A musical lucid dream.

10 minute barn burner with pit-stops at St. Stephen and China Cat

Pig takes the audience on a trip to the delta

Me and My Uncle > Other One > Mexicali > Other One - The cowboy deluxe package.

Bend your ears to hear the tune, and close your eyes to see

Bill Kruetzmann's resume. Right here. An hour of some of the most amazing drum work ever done. Not discounting all the other great stuff happening at all, it's just Bill is the underpinning of all this awesome.

Deserves either high volume or headphones. Beautiful. The last couple minutes of this song is the band taking a musical victory lap around Winterland.

Fazima: awesome, nice find.

3/21 Playin tries to stretch out, but ends up seeming kind of forced, 3/22 tries as well, but it's so soup-muddy sounding you can't really tell what's going on - 3/23 is the first instance I've found of every member of the band relaxing into the ethers, knowing this song was going to take them somewhere. You can't really single any one performer out, it's just every player finally Playin'.

2 minutes 40 seconds is the magic number for 71 and 72 'Playin'. Not to say the beginning of the song isn't worth listening to, it just doesn't vary much - that bit after 2 minutes 40 seconds is where the fun happens, tho, and this one is absolutely one of the signposts on the road to this song becoming a jammer. Feb. Capitol Theater run, the band is doing good to finish the song without it falling apart. April Manhattan and Boston shows, the idea of opening the song up isn't even on the radar, they rush thru the song in 4 to 5 minutes - this holds sway throughout the entire summer/early fall of 71, until Keith shows up. Compare 8/26/71 with 10/19/71 and you can see the enormous difference Keith made. Even 10/19 is fairly short and rushed, but you can notice the difference made to the rhythm, melody and just overall stability of the song. 10/24/71 is the first time that post 2:40 section of the song is an invocation to the jam gods to split this song open and make some magic, even though it doesn't really take off. A whole passel of shows from October thru December show the possibility of 'Takeoff', but never quite realize where the song could go, but 12/10 and 12/14 are great examples of a new beginning for the song - Jerry and Keith rotate around each other trading off on the melody and improv, but for less than a minute. By the time the March 72 Academy of Music shows roll around, the 'short freakout' is stretched, even including the 'Darkstar Frog' percussion scrapey-thing, and a dedication to plow thru weirdness to see where this song could take them, often leading to 10+ minute renditions for the first time. I generally think of 4/26/72 as the last 'signpost' in the transition of this song, as that invocation to the jam gods is heard and responded to from that point on, leading to things like the 8/27 intergalactic weirdness. Long and rambling way of getting to the point, but following along with how this song matured entertains me more than it probably should, and 12/14 is absolutely one of the signposts between Playin' being a song, and Playin' being a method of transportation to Neptune.