From a painful whisper to pure lightening, an enveloping force of nature

Dark, moody, and soulful. A searing guitar solo, a purely haunted version. An evocation of the deep unharnessed power that controls the fatal cycle.

Pulsing and free. Bill sounds like he has triple the arms. Pig sweats some blues, Garcia liquifies. Lock yourself in, strap up, and don't look back.

Churns, plays itself out, factor playing. Energetic, smooth as smooth.

Peaks and melts in all kinds of directions

Forgot a description should add that this Rat is very convincing and well played.

Garcia is cool as can be in this, composed yet shredding, and shredding not in a flashy pretentious manner, but in an I am completely capable of tearing this song to pieces way, this performance is not a stretch of Garcia's skills. Garcia could do this when he was on, and for sure he was on this entire run at Alpine. This 7/19 conclusion is a grand finale, Althea, West L.A, and Deal are some incredible highlights of one of the best 1st sets of the entire decade. This is what the band could accomplish on a night when they were truly ON and firing tight. Prime, choice, use whatever adjectives you want this thing is in the pantheon of all time Garcia guitar performances, vocally its decent enough, if you haven't heard it (a minority on this site) give it a spin right away.

Damn shame no good SBD exists for the majority of this show, the playing is great but the hiss is a real buzzkill. Still, this 28 min Playin' is very strong, if the sound quality doesn't kill your listening experience, check it out.

Very cool space here

Darting leads slink and stealth in and out of the main theme, jazz-esque improvisational flourishes by all but esp. Keith, man, KEITH just goes off. Garcia basically stabs this one in the heart, as mentioned "Stronger than Dirt" sequence is completely smoked. Interplay is up there with the best. Winter/ Early Spring tour ending show is worth the listen, 4/2/73 very very strong show. From beginning to end. Show is very long, so maybe its best to start at the Playin' to end (Dont forget the China>Rider!).... again I repeat incredibly strong performance.