Keith shines on a long, flowing intro section that spills into space-mellow Rat-Goodness

Emerges from Space with a very long intro & very distinct and sustained St. Stephen tease! My favorite version.

Part of what made this Alpine run so legendary. Soulful and Brent-astic.

Maybe the best pure hard riving Rock&Roll version. Lean, mean, and Jerry supreme!

Rarely heard (left out of DP Bonus tracks for Vol. 34) but another sweet/smooth '77 winner.

Light as a breeze, airy and beautiful. A hint of the greater jamming to come in 1977 but mostly a study in flowing, sweeping jazz flourishes. The 6+ minute intro has everyone in great form and Garcia sings each verse just exactly perfectly. Outstanding version understandably low-ranked due only to the sheer volume of amazing versions of this tune, but it should not be overlooked. Easily one of the best of 1976. Notch it up if you agree.

One of the best sung versions of the 80's, or of any era, in fact.

Sick Bits Matrix of this show also. Yer missin' out on a fine combo here, folks. Long, winding, deep, crunchy, gooey, splendid Scarlet>Fire.

Astonishingly good, especially considering the yahoos who couldn't keep their mouths shut and literally had to be "shushed" by one of the tapers.

Been waiting forever to give this a thorough listen b/c I respect cgarces and his picks, and I admit I was all ready to give the thumbs down based on my anti-mid 90's bias. So here's my most objective assessment: Pros: The vocals are what I hate most about any '94 show but given that there are plenty of lousy vocals (esp. Jerry) in the mid 80's this holds up OK. He's not belting anything out and his range is limited for sure but nothing about the vocals is so bad it would prevent an upvote. The jamming in Scarlet is nothing special at all. No heights are reached, and the bridge to "Wind in the Willows" is serviceable but basically stays on an even keel without advancing anywhere interesting. The transition into Fire is equally non-inspiring. The Fire theme just kind of "starts"--at first--and I was ready to nix the whole thing at this point...but then...well, the 5-6 minutes post-transition before the first verse of Fire occurs really turned me around. They suddenly all get into this zone of percussion-led groove jamming (Mickey is the real star here) that then leads into a re-introduction of the main Fire theme that lands smack dab in the pocket and infuses the entire package with an overall energy that's infectious and undeniable. After that, the Fire impresses and succeeds most notably for being propulsive--it keeps jamming forward and Vinny even throws in some interesting phrases (esp. in the first 5 mins. after the transition) that bring the band into hot mind meld mode and it doesn't let up the rest of the way. Jerry's leads have an almost Steve Gadd-like rock feel to them (no cheesy midi junk here) and everyone's in on the action. Jerry mucks up a lyric on the final verse but no points off there...by now we've been treated to a long and interesting high octane Fire that really is the reason this version gets my upvote--the Scarlet is almost an afterthought. I'll say just one more thing: This stands as good an entry for best of the 90s as I've heard--although that's an admittedly low bar. It gets my upvote on the strength of the Fire, and i'm glad I checked it out.