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 guiro + vibraslap driven drums interlude that never leaves the Alligator theme makes this. There's even the cool rarity vocal break "ta ta ta ta takita takita takita takita ta" at the end of the drums section before the brilliant jam section with the '69 China Cat theme. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say at one point in the "primal Alligator jam" segment they are definitely jamming over the "Mountain Jam" chords. Any reason it couldn't be? I hear it.

My god, the outro....

Welcome Shug! So you like ye some hard rock Dead? Me too. Check out two of my favorites: The Other One from October 22, 1967 (sound's like the whole goddamned Viet Nam war in one go) and Easy Wind from September, 20 1970, which just kills me every time. I like 'em mellow, too, but we tend to forget just how freaking dangerous the Dead were from the beginning. Enjoy! Edit: Or just go to setlists.net and look for anything with a "feedback" in it - I guarantee that there was some hard driving that went before it. Or for that matter, damn, the whole of 1968 is like one giant supernova. Rock on.

Great catch Grendel. Billy and Phil are definitely laying the voodoo down. I've always thought that the influence of electric Miles Davis has an been under-appreciated factor on (especially) the '74 long jams that don't acid melt. In any case Billy could have subbed any night of the week for Jack DeJohnette - and the Sly influence on Miles was totally acknowledged by Miles himself. The sly Sly drop comes back in around 13:00 pretty clearly. There's another Miles who's influence goes under-appreciated too: Buddy Miles (Jimi's drummer from the Band of Gypsies period), who's great funk from '68 forward is clearly informing our boys during this period. Man, they're vast. I just keep coming back to the well, and it just keeps giving up that sweet sweet water. Thanks for the shout-out.

Almost a Dark Star: I just listened again and it's clear at just after 10:00 how they shift gears and leave the MLB path into the Star. Didn't quite coalesce, but instead went into a beautiful up-tempo modal exposition. It's so beautiful they could do anything they wanted with it.