If you ask me the major bummer about the Road Trips series is that there were so many bonus discs. Don’t get me wrong, in some cases the bonus discs were just as good as, if not better than the material in the rest of the release. But the things are really expensive if you’re the type that wants to have everything. It doesn’t seem like there any chance of a “box set of bonus discs” either, although I’m sure something like that would sell quite well.
So with that caveat, I will say that this volume of the Road Trips series is one of my favorites. The playing is killer in my mind and I don’t really mind the frankenstein track listing. Of course, hearing how hot these shows are I can see the point of the “full show” crowd and perhaps the full shows for these should have seen the light of day. But even the two disc set is all killer, no filler so you can’t really go wrong with it if you ask me.
The Wheel first appeared on Jerry’s first solo album but didn’t show up in the Dead’s repertoire until 1976. It went on to be performed over 250 times between 1976 and 1995.
Listening to this version was a revelation of sorts as I note in my description of the song, notably in terms of the rhythm leading out of space.
So see what kind of mileage you get out of the song and let me know about your trip. Enjoy!
LunchB, I’m with you on the Bonus Disk front as you may recall I picked this up a few months ago with the luck of the Dead site adding it recently, but kinda makes me feel guilty that others before me missed out for whatever reason.
I am a big lover of the Wheel, love the vibe of the song and the lyrics,as well. Reading some great back and forth on different era favorites on the last DApick release which has been interesting. Some mention a lack of quality jams or creativeness in the latter years, but one of my feelings was as there was a lack of great music with a matching almost mystical lyric or hook. The Dead in the pre 77-78 years had so many songs that just captured you with the symbolism or play on words that worked their way into your bloodstream. After those years that just didn’t seem to be the case, at least for me. Maybe it was the early era of the giant social changes that were going on, but for whatever reason the later year tunes usually seemed to be missing something.
I know what you mean to a certain extent Joe. I think the issue with the lack of resonance with latter day songs is just that there were fewer of them. There was a huge dry spell through most of the 80s where very little new material came into the repertoire, but of those that did there were some real quality tunes. Althea sticks out as one. I’ve been reading Blair Jackson’s biography of Garcia lately and it seems that drugs were certainly one reason for the lack of output, and I’m sure there are myriad others. But when they really sat down and focused on it the Hunter/Garcia combo could still knock ’em out of the park, e.g. Black Muddy River, Standing On The Moon, So Many Roads, Days Between, Liberty, etc. It’s just too bad that the last batch of good songs didn’t have the same fruitful life span as the older ones. If anything the songs got shortchanged, especially after 91 or so (IMO) as the decline started in earnest. I imagine that if Jerry had lived and the band had continued for another decade or so (cleaned up of course) these songs would have won over the 60s/70s lovers, they’re just that good. One man’s opinion at least…
Lunch,
Good point about the lack of songs being an issue, especially when compared to the first 10 to 12 years where they were pumping out lots of stuff. Naturally the drugs were not a help as they aged and spent year after year on the road.
Funny you mention Althea as a quality song as it really was the only one that came to my mind with the matching of a quality tune with lyrics hook you immediately with my store wrapped around it.
The others you mention do have merit, but for me these are great examples of songs that almost farewell songs and as emotional as they might have been they seemed to directly be telling a story rather than leaving it up to the listener to imagine what it might be about. Not that they didn’t have many of this type of direct songs early as well it just that my favorite early tunes were usually the ones surrounded in mystery.