Listening to an Aud tape from the June 20 1980 Summer Solstice show at the West High School Auditorium in Anchorage, Alaska. I'm going to follow that one up with the 8/27/72 barnburner Creamery Benefit from Veneta, Oregon.
The Oregon show is indeed a classic!
I was horrified listening to the live feed of the Chicago Fare Thee Well tour last night and finally I just had to turn it off. The performance was just horrible although the sound on the Sirius broadcast was good. They simply should not be performing at this stage of their careers. They can longer even remotely carry a tune, and Trey is no Jerry. This is, quite simply, a tour done for monetary reasons, which I have no problem with. Its just a very sad epitaph for this truly transformational group.
Although they had some superb studio albums (Workingman's Dead, American Beauty, Mars Hotel to name a few) the magic of the Dead were their live concerts. Fortunately, many of these were reasonably well recorded. What made the Dead special was that they were the first rock "jam band". That is, they brought to rock and roll an improvisational style that was typically found only in jazz. These improvised segments were weaved together by a captivating mix of Country Western, good ol' fashioned R&R, and psychedelic rock that made for an exhilarating and uplifting ride that nobody else has ever duplicated. It didn't hurt that individually, the core four (Garcia, Weir, Lesh, Kreutzman) were all superb musicians (many think Lesh was arguably the most gifted), but there is no question that Jerry was their leader. For the improvised "trips", it was always a case of just following Jerry. It was his exploration of musical space that was indeed visionary and to this day, makes their art stand out far from the maddening crowd. It must also be mentioned that the lyrics were also very meaningful to DHs as well. Succinctly put, their message was the very antithesis to "the ends justify the means". Rather it was all about the "means" and how the journey is everything.
For the uninitiated, there are classic Dead concerts and then there legendary shows where the playing equals the myth. Veneta Oregon is a one of the greats. If you are looking for the best of the best, these are widely considered to be among them:
Dick's Picks:
4 Fillmore East, 2/13-14/70
8 Harpur College, Binghamton, 5/2/70
10 Winterland, 12/29-30/77
13 Nassau Coliseum, 5/6/81
Steppin' Out with the Grateful Dead Tour England 72
Veneta, Oregon 8-27-72
Obviously this is a biased (towards the earlier years) personal list, but these shows do enjoy a consensus by DHs as being among their best. If these were the only shows I could take to a desert island, I would be content. (Of course, they would have to share my suitcase with works by Coltrane, Oscar Peterson, Sinatra and Mahler).
Marty