headyversion

find the best versions of grateful dead songs

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grendel

Books and Music

+24543


Submissions

24
Franklin's Tower
May 1, 1981
Hampton Coliseum

One of the best played versions from one of the best played shows in the Brent era---ever.
16
Shakedown Street
March 24, 1981
Rainbow Theater

15+ minutes of funk w/extended overlapping vocal rounds of "just gotta poke around", etc. before jam Brent adds cool "fuzzy" SFX
1
Big Railroad Blues
Oct. 30, 1971
Taft Auditorium

Check out Keith on this one! He's never been so up front before & right outta the gate!!
21
Cream Puff War
July 3, 1966
Fillmore Auditorium

Peppy early version w/Jer belting out lyrics & Pig doin' some nice work on organ. No archive copy exists; got this off 30 Days of Dead-worth the DL!
9
Passenger
May 7, 1979
Allan Kirby Field House

Super-charged EARLY Brent version rips and tears and shreds. Final jam before the coda is the best they ever did in this tune. Goes to 11.

Comments

Scarlet Begonias -> Fire On The Mountain
Jan. 8, 1979
Madison Square Garden

Gets my vote for greatest ever Donna transition section. Some will feel this immediately disqualifies it as a heady version, but I implore you to see beyond your Donna bias and realize what she's doing in this particular version: to scat and vamp and experiment with her voice without going overboard into the screech-filled warblings of early 70s PITB and GSET territory. Instead, Donna gets into the groove of the transition and really rides some instrumental-like vocal waves and it adds a whole new element and flavor to the song that most previous versions lack. So I'm upvoting this primarily b/c of Donna, but also it should be said that if a great SBD copy of this show existed, the rest of the band would deserve an A+ too! The AUD's not bad (CM after all), but the version's good enough that it aches for a clean SBD.
Franklin's Tower
Oct. 27, 1979
Cape Cod Coliseum

No one's gonna like this post but after repeated listening and really trying to like this version (and the one from the other Cape Cod show), I gotta say--this is crazily overrated and really, just kind of flat out boring. The best thing about it is the transition from Dancin', which is what I suspect has it so highly ranked, but the performance of the song itself is just meandering with no real peaks and very little in the way of excitement. It also suffers from Brent's penchant for Fisher Price key sounds and just really kinda sits there doing nothing except going on for a long while. Compare to any of the best versions from '76-'77 (and even some '77 versions, it must be said, go on a little longer than they should), but there are even versions of the late 90's that blow this one out of the water (See 10/1/94) for focus, jamming, and tightness. There's some good stuff going on in both CC shows but the "Two Towers" aint it.
Lazy Lightnin' -> Supplication
July 5, 1978
Omaha Civic Auditorium

The best versions are still from the year previous (see 5/22/77, 11/2/77 and 5/18/77 for the Top 3), but this aint a whole lot farther behind. Confident Bobby reading of Lightning and Jerry doesn't skimp on the jams in Supplication. The lyrical rejoin isn't as tight as the great '77s just mentioned but it's still a rollicking good time and deserves a higher spot on this list. (Better than most any '76 I'd wager.)
Brown Eyed Women
May 22, 1977
The Sportatorium

Would be higher if there weren't so many dang good versions from May '77 alone, not to mention the year. Upvote worthy nonetheless.
Cassidy
July 7, 1978
Red Rocks Amphitheatre

More magic from the show that gets unfairly overlooked due to the night that followed. Jerry's lead into the final stanza is mesmerizing. Another truly great '78 that leaves out the "flight of the seabirds" lyric at the end and is somehow even better for it.