Can't believe what short shrift this show gets. They pull off the combo like gangbusters here.

Glorious Jerry vocals, not one, but TWO "sweet Susie's", excellent gritty solo. Best early version ever!

Submitting this on Fat Tuesday 2017. Great Mardi Gras version with really nice piano (!) fills by Brent that oughta be heard!

Get on this one, folks. It's a ripper.

Absolute best of 1974. Not kidding. Jerry's leads are ripping & confident. The band plays flawlessly.Can stand w/some of the best of '77. Must hear.

Indeed the matrix is the best source for this great version with lengthy mellow transition jam and sweet Fire entry. Jer does his all too frequent lost in translation with the first verse thing but almost seems to be laughing about it, then gets down to the business of ripping the roof off. From a show that would get a ton more attention if it had a killer SBD but this Seamons hybrid is fantastic in its own right.

To each his own, of course but to be clear, I'm not reviewing the whole show at all. There are always flaws in '83 shows, even the best of them, but I'm only raving here about the China>Rider, which I think is far better than just OK. I can't seem to find a better one in this year and the 80s weren't always kind to this combo anyway so this one is a standout that I think you're giving a bit short shrift due to the rest of the show being pretty sloppy. This is a hard kicking nailed t down version & Jerry's clearly into it as you can hear in his northboind train moment. You may be be right that this show as a whole is overrated but this combo is just the opposite.

You're all gonna hate me commenting over and over on this version until it gets at least out of the 3-vote zone it's in now. You've been warned. Just freaking listen already.

People. Please. For the love of Jerry, what is this masterpiece doing at less than a handful of votes? There is no doubt my mind this is THE best version of 1983 and you might as well launch it into the Top 10 of the whole damn decade while you're at it. You can't go & listen to this and hear Jerry stretch out the jams and just push each one higher in BOTH tunes and not come back and upvote this. Ya just can't. It even contains a belt it out "northbound train" shout from Garcia & the rest of the crew is right there at every step. Come on, this has gotta move up the board or we're just not paying enough attention.

I'm not a better writer than you but all I can say after spinning this one again is that it gets caught in that weird vortex of songs so plentiful (PITB was played more times in concert than any other Dead song) and with so many of those versions being excellent, that inevitably some will get overlooked and passed by. But logically, when you think about the time frame of this one, it begs to be heard because it's both a progression in scope from some of the Europe '72 versions and a precursor of the way out there let's explore psychedelia renditions to come in '74. Whatever the reason, I was guilty of not paying this one more attention, too, and it was an easy upvote when I did, thanks to your post! This three show run is extraordinary and as a microcosm example of the point I'm making here, 11/11 tends to overshadow the other two superb shows that preceded it and maybe this Playin' gets the short shrift again as a result. Gonna revisit the Eyes from this show next.