I decided to listen to all the Keith & Donna era “Shakedown Streets" (they overlapped for about five months), and it led me to this two-hour mix, pulled from four consecutive concerts. It simulates an almost non-stop jam that would have been nice to hear in Egypt, next to the pyramids and the Sphinx, on a starry night in the Fall of 1978. (The actual Egypt shows were a month earlier.)
Each of these shows featured an unorthodox second set sequence with carefully-crafted connections. “Shakedown Street” was brand new at this point (these are the 5th, 6th, and 7th performances), a second set song that they jammed into and out of. That song and the Middle Eastern motifs running through these shows precipitated some very interesting passages, even managing to pry “Fire on the Mountain” free of “Scarlet Begonias” one of only two times between March 1977 and October 1980. Rounding out this moment in live Dead, I’ve included the exceptionally rare “If I Had the World to Give” (3rd and final performance) and Donna’s “From the Heart of Me,” both featured on the studio album, “Shakedown Street,” released the week before these shows. This mix is very much the opposite of that album.
11/24/78 Passaic, NJ
- From the Heart of Me
- Estimated Prophet >
- Shakedown Street (instrumental edit) >
- Ollin Arageed >
- Fire on the Mountain (instrumental edit)
11/23/78 Landover, MD
- Dancin’ in the Street (instrumental edit)
- Playin’ Jam >
- Egyptian Space >
- Shakedown Street > Approach to Playin’
11/20/78 Cleveland, OH
- Playin’ Jam >
- Shakedown Street (instrumental edit) >
- If I Had the World to Give
- Supplication (instrumental edit)
11/21/78 Rochester, NY
- Drums > Space >
- Not Fade Away (instrumental edit)