Segues perfectly out of MAMU and rolls along beautifully til Jerry goes ballistic on the last solo. Must hear.

Nice early stand alone with a long intro. You can hear the transition from the old intro to the more familiar pickings of later versions.

Not really a darkness jam but more of a dark star jam than what it's listed as (PITB) leads into Wharf Rat & is beyond beautiful.

The boys really "throw a mess" on this one, making the carrier dome sound like a down and dirty old time saloon. Slinky sick stuff

Check out Jerry's "giddy-up" riffs in the final "Row" choruses!

This is a nice one with a great start, jamming middle, and some miscues toward the end. For another rec. try 10/29/77, which I believe is awesome start to finish.

Just exactly perfect. Maybe Donna's finest moment on this tune. Completely skewed rating with only 2 votes at the time I write this. Find a clean version (DL series Vol. 4) or fight thru a lesser-sounding archive version, but the power and pristine nature of this version can't be denied.

Being perfectly honest, I was a little let down by this version. Outro, as cgarces noted, is the best part, but there's a tentativeness to the rest of the approach, especially at the beginning, as Jerry has trouble getting the lyrical phrasing to match the tempo of the music. It's a B- minus at best for me, mostly because there are so many better versions from this era, especially in 1982...the Ravenspace Stella from 4/19/82, for example, blows this outta the water

My guess is that this is so far down the list only because you have to get the Download Series Vol. 4 to hear a really good SBD version. Well....do it. This, (even for a year in which they played quite a few versions with the "backwards progression" of the Stronger Than Dirt theme done pre-lyrics instead of post) is a stand-out. The jamming has that flowing/mellow/1976 vibe but is also supremely confident and colorful, with constantly shifting ideas and landscapes explored in a lengthy intro. The Stronger Than Dirt theme isn't as fully fleshed out as its 1974 counterparts but that's a good thing here, because it would have distracted from the ultimate spill-over into the first verse. There's even a slow-down, mini-space break-down moment before they launch into the main theme proper and the rest of this gorgeous version just floats on air before heading into a drums>Wheel>SugarMag sequence that would do 1977 proud in terms of power and precision. THIS NEEDS TO BE WAY, WAAAAAY UPPED!

In this unique, faster-played but very precise and vocally beautiful early version, Delilah Jones raised "13 children" rather than "8 boys" and Daddy's whisky costs $3 instead of 2. A real treat, especially with the breezier clip at which it's played.