headyversion

find the best versions of grateful dead songs

please login or register.

Carrion_Crow

Stealth Head

+49682


Submissions

5
Sugaree
May 25, 1974
Campus Stadium, UCSB

Swings and rocks you back and forth so sweetly. Not my favorite Dead song, but this one is just a beaut.
26
Wharf Rat
May 21, 1974
Edmundson Pavilion

A musical triumph capping an amazing 2nd Set. Soaring, almost Bird Songish intensity to the ensemble soloing. Perfect.
18
Sugar Magnolia
May 21, 1974
Edmundson Pavilion

Are you kidding me?!? This just blazes white hot. Whole 2nd set is just a supernova.
16
U.S. Blues (Wave That Flag)
May 21, 1974
Edmundson Pavilion

The boys were still inspired after that 46min Playin' and it shows. Possibly the best US Blues I know of. Don't overlook it or the rest of the show!
46
Wharf Rat
May 19, 1974
Portland Memorial Coliseum

Slightly faster with a steady ostinato bass that works beautifully. No dirge, but a thoughtful tale. I hear waves against a wharf at the end.

Comments

El Paso
March 20, 1977
Winterland Arena

Right on Beggar's Tomb, that's right. I also use Truckin' in the same way. These are songs these guys could play in their sleep, and, c'mon y'all let's admit, they sometimes did. When they're as hot and tight as this, you know it's all going to be good.
Franklin's Tower
March 19, 1977
Winterland Arena

Check your pulse if you're still sitting still after this. This one rises on a beautiful accelerating arc, then quiets to a whisper.
China Cat Sunflower -> I Know You Rider
Dec. 6, 1971
Felt Forum, Madison Square Garden

The China Cat kind of 'chugs along' at a slower pace than others from the era, but they switch gears in the transition jam. They must have signaled each other to kick up the tempo and put some steam on it because it's night-and-day. Keeping with the highway metaphors: The IKYR has the inertia of an 18-wheeler cruising flat straight road in high gear and is just hella-good fun.
El Paso
Nov. 21, 1973
Denver Coliseum

Smoothest whiplash ever here: Musical magic in action coming in from a furious high-elevation Playin' with hardly a hint of the El Paso within it. Suddenly it hasn't just already started, but it has retroactively played itself into a forwardsback existence that was always there waiting too bloom outwards in its fractal filigree. Or maybe I'm just trippin' - hard to say.
Playin' In The Band
Oct. 25, 1973
Dane County Coliseum

Unique and beautiful piano-led motifs around 12:00 start with repeated notes high in the register that remind me of Keith Jarret's work with Charles Lloyd. It's undoubtable that they'd all been turned on to each other's music by this point and I know that Lloyd sat in once at the Family Dog on 03 August 1969.