According to these performances, The Grateful Dead were great at least as late as fall 1994. Try this in place of 1977 or 1989 Dead sometime. You won’t be disappointed to add this additional Dead flavor to your life.
October 1st is the only 1994 concert The Dead have officially released. Most of the rest of the month’s shows circulate on beefy soundboards, which I sifted for this mix, while also making a couple of important audience tape pickups. The tour’s shows, which began in September, ended on October 19; the band’s next tour began November 29.
Much of the 1993-1994 material I’ve posted on this blog, so far, has been focused on the extremes of how far out the band could get (“Dark Star,” drums/space MIDI adventures, Ornette Coleman) and how well they could sell their newest/final compositions (“Liberty,” Childhood’s End,” etc.).
In contrast to those two perspectives, this mix is all about the October 1994 Grateful Dead punching you in the face with terrific performances of 29 of their pre-1979 classics (with a couple of outliers).
This mix is bike-trail-tested. I’ve created four sequences, but start anywhere you like. There’s very, very little slack.
4h40m mp3 mix here (tagged as a single album with four discs)
71 minutes:
- Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues (10/15)
- Loose Lucy (10/3)
- Black Throated Wind (10/15)
- Stagger Lee (10/15)
- Jack-a-Roe (10/19)
- Attics of My Life (10/3)
- Friend of the Devil (10/17)
- New Minglewood Blues (10/17)
- New Speedway Boogie (10/15)
- Truckin’ (10/18)
74 minutes:
- Help on the Way > Slipknot! > (10/18)
- Franklin’s Tower (10/18)
- Playin’ in the Band > (10/13)
- Uncle John’s Band > (10/13)
- Playin’ Jam (10/13)
- Fire on the Mountain (10/14)
58 minutes:
- Shakedown Street (10/3)
- Eyes of the World (10/17)
- The Wheel (10/3)
- Morning Dew (10/17)
77 minutes:
- Cassidy (10/3)
- It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue (10/13)
- Stella Blue > (10/19)
- Sugar Magnolia (10/19)
- Bird Song (10/3)
- Row Jimmy (10/2)
- Wharf Rat (10/13)
- Comes a Time (10/9 - final performance)
- China Doll (10/11 - final performance)
Additional notes:
- Lead vocals lapses are the main flaws you’ll find in some of my selections, but most are fleeting, with only a couple of more extensively blown lyrics. There are plenty of absolutely perfect performances in the mix as well. The jamming, short and long, is all pleasing, with “Fire” and “Eyes” going on for more than 20 minutes each, and “Bird Song” possibly a top 10 for me. The “Attics of My Life” will curl your toes, in a good way.