Audio CD review:
Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks, Vol. 4: Fillmore East, New York, NY, 2/13-2/14/70

Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks, Vol. 4: Fillmore East, New York, NY, 2/13-2/14/70

Band: Grateful Dead Title: Dick's Picks, Vol. 4: Fillmore East, New York, NY, 2/13-2/14/70 Rating: Release Date: 27 October, 1998 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Intro By Zacherle 2: Casey Jones 3: Dancing In The Streets 4: China Cat Sunflower 5: I Know You Rider 6: High Time 7: Dire Wolf 8: Dark Star 9: That's It For The Other One 10: Lovelight 11: Alligator 12: Drums 13: Me & My Uncle 14: Not Fade Away 15: Mason's Children 16: Caution 17: Feedback 18: We Bid You Goodnight

Customer Reviews Darkstar, Darkstar, Darkstar I own about 100 dead/jerry band albums . . this and vol. 8 are my absolute favorites. I try imagining the scene at a particular show and view each show as a snapshot in time like you would a photograph since most were performed before I was born. This show took place in 1970 on Valentine's day in New York City. This selection opens with an intro of "It's glorious Sunday morning . . . THE GRATEFUL G*DAMN DEAD!!!" then right into a rockin' "Casey Jones" . . . the "China Cat" is alittle choppy but that's just fine because the Dead would play songs live typically for a year before recording a studio version and this is an opportunity to hear that evolution . . . the version of "Dire Wolf" is especially good with Jerry's voice sounding as sweet as I have ever heard it . . . Now to the reason you must own this Dick's Picks. "Darkstar" is my favorite song because of this version. It starts with Jerry teasing the crowd with "Alligator?" followed by the begining notes of "Darkstar", the groove they acheive in this song is unreal and I've never heard anything even approach it . . . WOW . . . as "Darkstar" comes to an end you get a glimpse of "The Other One" that follows on next disc. The second disc is an all out jamfest with only two songs that fill it's entire length. Versions of "That's It for the Other One" and "Lovelight" that you can lose yourself in. On the third disc they finally get around to playing "Alligator" a rockin' "Not Fade Away" into "Mason's Children" the latter having only been played a handful of times, ever. A must for any collector. I've heard that the Dead also played CCR's "Lodi" at one of the two shows . . . I'd love to hear it. I don't know if all the shows during this run were as good as this one but I think the Dead wanted to show the opening act, The Allman Brothers, something. Maybe they felt like they had something to prove or the Brothers just set the tone but for whatever reason this show is unreal. . awesome dead Disk 2 is almost as spacy with its 'Cryptical Envelopment' and fun as all get out with Pigpen's rave-up 'Lovelight'. Disk 1 is fantastic (the 'Dark Star' goes from the inner core of the Earth to Andromeda and back again!. But disk 3 is something else altogether; simply the most intense, coolest piece of music in the History of Man. It starts all second line and funky on 'Alligator' (check out Lesh's rumblings). Then the set melts into an organic drum duet that is one of the Rhythm Devils' best ever. Then they explode out with a ferocious 'Me And My Uncle', detouring into the upbeat, weird, and criminally underplayed 'Mason's Children'. The groove they then hit in the ensuing speedy jams, and incredibly maintain, the crescendos/multiple orgasms of 'Caution'. . . . the feedback coda and the gorgeous a capella ending is classic. . . . This is IT--the Alpha and Omega of Dead recordings. Now, speaking of recordings, this is my only gripe--each show is classic and has been recognized as such by Deadheads for decades now. Each show deserved to be released in its entirety rather than this mix and match. . . but, hey we all already have the complete shows in our collections anyway, so just enjoy this for its sound that is as good as can be and better than our ol' cassette copies. This is definitely one of those 'if you had to be taking just a few albums to a desert island' CD sets. Almost ultimate Dark Star, flawed CD release The Dark Star on that boot blew my mind and i have been looking for a copy of that LP and/or trying to find out what show it was ever since then; that is until sometime in January 2007 when i finally discovered that the show that was edited to fit on 2 lp's of the bootleg was from the very show(s) featured on DP4!! I was so happy. Probably in about 1989 or so, i heard a vinal bootleg called "Cryptic Envelopment" (yes, i know that's not the song's correct name, it was a boot). This Dark Star is simply astonishing. It is so lumbering and otherworldly, i really can't describe it in terms that fit my feeling for it. It seems as if it is some rare beast from some alternate, dusty, psychedelic world parallel to our own. I havent heard more than about 20 or so Dark Star's but I would bet anything that even if i knew them all, this would be amoung the top 5, if not top 2. UNFORTUNATELY, this is out of print. Used prices quite high. So. . . again, i am so happy when i discover that the Grateful Dead website has an electronic version (. mp3 or . flac format) of this Dick's Pick for sale. SWEET! . . . spend my $20. . . download my files. . . burn my CD (and DVD backups!). . I'm all set right? WRONG!! I AM glad i finally have a 'better' version of my long lost Dark Star, yes. HOWEVER. . . I will NEVER buy a Dick's Picks again. Why. . why? Because there are numerous dropouts on this recording. No warning, no label, no nothing. By dropout i mean that there are places where the music simply stops and there is dead air where music is missing from the recording. Would it really have been too much trouble for Dick's Picks producers to at least warn about this or better yet. . . fix the damn recording! Even traded shows on the internet get fixed. My Rhino Filmore East '69 is fixed. Why couldnt they fix this!? There are no less than 4 dropouts: Disc 1, a) 6 minutes or so in on Dancin' In The Streets; b) Near the end of my lovely Dark Star; Disc 2, c) about 9 minutes or so into The Other One; Disc 3, d) at the very last second or two of Alligator going into Drums. Utter silence. . . = ( Could anyone confirm that the original DPv4 CD release has these nasty flaws as well? If not, i will be calling the Dead people (hehe) to raise. . . er, the dead, so to speak; and probably blowing $40 to get a sealed copy. I have to imagine they are on the original discs as well. Too bad. In the end, dropout or not i am very glad to have this. DPv8 also has a dropout on the even better Dancin' on that release. Which is lame as that is a famous show and these two Dancin' are really the first i have heard that really float my boat. Anyway, no more. . . uh. . Pick's, for me. But, i am still glad i have this, it's still worth it, flaws and all. . You can see a complete list of all Grateful Dead discography, or go back to the Grateful Dead tabs