Customer Reviews

Grateful Dead Download Series Vol. 9: Civic Arena, Pittsburgh, PA, 4/2&3/89

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Let's face it, there's great Dead and there's iffy Dead. They didn't exactly hit grand slam homers every night they were on stage. And these shows were from a time when Jerry wasn't exactly at his best. All things considered though, this collection has some pretty great tracks. What's really remarkable though is the quantity of the collection. You get two nights of shows and they're pretty long sets. I've launched this album on my iPod at the beginning of a work day and haven't ever gone all the way through it.

Although most of the tracks from these two shows are pretty good, I have to point out one truly remarkable track (not the good kind of remarkable though). It's truly the worst thing I've ever heard them do:

Track #19: Hey Jude (2:39).

I assume this was kind of an after thought, because it doesn't sound rehearsed and it's not in the right key for any of the guys. It comes at the tail end of a solid Dear Mr. Fantasy from Brent. You can tell Phil is trying to prop it up, but the rest of the guys just blow it. Listen to the preview. It sucks worse than words can describe. Worst...Dead...Ever!

Other than that, it's two nights worth of decent sets. The playlists were very well put together and they did a decent job on most of the songs. There's a really nice run of Estimated Prophet / Crazy Fingers / Uncle John's Band. That's good stuff, and it pretty much makes up for the sucky Hey Jude. :)