Description
Double Black Vinyl LP
Recorded live at The Fillmore West and the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, California, in 1969, and originally released on November 10, 1969, Live/Dead was the first 16-track on-location recording. Among the finest of rocks live documents, Live/Dead is a snapshot of the Grateful Dead circa 1969, applying the free-jazz lessons of John Coltrane to their finely-tuned, manic and flowing boogie. It was the first released piece of evidence that the Grateful Dead were a wholly different, multi-headed animal live than the one in the studio. Live/Dead was also the culmination of the groups evolution into whats now considered the vintage San Francisco sound having perfected it, the Grateful Dead would soon leave it for fresher musical pastures.
While each of the Live/Dead selections calls to mind a specific trick from up the bands sleeve, the opening four songs (later dubbed the holy quartet by Deadheads) best indicates the Deads burning trajectory. Dark Star lays out a wide-open musical terrain, allowing the band to leap anywhere from its minimalist-riff launching pad and its two verses of T.S. Eliot-inspired psychedelic prose. St. Stephen explodes like a shiny metallic cloud-burst, Bob Weirs fervent vocals carrying it like a holy torch. The Eleven, a thunderous fury of a composition based on The Twelve Days Of Christmas and played in 11/4 time, continues the rumbling. By the time Pigpen ends the continuous sermon with a raucous sci-fi-R&B take on Bobby Blue Blands Turn On Your Lovelight, the Dead have seemingly sailed every corner of their musical universe and crash-landed with aplomb.
Released: 3/18/08
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