Customer Reviews

Grateful Dead - View From the Vault

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Firstly, I'm very excited that the Dead are starting to release some of their live shows on video. I've been waiting for this for a long time and am totally psyched. From the first instant that the DVD starts you just know it's going to be great. The video quality is absolutely crystal clear and perfect - especially noticeable at the beginning of the first set under the bright and hot July, Pittsburgh sun. The boys are all decked out in their summer finest - Jerry's looking bright-eyed and bushy-faced wearing shorts where you can see his cute little sun-tanned legs! The sound kicks in wonderfully. The vocals are all strong and clear thruout. The 1st set comprises: Touch>GreatestStory, Jack-A-Roe, Minglewood, (RowJimmy, Mama>Mexicali - all 3 missing from the VHS), TomThumb, LetItGrow. Beautiful.

It's once the 2nd set starts that the alarm bells start ringing. Here we go again with that dreamy, solarized, special-effects overlay stuff that, IMHO cripples so many previous Dead video releases. These effects are not only annoying, they are cheap and amateurish and make you want to adjust your TV. I don't know what some of the earlier reviewers are talking about when they say there aren't any. Eyes of the World is utterly ruined by this and most 2nd set songs have at least some of it - especially during the 2nd-set-typical jams and lead parts. It's a real let down when you are watching a great and beautifully filmed Jerry lead get distorted into oblivion whenever it really gets going. And it simply becomes excruciating by show's end. The 2nd set comprises: Samson>Eyes>Estimated>Terrapin> Jam>Drums>Space> Miracle>WangDang>BlackPeter>ThrowingStones>Lovelite, HeavensDoor. Excellent nitetime performances. The DVD version adds 2 Louisville songs: Standing on the Moon and He's Gone.

Really great show with perfect quality definitely worthy of 5 stars. But, I'm dropping 2 stars due to the special effects. Please, GD Merchandising people - drop the effects from future shows. They just don't stand up to repeated viewings. Keep Jerry and Bobby and Micky and Phil and Billy and Brent PURE!

This release was greatly welcomed by this household of Deadheads. We'd been hearing that the Grateful Dead's video archive would be opened much as the audio archive has been opened up, and we'd heard that this video series was going to be akin to a Dick's Picks of videos. And, man, oh, man, it is about time. But this video shows that it has been worth the wait. From the first notes, a beaming Jerry sets the tone for night with a lyrically and musically perfect Touch of Grey. The first set includes some favorites like Jack-A-Roe, a wonderful, lilting Row Jimmy, Phil's fun rendition of Dylan's Tom Thumb's Blues, and a set closing Let It grow that sees the band hitting all the marks they should be. Whew. It felt good watching. The second set, however, is where the fireworks are: two hour journey through old and new GD, with nary a break in action for the duration. Sampson and Delilah smokes, but it is the Eyes of the World that explodes. The second jam in the song saw a house full of dropped jaws. The rest of the set is VERY solid, with Estimated Prophet, Wang Dand Doodle, and Black Peter being real standouts. And the "filler", from a show two nights previous...Wow! The two Jerry songs in a row (beautiful renditions of Standing on the Moon and He's Gone) and the jam that follows are out of this world. Real icing on the cake. Nearly four hours of music, and all we could say is "when does the next one arrive..." Keep these coming; they are the next best thing to being there.

Let me start off by saying that from 88-95 I attended over 170 Dead shows,so I saw the good,the bad and the the UGLY. This tour,Summer 90 was VERY good,the band [I don't use the term boys]was tight and hitting on all cylinders. I think the reason that all the effects are in it,is because the video is shot from the direct feed at the show. Which means whatever they where showing on the big screen at the show ends up on the video,so i don't think they had any control over that. On to the show,the first set is packed with energy,and is VERY good. The second set had me wondering what happened to Jerry, he only plays one song,post drums/space,it goes drums/space>Miracle>Wang Dang Doodle>Black Peter>Throwing Stones>LoveLight. But the Knockin on Heavens Door makes up for it. The picture and sound are great,I let my friend who's not a Dead Head borrow it,and he LOVES it. I think it's very good,BUT,if they were going to use a show that they taped from Summer tour 90,and they taped all 10 shows that I attended on that tour,they could have used Foxborro 7-14 90,or Buffalo 7-16-90,or the first night of Deer Creek,witch was the best show of the whole tour. I think the Dead should hire a new person to make these selections for them,as I have often been left scratching my head at the slections of Dicks Picks cd's they have put out. I hope I don't end up doing the same with the DVD and VHS selections. Jacob V.

Keep in mind that I am an audiophile when reading this review. After collecting all of the Dead DVD's this one is the most disappointing in terms of audio quality - in fact it SOUNDS like a stadium show from the upper deck. The instruments are flat and the sound seperation is shallow at best. In comparison to the Alpine Valley DVD - if you are a first time buyer for Dead shows in this format - you will much better off with the Alpine show. I found Jerry to be feeling the heat of this PA show - hot and muggy on that day, and a little sluggish at times. Don't get me wrong - after seeing many shows myself and reviewing the three available releases, this is great to see the trend of getting into the vault for the video feeds... and of course any time I can get to spend time reliving my youth - well - that's just great. I just wish the sound had been remastered because it's flat flat flat.

Monterey Media takes full and complete advantage of DVD technology to present two and a half hours of the Grateful Dead concert which took place at the Three rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on July 8, 1990. Here for the viewer's total enjoyment are rock music icons Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Brent Mydland, and Bob Weir. The first set includes Touch of Grey; Greatest Story Ever Told; Jack-A-Roe; New Minglewood Blues; Row Jimmy; Mama Tried; Mexicali Blues; Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues; and Let It Grow. The Second Set included Samson and Delilah; Eyes of the World; Estimated Prophet; Terrapin Station; Jam; Drums; Space; I Need a Miracle; Wang Dang Doodle; Black Peter; Throwing Stones; Turn On Your Lovelight; and Knockin' On Heaven's Door. An extra special addition to the DVD format are Standing on the Moon; He's Gone; and KY Jam from their July 6, 1990 performance at Cardinal Stadium, at Louisville, Kentucky. A "must" for all Greatful Dead fans, it should be noted that this DVD offers the viewer one full hour of extra footage that is not included on the VHS version.

Okay folks, you need to take this DVD for what it is. The footage is from 1990. You can't expect the band to be in its prime (it's not '72 or '77), you can't expect special effects to be on par with what people are putting out today. You can't expect for them to have accounted for new fangled wide-screen TV's. The footage here is as it was presented on the stadium screens and is, presumably, the only full length video available (especially with a synched audio track), it was also intended to be a supplement to the live show, not replace it. What this DVD is, is an archival record of one moment in the Dead's history. Just like trading tapes and buying Dick's picks won't transport you to the moment this won't either, but it does add another dimension, and it's nice to be able to pop in the disk and see the boys doin what they do. Don't expect a slick purpose made DVD and you won't be dissapointed. That having been said it is a good setlist and, for 1990, a very good show. The second set rocks Samson>Eyes>Estimated (yes Eyes>Estimated)>Terrapin>Jam>Drums>Space>... Yes there is a pink panther walking across the screen in the second set, but if that bothers you haven't properly been fulfilling your second set duties.

How refreshing to see the start of what I hope is a continuing stream of dead concerts on DVD. To bad the music is only 2 channels. Can you imagine what this might sound like in a true 5+1 Digital surround sound! But the clarity of sound is good for the most part. The highlight of the video for me was the additional songs at the end. He's Gone and the following jam were fun to watch and listen to. I was expecting some of the graphics that were so prevelent in the second set. How some of these reviews can say they weren't there is a bit confusing. Perhaps they only watched the first set. It would be nice if they were absent in the future, but if these recordings are truly from the large screen videos shown at the concert, i'm afraid it's all we got.

Overall, I've seen the band better, I've also seen them worse.

I see in a few other reviews some complaints about the special effects not relating to the music. I was at this show, and the effects being disjointed from the music occurs on this DVD the same way it occured 12 years ago--with a delay between the video and audio. Seeing this at the show was simply mind-blowing. Though it doesn't translate as well to video (a pan out from the screen would be more appropriate), let it be known that the integrity of the show's discrepencies has be upheld--a must for any Dead recordings. Personally, I couldn't be happier. After all these years, there are only two things I remember from this show: the entire stadium bouncing to Row Jimmy; seeing Bobby scream into his mic with tracers flowing from his head and getting hit with his vocals a full 2 seconds after the vision. Wow! Overall the setlist is nice and fairly unique, the jams are sweet, the video is crisp and the audio, though a bit off, is true to form. Definitely in my top 5 concert DVD's.

For those unfortunate enough to have never seen a Dead show..This is about as close as you'll get. The guys trying to remember to stand on those supermarket "open pads" to turn on their mics, Bob fooling around with his rackmount gear, Brent trying to get a sound level corrected..Thats what it was like every night!! The best part for me however was the bonus Louisville section. I was at that show, and the Standing into Hes gone blew me away then, and blew me away again when I got to see it on the dvd.

The preformance is excellent but will be most appreciated by true Deadheads as the majority of songs may be less familliar to casual fans. The band is tight and in good form. The picture quality on the DVD is simpley spectacular. There are, however, several problems with this recording. As mentioned by other reviewers the "special effects" in the second set are extremely annoying and amatuerish creating a terrible distraction from the reason we're watching - the bands preformance. While the sound track is generally crisp and clear, as one would expect from a DVD, it oftens seems disconected from the picture. The vocals are always spot-on and Jerry's guitar work is well captured but often you'll see activity by other members of the band, especially the drum set(s), that do not seem to be included in the sound track. Despite these critisisms, fans of the Grateful Dead will enjoy this 3 1/2 hour DVD!