More and more I'm convinced that the earliest Samsons are the best. So confident, so full of strut and swagger. Any other era with such consist force?

Keith and Jerry are manic pinball flippers bouncing their solos off each other here. Fun set closer.

Smooth and satisfying, rouses the crowd right up too. What a sweet show this is.

Fun, raucous, and rowdy, but full of tight ensemble jamming and a nice Bobby/Jerry balance, allowing you to hear Cowboy Bob's great backup work.

Jerry's voice is at his most elegant, showing some smoke. Keith is supremely intuitive and beautiful, the band goes higher and higher. Great version.

Jerry reaches terminal velocity. The band is absolutely shredding, reaches Colemanesque harmolodic polyrythms at on point right before the Supplication re-entry.

The only reason this isn't much higher is that we don't have a SBD for it. Check it out, everything Glynn said here was right on.

Absolute stunner. There isn't a dud in this whole first set.

How have I gone this long in life without hearing this? Goddamn, this is perfect. I love how they take it down to almost zero, (some Heads probably thought, "hey, man, are they stopping?") before slowly building it back up into a long exploration of theme and rhythm make it such a danceable and beautiful homage to sudden inspiration and love. The Ferguson SBD has a great mix, especially for an old Philzone freak like me.

Listening again (and again and again) to that gentle lilting jam, and I'm more convinced now that you could describe it as a long teasing intro into the TOO that they finally reach after drums. It isn't TOO in the power-acid rollercoaster cannon shot, but right around 07:30 Keith switches up the chord changes and the drums switch from 12/8 feel (regular triplets over the 4/4 of the main melody) into a clear 6/8 (the meter of TOO). Jerry picks it up right away and turns his flutter of a butterfly wing solo into a rock waltz. By 09:40 Phil and Bobby are pushing it into uncharted territory (it almost sounds like the stuff Joni Mitchell would do with Jaco Pastorius starting the same year) but somehow TOO is already in the air, gently, touched by that beautiful '76 understatement. It's only in the last few seconds before Drums that they spell it out completely. What beauty!