A tight, upbeat, thrilling version from the legendary March 1990 Knick run.

Concise performance with great Garcia solo

Pigpen leads the band on an acid-drenched, climactic R&B jam.

Mandolin and gospel harmonies help the crowd come down from a very lysergic show.

There are a lot of comments suggesting this version is overrated, but I'm going to defend this version as the best ever, and argue that it's all because of Keith Godchaux. The whole band is on fire, of course. From the opening notes of Scarlet, Phil's bass is absolutely monstrous and he bounces energetically through Fire. Jerry's solos are crystalline and perfect, Weir's accents are just weird enough, and the percussion section is propulsive. Hell, even Donna's vocal stylings sound great. But Keith is way up in the mix, and his excellent rhythm work drives everything. Jerry's solo in Scarlet is played over Keith's chord progressions, and it's Keith who steps up and starts playing the melody as Jerry sings "strangers stopping strangers" at the end of Scarlet. As they enter the jam, Keith is the one leading the jam while Jerry noodles, Phil meanders, and Bobby chimes his weird dissonant chords. The transition into Fire is all Keith. He continues to play Scarlet chords until about 7:40, when he starts vamping on Fire, and the whole mood shifts. The rest of the band gradually falls in line behind Keith's steady march: first the percussion shifts a little, then Weir, then Phil, while Jerry holds off as long as possible. Though the explosion of Fire and its several jams almost drown him out, if you listen you can hear him pounding away through the whole thing. There are a lot of other good versions out there, but they have wildly different rhythms. 5/13/77 is lumbering, while 5/17/77 is nearly a disco beat. 5/8/77 feels like walking down the up escalator: the band falls forward, just ahead of the music, yet at every step Keith's playing rises to meet them and keep them from stumbling.

This lovely Betty Board has a distinctly "dry" sound that lets the kick drum and bass go very deep without getting muddy. Although Keith's piano is one of the key elements of spring '77 Scarlet>Fires, by October he's moved to a very fuzzy synthesizer sound which gives this version a weird, slightly sinister vibe. Jerry seems to be trying to dial in his MuTron settings during the transition between Scarlet and Fire, and his silence leaves a lot of open space for Phil to step in and play some melodic bass lines. Jerry starts singing Fire rather softly, but he's carrying a big stick and proceeds to shred both solos. This is a heavy, lumbering, skull-denting Fire. It's not as pretty as some of the spring 1977 versions, but its jagged peaks reach higher than any other version I know.

Jerry is cranking so hard during the transitional jam that the rest of the band misses his first cue to drop into the feelin' groovy theme. The energy here is slightly scattered but incredibly thrilling.

The Dead are firing on all cylinders here. At about 3:40, Pigpen jumps in with a great harmonica solo (yeah, that felt weird to type). At about 5:00, Pig hands it off to Bob, who builds a solid rhythm guitar jam for about 35 seconds. Then Jerry struts in, and suddenly the lame can walk and the blind can see. Jerry's solo on this version is a note-bending, tape-saturating, face-melting tour de force. It's in a league with the Hard to Handle jam from Aug. 6, 1971, the Seven jam from Sep. 29, 1969, and the St. Stephen jam from June 14, 1968.