Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks 21

CD046 - 3 CD

Go to the shop

Home

Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks 21

3 CD set with material from the 11/1/85 at the Richmond Coliseum in Richmond, Virginia plus some tunes from 9/2/80. HDCD.

GRATEFUL DEAD
Jerry Garcia - Lead Guitar, Vocals
Mickey Hart – Drums
Bill Kreutzmann – Drums
Phil Lesh - Bass, Vocals
Brent Mydland - Keyboards, Vocals
Bob Weir - Rhythm Guitar, Vocals

Disc One:
Dancing In The Streets (6:52) Stevenson, Gaye, I. Hunter
Cold Rain and Snow (7:31) Grateful Dead
Little Red Rooster (8:22) Dixon
Stagger Lee (5:56) Garcia, Hunter
Me And My Uncle (3:04) Phillips
Big River (6:19) Cash
Brown-Eyed Woman (4:55) Garcia, Hunter
Jack Straw (5:25) Weir, Hunter
Don't Ease Me In (3:14) Trad. Arr. by Grateful Dead

Disc Two:
Samson and Delilah (7:35) Trad. Arr. by Bob Weir
High Time (8:44) Garcia, Hunter
He's Gone (11:07) Garcia, Hunter
Spoonful (4:55) Dixon
Comes A Time (8:26) Garcia, Hunter
Lost Sailor (7:28) Weir, Barlow
Drums (9:03) Hart, Kreutzmann

Disc Three
Space (11:27) Garcia, Lesh, Weir
Saint Of Circumstance (6:53) Weir, Barlow
Gimme Some Lovin' (4:28) Davis, M & S Winwood
She Belongs To Me 7:54 Dylan
Gloria 6:52 Morrison/Smith
Keep Your Day Job 4:11 Garcia/Hunter

Community War Memorial - Rochester, NY 9/2/80
Space 8:33 Garcia/Lesh/Weir
Iko Iko 7:46 Crawford/B&R Hawkins/Johnson
Morning Dew 11:06 Dobson/Rose
Sugar Magnolia 9:14 Weir/Hunter

HDCD provides higher resolution when played in an HDCD-equipped CD player, and offers superior sound when played in regular CD players. HDCD CDs can be played in all CD players.

This “Pick” certainly must rank with second gen Vaultmeister David Lemieux’s most inspired choices. Nineteen eighty-five was a great year for the group, with the summer and fall tours producing a number of excellent shows. What makes this Richmond concert special is a combination of really unusual song choices and placement in the second set and the sheer force of the Dead’s playing.

The first set is relatively straightforward but very well executed and full of energy. After the double-barreled opening of “Dancing in the Streets” and “Cold Rain and Snow,” the set mostly ambles through peppy historical pieces — superb versions of “Stagger Lee” and “Brown-Eyed Women,” and the gunslinger tunes “Me & My Uncle” and “Jack Straw.”
The second set opener, “Samson & Delilah” continues the scorching ways of the first set, but then veers unexpectedly in a different direction. Garcia offers a fine, emotional reading of the relatively rare “High Time,” then follows with another ballad, “He’s Gone.” That then veers into a transitional “Spoonful,” which rolls into yet another Garcia ballad, “Comes A Time” — revived in June of ’85 and always an emotional tour de force.
I can’t recall another show with three Garcia ballads before “drums.” (This may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I love it!) “Comes A Time” moves smoothly into a strong “Lost Sailor,” which instead of blasting into its usual pairing with “Saint of Circumstance, leads into wondrous “drums” and “space” segments and then the triumphant “Saint” — this marks the only time those two songs were split by “drums.”
Following a smashing “Gimme Some Lovin’,” there are two more surprises—a lovely, heartfelt version of Dylan’s “She Belongs to Me” (which Garcia performed only in 1985) and a raucous, set-ending “Gloria,” with Bob at his high octane best stretching out the spell-along chorus. I’m not a fan “Day Job,” but must acknowledge this encore version is one of the better ones I’ve heard.

All in all a fascinating show—a few stumbles along the way show that they weren’t operating at 100 percent telepathy, and there isn’t much jamming, but there’s heaps of raw power and emotion.

As a bonus, this set’s “filler” on Disc Three (from an ’80 Rochester show) features a fantastic, melodic “space” moving into a rather slow and unremarkable “Iko,” and then a “Morning Dew” that is stratospheric — one of the best yet on CD in my view (but then I’m partial to ’85). A rockin’ “Sugar Mag” then brings this often mind-blowing CD to an end. By the way, the sound throughout is killer; a beautiful mix and recording by Dan Healy, particularly the Richmond show.