Shortlist: Greensboro, NC – April 1, 1991

This was one of the best Grateful Dead shows I saw live. The one hour edit posted here has the arc you’d want if whatever you’d smoked or ingested was beginning to come on strong just as the music started. 

The great thing about this show is that it had big melodic/exploratory versions of both “Bird Song” and “Dark Star.” At the time of the show, a “Dark Star” was due, and I wanted nothing more. After the “Bird Song,” I doubted the second set would include “Dark Star,” but I got my wish. 

The “Dark Star” was split into two pieces, with a lot of wild, noisy stuff in between. It’s cool noisy stuff (normal and MIDI), but not on the level or in the character of the melodic heights of this show. So, I’ve made the edit that I’ve wanted for nearly 30 years – the Greensboro ’91 “Dark Star” without interruption.

62-minute mp3 mix zipped up here

  • Prelude: Ambient (5:21)
  • Bird Song (16:14)
  • Dark Star > Playin’ Coda > (17:24)
  • Black Peter (9:30)
  • Peggy-O (6:32)
  • It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (6:49)
Note: I was inspired to make this edit by a new Charlie Miller SBD master that appeared last year. It's in the archive here: https://archive.org/details/gd1991-04-01.141915.sbd.cm.miller.flac1644