GD 35 Years Ago ... and a day

Tis time once again for that band to play, tis time for me to hear them.
Tis time once again for that band to play, tis time for me to share them.
So come on now Deadheads,
Believe It If You Need It... Or Leave It If You Dare.
Ha. What do you expect? It's -24° outside! (-31 for you celsius readers.)

Grateful Dead 12-15-72
Long Beach Arena
Long Beach, CA

1st Set
The Promised Land, Sugaree, Black-Throated Wind,
Tennessee Jed, El Paso, Candyman, Big River,
China Cat Sunflower -» I Know You Rider, Box Of Rain,
Mexicali Blues, Brown-Eyed Woman, Beat It On Down The Line,
Loser, Playing In The Band, Casey Jones

2nd Set

Greatest Story Ever Told, Deal, Me and My Uncle,
He's Gone, Truckin' -» Jam -» Dark Star -»
Morning Dew, Sugar Magnolia

Encore
Johnny B. Goode

Ahhh, the good ol' days when the Grateful Dead played as many as 16 songs... in the 1st Set alone! Sound Quality isn't bad. The overall volume is a little low but it's fairly crisp with very little hiss (practically none.) There's some light staticy noise on some tunes which isn't much of a nuisance at all. Unfortunately, it also kinda sounds like a deaf, drunk, and shrooming wombat was at the soundboard -- there are minor channel dropouts here and there but what's worse is at times the sound momentarily comes in like 50% fuller, making Lesh much lusher, and Keith, too ... but then it disappears. Ugh! Oh well. It's actually not as bad as I just made it out to sound -- a drunk wombat maybe, but probably not shrooming or deaf. Most of those problems seem to get ironed out eventually. As the shows goes on the annoyances become less and less. There's still some pretty sweet sound here.

One huge problem and that's it for Set 1 -- the splice in Candyman is heartbreaking. Oh well, just gotta write that one off and look to what's not tragically and painfully murdered. Tennessee Jed is definitely a first set highlight for me. The momentum gradually picks up really nicely and, oh, just very cool. Definitely the next great moment would be the beautifully perfectly seamless transition between CCAT and Rider. Mmmm! And then after the oh so nice Loser, a 19½ minute Playin' ... when they steer out of that jam and back to finish up the last little bit of lyrics -- ahhhhhhh, what a ride!!

Set 2 offers up more delicious tuneage especially starting with He's Gone. Not that there's anything wrong with the three preceding songs, but He's Gone's where the real good stuff in the set starts. 16 minutes of that meandering and then 21½ minutes of Truckin' and the Jam that follows -- oh yeah. There's a minor problem with the pitch in the first half of Truckin'; it gets a little wobbly but have no worries, it clears up in no time to get lost in the ensuing Jam. They ramble through that with Jerry on overdrive and plow headlong right into a Dark Star to match. Soon they're exploring the depths and attacking the cosmos from all sides. Mayhaps not one of the most magical of Dark Stars but there's a smooth movement into Dew that's so satisfying. Just a third of the way through and I'm floating on the majesty of this beautiful song. Way way down they take it, down to almost non-existent quietness to where you've gotta bend your ear to hear the tune, or just close your eyes and you'll see every note clear as day. A pretty standard Sugar Mags (unfortunately with some channel loss for the first time in well over an hour) and JBG finish it all off.

This mid-December concert was just a little 1-show trip down to SoCal, their first time ever playing Long Beach... and it would be almost 8 years to the day until they'd play there again. At over 3 hours, the fans near LaLaLand got their moneys worth on this night, that's for sure.

(Hmmm, a way off-track sidenote here ...
seems I have a serious California bias goin' on ...
5 of the last 6 GD shows I've listened to are from Cali.)

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Lineage: S:MR>Cass>DAT>PCM>DAT>CD
* = w/ patches from S:MR>R>R>DAT copy

12.15.72 is @ Archive.org for Listening Only
--or--
Dload the show right here

12/15/72 Long Beach - 1st Set, Part 1
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12/15/72 Long Beach - 1st Set, Part 2
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2nd Set - 12/15/72 Long Beach
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Morning Dew fix

Morning Dew included in the 2nd Set .rar file is kinda busted.
It cuts off like 1/2 way through. Whoops.
Wasn't until after the upload that I noticed it so it had to stay.
So... after dloading Set 2, just delete the included Dew,
then dload the "fix" and it should fall right in place.

p.s.
DEAD FREAKS UNITE!
Who are you? Where are you?
How are you?

Hey, if you download the Dead here, leave a comment,
I'd love to hear from ya!