Scarlet Begonias -> Fire On The Mountain
Aug. 12, 1981
Salt Palace
Incredible! This is sitting at 13 votes? Massive, bouncy scarlet with an A1 bridge solo. When it comes to scarlet begonias I always look for that "bounce" in the intro, and this one's got it in spades. Most incredible though is the transition; it's very erratic coming into fire, but also somehow very smooth. Everyone is trying to do something different but it somehow ends up oddly cohesive, in a manner only the dead could pull off. The drummers are throwing in all kinds of snare fills, Jerry is gingerly transitioning, and Phil is fragmenting the fire riff. Totally awesome. The fire that follows is no slouch either-- Jerry gets that tone spectrum flowing and it starts to smolder.