Jack Straw
Jan. 11, 1979
Nassau Coliseum
Fast playing isn’t very fun to listen to if it’s not played cleanly. The energy is great but idk why this is ranked as high as it is. It’s full of glaring mistakes! Everyone here is gushing over Jerry’s “shredding” in the outtro here but, musically speaking, it is sub-par because the the majority of the notes are late in the attack. And this is not his most creative moment either, as he is just picking part of a scale and just going up and down back and forth a bunch of times, then moving to a different part of the scale and doing the same thing. There are so many more versions out there, which are played with this kind of energy, but which also feature more of Jerry’s (and the rest of the band’s) high level of musical creativity, freshly articulated around every twist and turn.