Does anyone else agree that Robert Smith wishes he could have placed it on 'Pornography?' Along with Jerry's masterly control over the lyrics, Phil's urgent work is hilighted in this keen poignant mix of 'Foolish.' A keyboard and percussive jam lead us into 'Drums' which is a menacing hunt through the forest for an unfairly maligned plebe. Phil's thumping line is adding an unwanted thereby compelling spotlight on the individual's doom/gloom. Anyways, it's time to get demented and beat yourself up. Frankly, it's probably not overwhelmingly better than others. Desperate but not overly straining himself. This 'Ship' is a fave because of Jerry's clarity and sincerity captaining the vessel. I'm not sure how this contrasts with the one a week ago though from other reviews, it looks like unfavorably. Besides Bobby forgetting most of the second verse, 'Promised' nicely finishes off the set.Ģnd Set: Again, it's very odd that both the sound and the playing becomes more full-bodied and electrifying as the, at first stolid, tune - in this case 'Samson' - progresses. No roar for 'Dupree's ' maybe they're not that familiar. 'Memphis Blues' is a tad tepid, but certainly not a lot worse than any other option. Maybe the high-pitched anticpatory energy works against the song's messages. Though I'm being incredibly lazy, 'Loser' is not all that affecting.standard. Once they find equal footing, it's quite effective - smoke from the soles. Starts off shaky with overactive drumming but picks up steam in the last minute. The crowd loves the 'Cold Rain' selection. 'Hell''s an up and down affair filled with loads of off-kilter, offbeat moments. Blues I’d be dancing and in a trance.ġst Set: Well, by the eighth night we're basically guaranteed all repeats, but that's not necessarily a bad thing as a friendly, light 'LTGTR' proves. By the time you get to Sugar Magnolia, I wish I had been in the audience, and on U.S. It’s almost like the boys had been warming up with the material before here.Foolish Heart, yeah now we’ve got a groove, but Jerry’s voice, shaky and not what it used to be, but at least his fingers have warmed up and he’s certainly expressive with his lead and Phil is embellishing well.

All of a sudden Ship of Fools comes up, which is well sung but somewhat mechanical. Sampson and Delilah is nothing short of good. The upside is Bob sounds energetic through about half of Stuck Inside a Mobile, but backup chorals are strained.

Drums starts out strongly, but ends electronically, which I think is a problem for almost all drums of the mid-1980s, but that’s just a preference. Anyway the problems with this show go on and on, and I won’t belabor the point. And Brent, well by this point his drug habit is impeding his playing ability. Phil does walking baselines with hardly any embellishments, and drums are doing backup and keeping up rather than painting touches. Bob doesn’t quite hits of the notes on Promised Land. Bob comes in early on lyrics on Walking Blues, Jerry’s timing on lyrics is imprecise on Loser. But the song is played in a post-disco era bounce sounds decent but misses the early ‘70s feel that the songs emerged from the 1920s Jazz period. Although, Jerry sounds fairly effective on Dupree’s and Bob’s background guitar is pretty effective. Jerry and Bob are extremely week on guitars throughout all the way through Dupree’s Diamond Blues, not a single excellent lick. Everybody in the band seems disinterested and tired. This is probably the worst beginning of a Dead show I’ve ever heard. Highly recommended and certainly better than a couple other recordings from this run. Anyone who's going to complain about getting a 'Dupree's', a TOO and a Sugar Mags all in one night really needs to get a grip. While it's true, Jerry's not reaching to throw in a lot of extraneous riffing, I would characterize this performance as 'relaxed' or 'settled' rather than 'lazy.' I mean, at this point, the band is gearing up for the end of a long run of shows, so it's forgivable if they don't seem to be bouncing off the walls during this performance.įinally, the set list is a solid mix of new and vintage GD. From there, we get a solid 'Hell in a Bucket', which shows the band really firing on all cylinders.įrom here, things settle in a bit. The show starts strong with a fun 'Let the Good Times Roll,' with Brett in particular really delivering the goods. But to my ears, that's not the case at all here. Reading some of the other reviews, I was expecting a relatively mailed-in performance.

Heads will roll lyrics glee