Kicks off an excellent show with intense and driving energy. The quintet is super-charged and bursting with energy. One of the best versions I know.

Packs a lot into its 4.5 short minutes. Great bass-heavy SBD gives you a Phil masterclass. Love the short ones, love the long ones....

Just kickin', this one. The whole show is dynamite.

One of the slower waltz versions, with lovely vocals from Cowboy Bob, who gives us a nice country warble. Sweet backup harmony and Jer being Jer.

Philzone masterclass. Hot and tight jam, the Rider three-part harmonies sound like some of the acoustic versions from the previous year.

The Billy/Bobby interplay is clear - and beautiful - in the mix, which is a rare treasure. It reminds me of being at shows and being able to focus (when focus was even possible) on different combinations of the boys at play, depending on where you were in the audiospace. This isn't the most polished or most experimental version you'll hear. It isn't even the most well-played. It is,however, bursting with creative synchronicity and it quite simply doesn't resemble any that went before it. PiTB is a study in the Dead's evolution, and within one year it went from the weirdly apocalyptic psychedelic jam "The Main Ten" to a twangy country warble with its off-kilter meter and explosive energy. Within another year we arrive at Veneta and PiTB is there with Dark Star as one of their vehicles for interdimensional exploration. This one stands at one of the junctures.

Right on, unstrucksound, glad you dug it!

Little known fact: Phil has twenty fingers. Evidence? This song.

Good goddamned hot, this one. So much energy, they're just giving giving and giving.

Sure thing, Deadhoe69, but here it's uptempo, fresh, and pushing forward. Later ones don't (for me) have that essential pulse as the earlier ones. And Jer's vocals here push it forward with meaning and soul. There's a pulse here that sometimes I lose in the later ones. He's right, this is a good call. You'll love it. I do.