Often a throwaway, this super bouncy version from a top 10 show sparkles.

Hard to get past the fact that the Devils cannot agree what the tempo of the song is for the first few measure of the introduction.

Jamming is very solid. Playing is some of the tightest post-coma. I have to be a hater...Garcia never seemed to fully recover. In particular, the dampened notes on virtually all his rhythm guitar playing limit my enjoyment of much of the 89/90 stuff. This is a welcome exception, and his lead playing remains fine and fluid.

Several reasons make this the best, over other highly-rated versions such as the Spectrum 72 show or the Iowa Fairgrounds 74 show. 1. Jerry's solos are as good as they ever were, exploratory and gorgeous at the same time. 2. Bill's drumming is really propulsive, without some of those slightly-annoying slowdowns he executes elsewhere just as the guitars are getting hot at the end of the proper "song part" of China. 3. Jerry's actually mixed correctly on this version, i.e. not ridiculously quiet in the mix as he is on far too many soundboards 4. They really nail the singing on this, with "Rider" actually sounding more-or-less totally in-tune.

Excellent barnstorming fusion version and the super-percussive ending jam is just the kind of small but very fun flourish that you'd get out of a band like CAN.

I'm not a huge fan of any version of this song's "song portion"--it's good, not great--but this is a really nice jam. Like 1983 generally, AFAICT, there seems to be a real focus on the fusiony quality of the band. Jerry's got a pretty clean distortion, Bob and Brent are are rocking some rich, cloudy tones, and the Devils are keeping things loose in a way that really works on these songs that are loose in the first place (unlike many later trainwrecks: the duo sound great playing fills a-plenty on stuff like this; that's really not "the move" on stuff like "China Cat", which needs some bounce and space). Also one of the all-time smoothest transitions of any two songs that led separate lives (i.e., excepting China>Rider or Scarlet>Fire); Cf the praised Englishtown (1977-09-03) version, which feels pretty forced next to this one (a couple of the other better-ranked ones do as well).