Having held "sing something Phil" banners, I always had a soft spot for BoR. This one is tightly played and powerfuly sung. Good stuff!

Hard rockin' version coming after a deliriously epic 2nd set suite. Crunchy and powerful.

A long, smooth outro allows for a little musical discussion whether it's going to TOO or Truckin'. Great stuff that must have stolen many faces.

This CC is so sweet and much longer than others of the era before signaling the >IKYR, with lots of room to stretch out and find the sound.

So smooth, so warm. 2nd song in the show, and they sound like its late 2nd set. Gem of a show, gem of a song.

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.