The Other One
Dec. 4, 1971
Felt Forum, Madison Square Garden
The way they land on Mexicali Blues is what makes the Dead so great. Like being picked up in a twister and landing in some far away old saloon with a peso in your hand. It's so unexpected and uncanny, they take a real risk and boy does it pay off. I think this is what this whole sequence of music is all about, risks. The rewards, or even when you're falling off the cliff and you're just going with the chaos. Dancing with insanity. This is as psychedelic and heavy as you can get, area 51 experiments out west. A spaghetti western in the sense of the process of spaghettification when you get near a black hole. Billy is the unheralded hero of this in my opinion, but everyone's got something to say here. Powerful and a real peak into what the band has become with Keith in the band. Just absolutely insane and needs to be experienced, it has that same star quality as 4/24/72's Dark Star sandwich. my jaw needs to be picked up off of the floor.