They come charging out of the gate to open a great, maybe underrated Texas tour. Great opener.

If you can get past some severe tape wobble and speed issues, the mix is oddly clear and Jerry's ideas are just off the chain. Completists only.

A short but fascinating star, starts way out, filled with melodicism and beauty, almost yearns for the TOO>MAMU to emerge out of it. Give it a chance.

Jerry's Strat sound is so perfect here. This whole show (and the 6th) highlight the sound of this era perfectly.

They're having a great time here, you can tell. Even the monitor problems are the source of fun.

Thanks for bringing this immortal show back up. The Lee / Miller AUD is brilliant. Check out how Billy feeds Phil during his solo. God, '74 was a monster year full of peak Dead.

Hey Marvin, I didn't know they toured in '77. Thanks for the heads up! [...] Really brother there's something about this era that I love just a wee bit deeper: Partially its the electric-voodoo influence from Miles Davis with a bit more danger and heaviness that to my ears got scrubbed clean with the (admittedly) more musically precise, "crisp and clean" aesthetic of 1977. (I also like the one-drummer era for the greater freedom Billy had and his almost melodic approach to collective improv). If you post a list of your favorite '77s, I'll go and listen to them all again and maybe I'll change my tune, but until then, I'm mostly an old fogey deadhead who goes apeshit for the pre-hiatus work. Cheers and thanks!

Video looks like it was filmed through a pair of black socks, but the camera work is professional and was probably an authorized video (on stage closeups, multiple cameras, good videography). Does anyone know the story behind it?

Cool if not grainy video of this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mf1dNTexCL4. Be warned, it looks like it was filmed through a roll of electrical tape, but it's nice to see them up close again.

Sweet uptempo transition into Supplication. LL>Sup was such a sparkling tingly buzz of a jam, and with its angular off-kilter 7/4 "lop-sided wheel" propulsion, it's almost the perfect musical expression of the effects of certain bitter South American alkaloids. Just sayin'.