Listen to the music play.
Folks - trust me on this: saying 5/8/77 is not Top 50 material is flat out WRONG. It's Top 10, despite what Latvala said in a published interview.

The whole first set is smoke, the Scar-Fire is smoke, the two guitar solos within Fire are unmatched anywere esp. the finale, the Dew solos and finale are over the top. Lots of other fine 2nd set moments too.

Once so many 5/77 shows were heard, this idea cropped up among jaded "collectors" that Cornell was somehow a mirage and not worthy of its rep. 5/21 and 5/22? You must be joking. Really. My friends and I thought that Latvala had lost his mind w/ DP3, not because it wasn't 5/8/77 but because it's kind of mellow, an odd choice from a high energy era. There were many great nights for sure, I would also list Binghamton 11/6, Rochester 11/5 and Springfield 4/23.

I must also say that as jazz listener now, there is a lot of Dead '77 that to me now is unlistenable, due to a lack of imagination and color in Garcia's playing; his tone was not great either in stretches. By '78, there is improvement and by the Spring of 1980, this is no longer an issue, lots of color and variety in his playing. I hope everyone will someday hear some Fall 1980 and Spring 1981 shows, they were really awesome, and remain very under-heard.

Yes I do put 5/8/77 in the ballpark and in the pantheon. Many do. Not uncommon.
If someone such as myself, who is experienced from more than 200 '77-'95 Dead shows and is knowledgeable and an active listener, comes out to recommend AN EXPERIENCE such as 5/8/77 to a new/reluctant listener, how can you possibly argue with that?

Take the ride.

Well you're entitled to your opinion as I am entitled to mine. I mean that's why Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors, right?

Has anybody seen Festival Express yet? I am looking forward to it!

Ok, I'm about to vent so be forewarned! The Milwaukee County Library has a great music CD collection that I use extensively. However, over the years I've noticed that Grateful Dead CDs are WAY MORE likely to be not returned by borrowers. In the online library system the entry will show a due date (often years old), and an indication that the borrower has been billed of the unbreturned item (and presumably never paid or the item would be replaced by now). I was very happy to see that the Library got the Garcia box. There's a long line but I was moving up steadily. Persons one thru 5 returned it promptly, but No. 6 is now a week over due. Based on the library's track record with Dead Heads, I'm afraid that it'll never be returned, they'll bill him and he won't pay. It suck's for me and the over 16 people still on the waitting list.

Peter, dont be too harsh on those Dead Heads, they are probably too stoned to fit the records back in the jewel cases!
Actually, this in a way begs a larger question, for such a radical band the Dead were depressingly straight-sure you had all the anarchic stuff with the Diggers and the free shows, all their experiments to create alternatives to the conventional outlets:their own record label, Dead Heads, Fly by Night Tours, and so on,all useful outlaw mythology, and there were significant numbers of fans who took them at their word and articulated that sense of community which they implied. But the band always stopped one step short of the political contestation these steps implied and remained ìnside` Parrishes book, Home before daylight shows a banal hedonist lifestyle which would not be out of place in a Spinal Tap parody, just dope and groupies and hangers on -all the negative drag energy which put paid to the hopeful Bohemian experiments of the so called Summer of Love. ( No irony intended)
So ,to get back to your story I am not surprised that so many later day Dead Heads have bought into this pick and choose freedom myth-hey, property is theft right? The Dead were an alternative band, but alternative to what exactly? And they got many of the fans they deserved. He who makes half a revolution digs his own grave.
And to reiterate, I loved the Dead! But they were not what I thought they were, just another rock´n´roll band- but back then, I wanted them to be Volunteers!( of Amerika).

Yup, yer right on. When I was a kid I bought into all that stuff, but now I know better. People are just people, warts and all. Can't say that deadheads are any better than the rest . . . ., probably worse. Still love the music though.

The Dead never subscribed to or promoted any utopian ideals. Their role, maybe not purposeful, was to cool the scene in SF, from exactly the kind of "revolutionary" tripe the Airplane were draped in. Jerry said it best, that the Dead were about getting stoned. But that statement doesn't go further to describe any particular lifestyle. And the few hundred (sometimes 000s) hardcore tourhounds we saw at every show constituted a small minority of the scene. Jerry died depressed, his death due in part to the cult obligations that was heaped upon him and his band, not because he or they couldn't live up to it. They had no interest in it, as far as I know, after 1970. They wanted to be good and be accepted as a band, and be financially successful. I thought they were always straight with that. By the late 80s, I knew several people who knew a few band members and how the band-fan thing functioned. The organization (that we could glimpse) turned out to be exactly as advertised, very decent people, nothing more and nothing less. Nobody took the band at their word on a vision, there was no word. And long live Grateful Dead music!!

Thanks Amir for the insights and your take on how the band saw themselves. you say that the band never promoted any utopian ideals, it sure looked like it during the early years and at this geogrphical distance. But maybe that was hype or stoned pipe dreams. Or perhaps they saw the implications of where it could take them and they shied away not wanting the responsibility, maybe in the end they just wanted to Party!
If you are correct then my whole post is one long rant.
I am depressed that the band who had the potential to really change the rock´n´roll paradigm ended up being another Corperation/Logo, just like Cola, McDonalds ( not Country Joe!) et al. I do not intend to demene individuals but their subjective understanding and the objective reality of their situation was not necessarily the same. Another example of how Capitalism recuperates each and every radical gesture and turns it into its opposite.
And I do not put the Dead in the same bag as tha Airplane whose revolutionary posturing was just a fashion statement. But perhaps you are right and what remains is the music. Perhaps that is enough. Perhaps.

This looks interesting (I found this on Steve Hoffman's site, which was taken from USA Today):

•Beyond Description (1973-1989), a sequel to Rhino's 10-disc The Golden Road (1965-1973) box set, arrives Oct. 26 with 15 hours of music on 12 discs. The $150 set holds 10 studio albums plus 65 previously unreleased tracks.

This should include an upgrade of Blues for Allah, which I have been waiting for. Also, there's word that Dicks Picks 19-24 will be available in stores for a brief period at the end of August

Also big news is the extra 90 minutes of the movie, and the fact that it will finally be on DVD, hopefully w/ decent sound. Woo hoo! The '74 edition was a monster.

Also, Garcia Band from Kean College Feb-80 is coming out, from a multi-track tape. Great chance for more fans to hear the After Midnight - Eleanor Rigby jam.

i just found that archive.org site that seems to have like every dead show available for free download and i got excited but then i went to actually download something and nothing really made me excited to pick it up and i realized i guess i am sick of the dead. i think i am done with them as far as my own personal private listening goes. you know what has always bothered me about the dead is that for all the talk of the unpredictability and improv of a dead show, from like '77 on, the shows fell into a very standardized formmat. there was little to no jamming in set I and you were going to hear one of a few different strings of songs before drums>space (and these strung together songs were never really segued either-generally just petered in to each other). then there would be the ballad after space and one more up-tempo thing. also a lot of their covers did nothing for me-such as gimme some love. even '77, which is a highlight year-was basically not improv too much-just some jamming on top of the few songs that jammed in that year. '77 does have some nice points though-but it is more rock music than improvised jam music.
even the earlier stuff was kind of this way-from 72 to 74 you knew you were getting truckin>other one or dark star generally. of course this wasn't always the case, but it was a lot. and the first sets were generally just songs with little jamming, sometimes played more interestingly than others. also the jams in songs like dark star usually always went the same way-into what heads call the "tiger jam" which i find pretty damn annoying with garcia just doing that scraping skittling autowah feedback stuff. but i will give these years a break because the jamming inside the "jam" songs was improvisational and did go in many directions. the good stuff is good.
i am not crazy about most 71 stuff-too many shorter songs-but prior to that i think the dead really were exciting and imprvisational. i can still listen to '68 and '69 and '70 material-it is great and crazy stuff where the dead were mixing everything all together and there is a spirit of improvisation and excitment and you can hear the band trying out new things as they go.
i also have a spot in my heart for some of the '76 stuff because the dead tried to bring back some craziness to the setlist and throw in some weird segues-but it isn't the same as the early stuff as far as excitement.
and i have something in my heart for '79 because i like brent's crazy synth sounds during songs like "playing in the band" and "estimated prophet". but by '79 the band had already ossified a lot and was doing their standard routine.
they were a great rock band-just not as improvisational as some might think.

Good post akanalog. The space was the place for improv, from '78 onward, and I generally loved it at the shows. Nice jams with Hornsby too in 1990/91, and some offbeat set lists here and there.

Try a taste of Phil and friends, its really an awesome tribute band, celebrating the 68-70 Dead. (only half kidding...) They are fun, and they make it up as they go.

I do heartily recommend seeing Phil play Golden Road, The Eleven, and Viola Lee Blues before you die.

Well Amir, I dont intend going anywhere just yet(!?) but where can I hear Phil play that set list? Sounds just up my (shaking?) street!

www.philzone.com

I haven't seen any new tour dates for awhile but they will be back in the late Fall I would assume.

Amir, found myself a bit intimidated when I looked at Philzone, since I haver downloaded a show before- have you a recomendation for a good place to start? Cheers.

No I never have, but I have at least one friend who is not computer-savvy, and he does it mostly on the some Jerry site. He says it is time-consuming to execute the steps, but it does work well and he finds it worthwhile. He also found a JGB show (Waterbury CT '77) for which he searched for years, so he was thrilled.

just found this thread and wanted to chime in.

I actually have the Grateful Dead to thank for getting into jazz in the first place. When the live album "Without A Net" was released I was so amazed by Branford Marsalis' performance on 'Eyes of the World' that I immediately went out and bought all of his CDs. 500 Jazz CDs + later I ahve never looked back!

Welcome onboard Leeno.

Funny put-down of the Dead by Clinton Heylin in his book Bob Dylan: Behind the Shades Revisted. Writing about the Dylan / Dead hookup, he writes:

... Dylan was tying himself to a band who had all the ambition and conceit of one of the great Coltrane quartets but the technical ability of the Buzzcocks.

Ouch! I've never heard any of the Dylan / Dead tapes, were they that bad together?

Hey! Whats wrong with the Buzzcocks?
(ever fallen in love with someone you shouldnt have fallen in love with...?)

Just gave Dicks Picks 11 a spin last night. Its a show from 1972 from the East Coast somewhere. Fantastic. Hadn't heard it in a couple years, I forgot how good it was. Highest possible recommendation for all Dead fans.

Heylin is not objective about the Dead (hates 'em), nor about Dylan (worships him). He got his views on the Dead from Lou Reed I believe. I've talked to Clinton about the Dead, and I think I know when I am talking to somebody who has no idea about what they are or what their music aspires to. The word regarding the Dylan-Dead get-together in '87 is that the Jerry and the Dead felt very let down by Dylan's laziness on stage, his unwillingness to SING especially. There were also some bad feelings about having to play some of the later crap such as Joey. The rehearsal tapes are pretty good (lots of traditional material, some odd covers including The Boy in the Bubble), and there were two good shows out west, especially Eugene I thought. (Check out the Frankie Lee and Judas Priest, you can feel the stage rise as Dylan starts to sing, abandoning the "tuneless wheez" as it has been called.) I thought all the shows had at least 3-4 really well played songs.

The Eugene show was fun to be at. It was a beautiful day, it sure looked cool seeing them all together on stage, and the sight of all those puffs of smoke during "Rainy Day Woman" while making your own was good to be apart of. I remember hoping the combo would approach that of Dylan & The Band but it didn't quite work out that way. Still, it was fun.

I've heard stories that Dylan and the boys had been partying pretty hard with regional author & prankster Ken Kesey before the show. The oft repeated tale is that Dylan had sucked down a fifth of whiskey before he went on. As his last album was Knocked Out Loaded perhaps he had.

If I recall correctly Garcia had put together a different set of songs for the Dylan & The Dead album but Dylan vetoed it. It's too bad as the tour wasn't as bad as the album makes it out to be (or at least one could cherry pick a better 35 minutes to wrap around "Frankie Lee.")

The rehearsal version of "Boy In The Bubble" is so terrific I always have a hard time remembering what else is played over the 3 discs. Phil's bass on it is so damn good on it. It would have made a great 1st set song for them.

New cd of the Jerry Garcia Band coming out that looks nice. Here's a good PRE-ORDER DEAL people can check out if you wish. I'd love to buy it, but I'm saving my money for the Dylan concert at UC Irvine right now. Decisions, decisions.

Speaking of pre-orders, The Grateful Dead Movie is available as a pre-order in all sorts of combinations (would you like a T-shirt with your order?) They're releasing a 5 disc CD set as well - some music is in the movie, some isn't.

Their unique trinket to get you to pre-order from them is that they'll include a 6 inch strip of film from one of the retired movie reels with the DVD. Cute.

The latest box (Wake thru Built To Last) is available to pre-order as well. And they reveal the extras on the remasters.

Lotsa lotsa stuff. Too much in future jazz purchases is spoken for, so I reckon I'm just getting the movie (sans the filmstrip.)

Man, I'm really divided about this next box set. . . . I mean I adore Wake of the Flood and Mars Hotel, but my interest after that really wanes dramatically. I'd like to have the remastered Flood and Mars, AND the bonus disc only sold through the website. . . but not the whole box. Play the waiting game I guess and hope they put out remasters of Wake and Mars soon.

I had to laugh when I saw some of the extra tracks on the bonus disc for the new GDR/Arista years box. For years my buddy has LUSTED for a good tape of 8/31/80 from the Cap Centre, I have heard a crusty aud and for sure this was a very hot night. And what do we get on the bonus disc?: the 8/31/80 edition of Brent Mydland crooning Far From Me. woohoooo!

Jazzbo, no love for the Blues for Allah album?

What am I thinking! I really like Blues for Allah. After that is where it drops off for me pretty quickly. So I guess I'm quite interested . . . in one quarter of the box set.

I just preordered this box set, because I want remastered copies of Blues for Allah, Wake of the Flood and Mars Hotel, and the rest I'm just curious about. I've heard all of the albums after those I just mentioned and don't need them but I'm interested in hearing the bonus material. Plus, the extra disc looks cool, and the price is pretty good for a box set of this size. Total around $130 or so, avg of $10 per disc. Since I have the Golden Road box I gotta get this one to complete the set anyway!
It looks like they are also reissuing So Many Roads at the same time.

Clem - there are a few gems on Shakedown Street, including the heavy title track, If I Had the World to Give, and one of the all-time great Dead songs Fire On the Mountain. But the album is piss overall you are right. Maybe some bonus tracks will redeem it.

Does Tangled Up in Blue count as a Bob Brooklyn song?

Clem, I agree 100% on your assements re Lou ,Lowell (and Roy Estrada) and the Buzzcocks!

I dont know if I will be picking up the new Rhino/Arista box yet-Too much patchy if not downright poor material from my taste-frinstance I do not share the offt spoken admiration for Mars Hotel which, tho it includes Unbroken Chain also includes the unspeakable Loose Lucy and USBlues-but am I missing something where is the-admittedly piss poor-Steal your Face album?

Run Your Life...Steal Your Wife...Share Your Wealth...Steal Your Face? Nov-05 I think, with the DVD release of the Dead movie, there will be a new (HDCD) 5-CD compilation from all the Oct-74 Winterland shows, a movie soundtrack-plus. Mmmmmm. If you are still pining for Steal Your Face after that, you may need some professional help.
http://www.gdstore.com/gdmovie/

The tracklisting for the CD is:
CD 1
US Blues
One More Saturday Night
China Cat Sunflower>
I Know You Rider
Eyes of the World>
China Doll*
Playing In The Band

CD 2
Scarlet Begonias
He’s Gone>*
Jam>*
Weirdness>
The Other One>
Spanish Jam>
Mind Left Body Jam>
The Other One>
Stella Blue
Casey Jones

CD 3
Weather Report Suite
Jam>*
Dark Star>
Morning Dew
Not Fade Away>*
Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad

CD 4
Uncle John’s Band*
Big Railroad Blues*
Tomorrow Is Forever*
Sugar Magnolia>
He’s Gone>*
Caution Jam>*
Drums>*
Space>*
Truckin’>
Black Peter
Sunshine Daydream

CD 5
Playing In The Band>*
Drums>*
Not Fade Away>*
Drums>*
The Other One>*
Wharf Rat>*
Playing In The Band*
Johnny B. Goode
Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodeloo*
We Bid You Goodnight*

* denotes songs not featured in The Grateful Dead Movie or Bonus footage.

Thanks Amir, I suspected that could be the answer to my conundrum.! I seemed to remember that Steal was the soundtrack to the film long before the film came out. (I have never seen it, hence my query, my wife agres that I need professional help, I mean how many versions of Lovelight does a grown man need to own? ?)

I think a safe answer is. . .no more than twenty-seven. . . .

Oh, a GROWN man! No more than thirty-seven. . . .

impossible-I suppose i must confront the uncomfortable possibility that I married the wrong woman! Just kidding honey, honest.....

I must say that I am quite surprised to find so much discussion on the Dead's studio albums in this thread. Not that I have anything against it...its just unusual because in all the years I've been a Dead fan, when it comes to recordings, its always been all about the recordings of the LIVE shows! Once in a while, when the topic of a studio album came up, it would quickly get shot down with comments like "it sucks", or "why would you listen to studio Dead when you can listen to live Dead?". End of discussion. I guess that the studio albums were never really even considered to part of the Dead's legacy....at least with the people I hung out with.

To be honest, I was always in that same boat. I found "Terrapin Station", "Blues for Allah", "Wake of the Flood", and pretty much every other Dead album to be really dry, over-produced, and just not very exciting. Especially when I had (and still have) piles of recordings of intense Grateful Dead concerts that would just blow my mind. Studio Dead and live Dead sound like two completely different bands to me, and I just never found it necessary to listen to any studio Dead. Therefore, its very interesting to me to read up on the discussion about the studio albums. I've never heard perspectives before like some I've read in these posts.

This is a great thread!

No, but its still a facinating read!