Best of the 80's or 90's, hands down. Picture perfect rendition: Vocals, jam fills, & finish.

Short but raging. Look beyond the length & enjoy for the fire within. Jerry attacks this from the get-go & it's awesome.

Anybody else hear a very distinctive riff of Steely Dan's "Black Friday" in the intro?

Just listen & you will believe. End jam before SSDD is a tidal wave of sound & power & beauty. A true must hear.

Just one jam theme among many. this should be called "Kitchen Sink" jam. Has so much & all so good

"This bein' Sunday we thought we'd do a spiritual number." -Bob Typically hot, Brent-heavy '81 magic here.

^^^^ That's the best description I've heard of this and explains even more than the MIDI why I don't care much for it. You're right, this version never pauses for air, everything's packed in like sausage meat and it while it has plenty of propulsion it definitely lacks in flow, subtlety and nuance. To each his own, of course. I understand the high ratings to a certain extent, but it's all too technical-sounding to me.

Revisiting this old classic recently brought a new level of appreciation. Quick side detour that back in the day I had this show on a 3-LP bootleg album that I THINK (memory not being my strong suit) was called "For Dead Heads Only" and I wore it out. (If anyone else had this LP and can corroborate this as the title please let me know). There were no liner notes or any explanation as to why Jerry's voice was so raspy and damn near full blown laryngitis on "fire", but I realized a few things hearing this again: 1) The band nails this stand-alone (coming out of Olin Arageed); 2) the relaxed tempo was letter perfect, and 3) Jerry commits heartily to this version in spite of his voice, which could have had him dropping out entirely. Instead you can hear him trying valiantly to push through his weakened vocal chord issues and his effort makes it a more poignant, heartfelt version than many others. This is also around the time they had just added the middle verse to the tune ("almost ablaze still you don't feel the heat"), none of the '77 versions having that extra lyric to contend with, and Jer nails it, again, pushing aside as best he can a serious bronchial condition that would eventually cancel at least one later date on the tour. This "Fire" will always have a soft spot in my heart as a result, but it deserves more than just pity points...it's actually quite worthy even with Jerry's vocal disadvantages.

OK, but I am calling 9-18-74 better than this one. Although this one is very very good.

This is almost a grunge-funk version. Slinky. Slow, but funkified. Nasty. Brent just lets loose on this, too. Check out what he does on intro. '79 has some the coolest NFA's ever...and maybe the last truly great year for the tune before it became a throw-away clap-clap-Bop-Bop-fest in the 80's. This is a short version, btw, but that shouldn't be held against it. They pack a ton of fun into that short space.