borrow... great artists steal.” - Igor Stravinsky
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