These days, it’s nearly impossible for a true Deadhead to keep
\nup to date with all things revolving around the Grateful Dead –
\nnever mind the band hasn’t existed since Jerry Garcia’s death in
\n1995. New releases from the band’s vaults keep coming out, as
\nregular as clockwork. The discovery of “FurthurNet,” a kind of
\nNapster for Deadheads (all live shows), makes keeping up that much
\nmore difficult.<\/p>\n
Then there is the “Dick’s Picks” series, now 25 volumes into its
\nhistory. I’m so far behind with these that I finally just got
\naround to listening to
\nDick’s Picks Volume Six<\/i>, which was mass-released by Arista a
\nfew years ago for a limited time. (The set is still available at
\nthe Dead’s official Web site.)<\/p>\n
The first of these volumes to touch on the ’80s version of the
\nDead, this concert from Hartford, Connecticut back on 10\/14\/83 is
\nan interesting choice. It was a time when Garcia’s drug use was
\nrumored to be on the increase, and was just four years before the
\nband would earn their first top 10 hit. Add to this the fact that
\nGarcia blows a verse in the concert’s opening song “Alabama
\nGetaway,” and one may start getting bad karma from this show.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, all these worries are quickly flushed out of the
\nsystem. Garcia’s singing and playing turn out to be strong efforts,
\nand the Dead show that while they might not have been pop stars,
\nthey still knew how to blow the doors off of any arena they
\nplayed.<\/p>\n
Take, for example, “Althea”. I absolutely hate this song, and
\ntend to cringe when it comes time for it to appear in a concert.
\nYet Garcia’s heartfelt singing and playing help to keep me
\ninterested in this particular rendition, and makes me think that
\nthe song could well hold out hope for me in the end.<\/p>\n
The first disc (comprising the whole first set of the Hartford
\nshow) is noteworthy for the first appearance of “Keep Your Day Job”
\non any commercially-released Grateful Dead album. One listen to
\nthis, and you have to wonder why it never quite made the cut on any
\nstudio effort. It’s a little tentative, but seems to have the
\npotential to be a real barn-burner due to the energy and fun spirit
\nit has.<\/p>\n
The second set, though, is where the magic comes into play. Disc
\ntwo features a mere four songs, but the hour of music created is
\nsome of the best work the Dead did for that time in their history.
\nThe absolutely electrifying versions of “Scarlet Begonias” and
\n“Fire On The Mountain” could well rank as one of the best
\nperformances of this song duet, thanks in no small part to the
\nkeyboard work of Brent Mydland. Listen to the effects Mydland
\nthrows in (including synthesized xylophone) and you’ll realize that
\nMydland may well have been the least appreciated member of the Dead
\nin their history, and with no disrespect meant towards Vince
\nWelnick or Bruce Hornsby, Mydland was sorely missed after his death
\nin 1990.<\/p>\n
My only complaint about this particular suite of music – this
\nversion of “Eyes Of The World” feels a bit rushed. And, yeah, when
\npercussionists Mickey Hart and Bll Kreutzmann sound this good, I do
\nwish that “Drums” had been longer than five minutes. But “Spinach
\nJam” gives the group a chance to rhythmically stretch their legs,
\nand might have been even more enjoyable than “Space” (which gets
\nthe night off in this concert). As always, it’s great to hear “U.S.
\nBlues,” even if it appears as the encore song.<\/p>\n
At one time, I had the tapes to this particular concert, but
\nsomehow misplaced them in one of the many moves I’ve undertaken
\nover the past 10 years.
\nDick’s Picks Volume Six<\/i> helps to remind me how good those
\ntapes were, and is one of the best releases so far in this
\nseries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5668],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-37439","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-grateful-dead","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37439"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37439"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}