Friday, January 16, 2009

GRATEFUL DEAD - Veneta, OR 1972

In celebration of The Jerryless Dead's 2009 tour -- their first with Bobby, Philly, Billy and Mickey in five years -- your faithful Greenie hereby posts what may well be the single best Dead boot ever (and, it happens, the first one I ever heard.) I'm reasonably confident many Heads would agree that this is in fact the supreme Dead boot of all time; probably explains why it was my first, a ragged cassette reverently passed to me by my bro David back in our heady NYU days. I'm no pushover when it comes to live Dead, but for the life of me I can't find a single flaw in the entirety of this show; I don't think the "China > Rider" or "El Paso" or "Bertha" or "Me and My Uncle" or "He's Gone" have ever been surpassed. It's just epic perfection and ineffable gorgeousness from stem to stern. Even the onstage banter is priceless (there's a lot of it too).

Rumor abides and abounds that there's an official DVD in the works, since apparently the entire show was filmed...in Super 8 (anyone under 40, read about Super 8 here). You can watch a good portion of the show on YouTube (clips here, here and here); the obvious discrepancy between sound and image quality explains why they're taking their sweet time in releasing the thing.

Even if you can't deal with the Dead, do give this show a try. It may just turn your skull around and steal your face right off your head...

Speaking of "He's Gone": This goes out to Mike DeLuca, my friendly neighborhood weed dealer (by "my" I mean the neighborhood part, not the weed part), who passed away a couple weeks ago of a heart ailment. He loved the Dead, and is missed, especially by my dog Jack.

Nothin' left to do but smile, smile, smile...

GRATEFUL DEAD "Sunshine Daydream"
Springfield Creamery Benefit
Old Renaissance Faire Grounds - Veneta, OR - August 27, 1972 (SBD)
DOWNLOAD 1 / DOWNLOAD 2

15 comments:

hfs fan said...

thanks for the concerts.

Heli0tr0pe said...

Thanks for stopping by!

Unknown said...

I'm so excited to read what you know about this show! I've heard great things about it and must get at least one copy of the DVD! PLEASE if you find out any more info on the DVD, please pass it on to me! Thank you!!

Heli0tr0pe said...

Thanks for stopping by! Actually, literally everything I know about the show is in the post...I'm as hopeful as you are that the rumors are true, and the Dead elves have been hard at work all these years restoring the footage for a big splashy release (they recently did such a great job with the Egypt '78 material, and that isn't half the show this one is.)

Until then, everything I know about it was found online, just searching variations on "Veneta Field Trip Sunshine Daydream 1972" etc., and also the clips on YouTube.

best to you!
TSM

Heli0tr0pe said...

I just searched "Sunshine Daydream DVD" and came across this:

http://deadnews.blogspot.com/2005/08/sunshine-daydream-dvd-updates-or-lack.html

Anonymous said...

That wop dealer stole the shows right off my spindle maaaan !

Heli0tr0pe said...

Who you callin' a wop?

Anyway, he paid the Ultimate Price for it, I'd say...and now he's up there blazin' bowls and jammin' out with Jerry G.!

ericjmz said...

I think it great you posted this...especially with that great cover.
But with what you say "may be the greatest.." is it possible,if you have it,that you could do anything better than 128k....?..FLAC,SHN,320 mp3,256 mp3...anything?
It just defeats the whole purpose of a soundboard and a seminal concert to have it in such an obsolete format.

just mho...ericjmz

Heli0tr0pe said...

I agree, I really do...I have been searching for this show at a higher bitrate and no luck so far.

(I don't do BitTorrent or FLAC or SHN, and I don't upload any material -- since I do actually have a life, after all, outside of work and blogging -- so I do the best I can with what I can find out there on MP3.)

Thanks for the reminder on this, though -- I was just saying to a friend yesterday that I would happily pay top dollar for an official, Dead-remastered CD of this show, not to mention the long-rumored DVD set.

Short of that, I will try to find and post something in a more desirable bitrate, for you and for me...

Cheers,
TSM

ericjmz said...

Thank you for your answer; makes perfect sense. I don't know why,but I just assumed you had uploaded a CD you owned...sorry for the assumption.
We see eye-2-eye.
As an aside,there is a pheonmena on musak blogs I occasionally encounter...though I have not seen it among Dead fans. Its the thing where someone has an astoudingly great collection,sets up a web blog to show it off,'offers it' so to speak...but always offers it in low bit rate.
I realize now that is not the case here.
Hey,if I run across it in better form,I will get back to you,also.
ericjmz

Heli0tr0pe said...

Cheers bro -- out of curiosity I did some poking around myself today, and I couldn't find anything better. Unless you wanna go with BitTorrent or FLSC/SHN, if you can find it, all good -- but as far as MP3, what's already posted is still the best I can dig up.

Here's hoping that someday we'll see and hear a deluxe DVD with 5.1 audio and all the trimmings...

Best,
TSM

Anonymous said...

password for the files?????

Heli0tr0pe said...

Hey -- no password needed. I just re-DLed both RAR files; click on the first one and both will extract, bim bam boom. Playing the files now, all sound great, everything is there, no problem...

My advice: try, try again!

Cheers,
TSM

Anonymous said...

Thanks!! Great show. Peazip was givin' me the fatal error/password thing and I was havin' a senior/drunkin' moment.

Yea, hope for that flac out there. First show was 11-9-79. Smoke one during this for the great shows we missed.

Heli0tr0pe said...

Cheers, maaaan...my first show was Spring of '91, so I'm just a bit behind you!

Fingers still (and always) crossed for that super-deluxe official Veneta '72 CD/DVD 3-disc ultra-set...!!!

TSM