Reviews (page 8 of 8)
Had some good moments... The Grateful Dead still haven't clicked for me. Maybe I need to listen to the right performances. As an album, this one is not amazing. Inclusion of Feedback was a bad call.
Átti ekki von á miklu, og þetta var svo sem ekki mikið. Langar djammsessionir og lög sem renna saman í eitt, en þetta var samt ekki leiðinlegt. Allt í lagi. Næsta plata.
This album was hugely influential and remains one of the highest regarded live albums. However, the jam rock format is dated and many of the improvisation sections are overlong. There are moments of brilliance scattered throughout, but the listener definitely needs to be able to sit with moments that don't really go anywhere. Having said that, I am consistently amazed with the Grateful Dead's ability to to deconstruct a song, and send it to truly interesting places before bringing it all back together. They were certainly tapped into each other in a special way.
Just too much meandering. Some cool moments, but not enough to make it worth a second listen.
To Marty's chagrin I've never been a huge deadhead but I do appreciate them! That being said I feel like a different live album would have been better suited for this list. Nothing to dislike, just nothing exactly blew me away? Eminently listenable just not as memorable as others I've heard from them!
I don’t think it’s out of line to give this a 3. I respect the musicianship and there’s a lot to like in this (dark star and the eleven were highlights), but jamming loses a lot of its charm when it’s recorded, and the dead lose a lot of their charm when you’re sober. Is an 8 minute song if feedback really necessary? I’m sure this would wonderful to see live but as an album listening experience it left a lot to be desired.
I’m not really a jam band person but the Grateful Dead are very good and the solos are great
This is the best and worst of the Grateful Dead. A lot of discordant sounds like people playing difftsongs at the same time. The feedback track was completely unnecessary. That said both St Stephen and Love Light we’re fantastic!
Of course I have to give this a 5! This album shows the Dead at their wildest and while it's no Europe '72 it does have a few Glorious moments. The St. Stephen-Eleven-Lovelight suite is exceptional and made me jealous of anyone who got to see this lineup of the band in their prime. An entire album side of just "Dark Star"? Wow. I would totally understand if anyone takes off an entire star for "Feedback". This is probably a 4.5 because of that but what the heck.
Oh, dandy. A live album. Nevermind the live album, this is a Grateful Dead live album, and as a consequence not only is live, it's also nearly an hour and a quarter of noodly guitars and I can find little appeal to it. To be fair to it, the first track is the bottom of a slightly inclined ramping up, going from terrible to tolerable, but there's no way I would ever - ever - elect to listen to this again.
Can someone please inform the Grateful Dead that they don't have to be boring when they're playing music? I really feel bad for the audience, this must have been terrible to sit through.
Time has not been this album's friend. It was leading recording technology at the time but over 50 years later it's hard not to think "Could've fooled me" Dylan and the Mothers kicked off rock and roll double albums a couple of years before this and by 1969 a double LP seemed to be the thing to do. Zappa's double also had a side with only one song although this practice didn't hit its stride on studio albums until the prog rockers. The Dead decided to have two songs that each took a full side on this album. This hasn't aged well. The Allman Brothers did the same on their live at the Fillmore East album a couple of years later but the Allmans had Duane and Dickey trading licks so were better equipped to pull this off; even with the two of them, those sides of that Allman Brothers' album sound a bit tired these days. This album shows us that Gerry can play and validates the Deadheads complaints about how far down he is on the various lists of greatest guitar players. Regardless, time has made sides with just one song tedious. Experimenting with noise was what the cool kids were doing in the late 60s but the experimentation with nearly 8 minutes of noise on "Feedback" is terrible even when compared to other late 1960s experiments like "Revolution 9" or VU's "White Light / White Heat." At least there's not a 5+ minute drum solo.
I'm not sure if Live and Greatest Hits albums should be on this list. And given that this is hella looong and improvised to boot, I wasn't too keen on it. I think that you also have to be a dead-head and fan of this group to appreciate it.
I am a big fan of Grateful Dead, especially their music that feels so free and improvised yet somehow still so composed and premeditated. This album has elements of that, however I don't think it's the best live album that the Dead have to offer. Still enjoyable to listen to, but it has its ups and downs. I like the bluesy feel throughout, and the layered instruments (multiple guitars, drums, organ, bass, vocals) all working in unison. I experienced a few "get on with it" moments while listening to periods of songs that felt like they took forever to evolve - I believe the jam band genre gets this criticism quite frequently. Fave tracks: Dark Star, Death Don't Have No Mercy
The Dead are always best experienced live. Pretty neat that they apparently got someone to invent the microphone splitter required to record them while playing a live show, to the benefit of all live recording since. I'm not the type of person to give up my job and follow the dead around while they're on tour, but I will jam out to these tracks any day. Fav Tracks: Dark Star, The Eleven, Death Don't Have No Mercy
I was never a deadhead for some reason, Not quite what I was expecting from a band that was once one of the loudest in the world. Reminded me of Man but more "mellow" if you know what I mean. Would I buy it - probably not, but I would definitely listen again.
10/10 jazz rock is a flawless genre I think one of those songs was in 11/8? perfection!
I did not enjoy this album. If I wanted to listen to good improvised blues rock I'd listen to Cream. This is over bloated, boring crap. 1/5
Meandering crap. Endless noodling. Make it stop.
Fucking MID
amo la musica de abuelo que tomaba lsd en su juventud
Not really my cuppa tea.
i don’t give a shit, life’s too short to try the Grateful Dead again