A solid version with a passage about a minute long straight out of the heavens - directly following the a capella section. Must hear.

Horrible video with STELLA sound on YouTube.

The first solo is sweet and beautiful. The outro is short, bluesy shredding.

The well played end to a S>F>E>E combination. Jerry plays with a theme recognizable from the eyes on DP6.

The encore of the penultimate show of May 1977. It's short, but these people are practiced at this date.

This has been my go-to Bird Song for years. It's good, but it can't be the best. I'm going to have a look around here - I see that this one has not really caught fire heady version style.

I hadn't heard this before. Of course this should be here. The previous two are top 5s (11/5 & 11/6). This is top 10. For real.

Stellar outro.

I just read Grendel's comment here. I could have said the same thing. 89-90 is not the time when Deal reached full maturation. To me the date is 5/1/81 (though I can see a case for the Fox on 11/30/80). The 5/1 AUD from Hampton is A+ and the LIG just before the Deal is also torched. I'm not saying Deal wasn't something the old guy didn't tear up (w/ or w/o the jgb). But they add the 2nd solo in late September 1980, it becomes a better song and it takes a bit of time before Jerry figures out what to with the new solo. If anything - and this may sound like blasphemy to some - the later versions are derivative of all the original creativity in the fox and Hampton versions.

This is quite strong, closely related to the top 5 deal two days later at the fox. Cornell and the Field Trip (which round out the top 5 after 11/30) are, as is their habit with other songs, unjustifiably out in front of this deal, though I'd say this one is more like top 20.