Here are three hours of SBD highlights from the penultimate run of The Grateful Dead’s Spring 1994 tour. Unlike the folks at the tour’s final shows in Florida, Atlanta attendees were very lucky. They saw excellent versions of many of the band’s biggest jam songs, including the last “Dark Star,” ever. This is one of the best single-city, 1994 Dead runs I’ve found so far. A great cap to a tour that was rich with high points.
3-hour, mp3 file, zipped up here
Set 1 (54 minutes):
- Feel Like a Stranger
- Dire Wolf
- Black Throated Wind
- Deal
- New Speedway Boogie >
- Promised Land
- Standing on the Moon
Set 2 (61 minutes):
- Tuning Noodle
- Bird Song
- Estimated Prophet Jam
- Crazy Fingers
- Scarlet Begonias >
- Fire on the Mountain
Set 3 (57 minutes):
- Playin’ in the Band >
- Dark Star
- Eyes of the World
- The Other One >
- Wharf Rat
- Brokedown Palace
Notes:
- This mix excludes the band’s post “Built to Last” songs (the best of which, from this tour, I anthologized here), and “Drums>Space” highlights, which already appear here, or will appear on a future March ’94, “Music for Spaceports, Part 2” mix.
- The only edit I’ve made is to reduce “Estimated Prophet” to mostly the jam, which is great, while the song itself struggled after a stumble.
- The “Bird Song” goes to amazing places. This is one of the songs where "Dark Star" was hiding out in the later years.
- The “Crazy Fingers” is as good as I’ve heard from later days, maybe thanks to recently-introduced teleprompters. 15% more Garcia vocal confidence, and this would have been perfect.
- Likewise, though Garcia is a moment behind confidence at several points in the vocals, this “New Speedway” is the most gripping performance I’ve gotten to know from the end years.
- Likewise, again, this may be the first “Scarlet” from this period that I’ve anthologized, because the song itself is exciting here.
- The “Fire” steadily ignites.
- “Playin’ > Dark Star” already appeared on my very first 1994 mix, repeated here, in a proper “Roadtrips” context. The “Playin’” is exemplary latter-day, and I have no issues with this sweet little coda to the “Dark Star” saga. Dig the drunken, twangy, science-fiction licks!
- I’m no expert on “Standing on the Moon” performances, but this one seems pristine – and it works great as a jam to end a hypothetical first set.
- Regarding standing somewhere, I was standing in the kitchen, chopping onions, trying to decide if this “Black Throated Wind” made the cut, and my partner walked in, listened through to the end, and asked, “When is this? I like it!” So, it made the cut.