Expertly rendered. Bobby provides terrific atmospheric coloration. Jerry just rocks out through the whole thing.

Zippy, choogling BIODTL with a great groove.

More than usually haunted Space raves and knocks around before cooling a funky, colorful Other One intro.

The playing is perfect fairground calliope blues. You won’t care about the fudged lyrics or scratchy singing.

Powerful ending with Phil thumping away high on the fretboard. > Drums.

Immaculate soloing here — and I love the segues in this pre-Drums.

I am astonished that this officially released powerhouse version had only one vote when I went to look it up. Filled with sly ’78 magic.

I see my negative comment from years ago drew jeers, and misunderstanding. I didn’t say the outro fell apart — I complimented that part — but I pointed out that there are some noticeable wobbles earlier in the song stemming from the slow tempo. It’s *hard* to play Stella that slow. The song keeps fighting it, and you can hear that. You have an ensemble of musicians trying to figure out on the fly whether they should hold a given chord for one bar or two. It’s awkward. But there’s also some really beautiful guitar work and singing in spite of all that. I love the Dead, love Stella, love May ’77, and do not relish the role of killjoy. If this is your favorite version, great!

To me, this is one of the best versions after the initial more exploratory wave (’82-’83) had subsided. Thunderous arena rock.

Now, this is a rollicking GOOD time. Amazing how Jerry’s playing can evince so much intensity while also being lighter than air.