Ed & Lerry’s Grateful Dead Tour Journal: 12/19/73

December 19, 1973
Venue:Curtis Hixon Convention Hall
Show Details

Ed: Last show of the tour, and it’s phenomenal. We’ve been coming down the mountaintop, still up in rarefied air yet slowly descending, when we turn a corner and see a vast vista of total awesome Jerriness. It’s like an alpine lake filled with the teardrops from the crying of Jerry’s tears. I can see why Dick would choose this as his first pick. The jam section after Truckin’ is some of the best Dead there is. Some notes:

• Moments of absolute pure awesomeness in this show include: Here Comes Sunshine, Playin’ in the Band, and everything after Truckin’.
• The post-truckin jam is total brain-fry
• I mean, this jam is totally freaking incredible.
• Side note – I wonder why they took a week off in between the Omni show and these two shows? I mean Atlanta can’t be more than a day’s drive from Tampa. What happened in the week in between? Maybe the boys wanted to stay warm in the south for an extra week in winter? I would genuinely like Deadessays to write a blogpost about it
• This jam is just unbelievable.
• Couple of interesting factoids from allmusic about DP1 (http://www.allmusic.com/album/dicks-picks-vol-1-tampa-fl-12-19-1973-mw0000622762) “With a surfeit of options to inaugurate the ongoing project, Latvala cited his desire to disseminate items that were “lesser known” by Deadheads and to reveal the sonic splendor of the opener “Here Comes Sunshine” when asked the reasons that he chose this specific date to christen Dick’s Picks.” and “A further point of contention between connoisseurs of the music was the out and out hatchet job done to “Playing in the Band” at the behest of Phil Lesh (bass/vocals). A caveat of including the performance was the removal of his bass solo.”  I think this means we need to compare the Playin’ from the auds to the DP1.

• That jam blew my mind
• The end of the tour is a bittersweet moment.

Favorite Quote, from http://archive.org/post/389252/best-dicks-picks:
“Subject: Best Dicks Picks
Here’s what I consider to be the best:
1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 22, 26, 28, 29, 31, 34, and 36”

Lerry: This is the perfect end to the tour and our 41 pages of notes.  I will absolutely give this show a Stealie.  So so so so good.

Set 1:
Killer killer killer.  Nice song choices by both guys.  The Workingman’s/AB songs sound great (and both were omitted from DP).  In fact, CANDYMAN!  Such a great version.  The band sounded great during the first 6 songs. They really started rippin’ at Jack Straw and beyond (coincidence?).  Here Come Sunshine is AMAZING.  Very possibly my favorite yet.  I feel like I keep saying that.  The Playin’ here is fantastic as they have been as of late.

Set 2:
To get the negative out of the way, there are 26 minutes in a row that I am not too fond of… Row Jimmy into Weather Report Suite.  Row Jimmy is so bland at this point to me and Weather Report Suite is basically just a bad song.  OK, enough negativity.  The He’s Gone > Truckin > Other One > Stella Blue jam is AMAZING.  So amazing.  It does make sense that Dick chose this as his first pick.  The freak out sections are great and they very naturally slide back into more structured material. I love it. One of the best ever.

Favorite quote:
As this show was Dick’s Picks 1, I figured a quote having to do with Dick would be appropriate:
“Though his ‘day job’ in Hawaii was working at the zoo, Latvala’s main focus was growing pot”
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2011/02/dick-latvala.
 

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