Customer Reviews

Rockin the Rhein With the Grateful Dead

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Other Amazon reviewers have, IMHO, done a great job. So I'll just make one point: The three Europe 72 Tour releases I've got (a) Hundred Year Hall, (b) Europe 72 and (c) Rockin the Rhein are each unique in subtle-yet-important ways. This was one of the band's peak periods. And each show displays facets of the band's collective energy and greatness. HYH hits harder edges, higher peaks and raucous raves. Europe 72 opens new channels into the band's mountain music references and influences. And I find RTR to chug, rock and boogaloo with a gutbucket funkiness that bears the stamp of Pigpen's blues power. From other reviews and my own sense of the music on each release, I'd say HYH was a Bobby night, E72 was more of a Jerry night and RTR (maybe) had Ron McKernan feeling all right. I could be mistaken; and this kind of review is very, very subjective. But ... being someone who owns all three of these multi-disc sets, I honestly recommend owning and enjoying each in its own (love)light. Paz.

The Europe '72 tour was a fertile one for the Grateful Dead. It lead to the Europe '72 live double album, probably one of their most flattering official live releases (a personal favorite of Tipper Gore's, believe it or not), as well as One Hundred Year Hall and Steppin' Out. And now Rocking the Rhein, which is billed as the first-ever official complete show release from the tour. They were energized and playing well back then. It was probably hard to limit the original Europe '72 album to a single version of each song when they were playing so well all around.

The Dead were uncharacteristically chatty on that night, April 24th, 1972, under German skies (meanwhile, back in Skokie, Illinois, I was cruising along the edges of furniture, contemplating taking my first steps.) Lots of on stage banter between songs, from cornball goofiness ("I say, my dog has no nose," "then how does he smell?"...), to charitable edification (after playing "El Paso," Bobby steps up to the mike to explain: "The hero dies.") I presume they were freed up by the assumption that their audience was primarily non-English speaking.

And, we have the moment when Bobby introduces newcomer Donna Jean Godchaux. Imagine the anticipation of the crowd. Of course, she is awful. Right out of the gate, she launches into a soulful wail that is nothing but sour notes. I feel bad saying it, I'm sure she's a nice person, and I'm no accomplished vocalist myself. But I didn't stand up there night after night and ruin nearly a decade's worth of bootlegs. Still, the German hosts are generous (or intoxicated?) and they give Donna a warm welcome.

Beyond the history of the gig, the music was great. Disc three has a "Dark Star" into "Me and My Uncle" back into "Dark Star," that is nearly forty-five minutes long altogether. Over ten minutes pass before the first words of the first verse, which is generally a good sign. It is a dense and rigorous Dark Star, with Jerry reaching in all directions up high battling Phil's Teutonic-tinged bass grumbles that lurk and menace throughout, anchoring the music down yet threatening to erupt at any moment. When the "Me and My Uncle" broke through, I burst into laughter. Standing shoulder to shoulder to armpit on the train in the rush commute, iPod buds in place, I burst into laughter and people turned. I had become one of those guys on the train, and I didn't care.

Also great: The ChinaCat/Rider is great, Truckin', Tennessee Jed, a great Mr. Charlie, always nice to hear Casey Jones, and Pigpen's vocals and organ soloing on "Hurts Me Too" are classic.

This is a good show from the Europe '72 tour. Because it is mostly a complete show (albeit rearranged for the CD format) I find it in some ways more interesting than the overpolished (IMHO) Europe '72 release. The set list is excellent overall and the Dark Star -> Me and My Uncle -> Dark Star jam is a great, really trippy one. Not a bad release to pick up if you don't have too many from the early '70's.

All that said, I have to wonder how many more official live releases we need. With 30 Dick's Picks, nearly all three CDs or more, and I don't know how many other Vault and other official live releases, it's hard for me to view any of the newer official live releases as absolutely essential. There are a fair number of Dead addicts there who will buy anything newly released, in spite of their huge bootleg collections.

Don't get me wrong. This show is good. And with a great noise jam version of "Dark Star" and with Pigpen, it represents my favorite era of the Dead (anything from the Sixties through '73). But it has some low energy spots here and there. With so many other live releases it's hard to make a case this is "essential."

I'm just starting to become a true fan of Pigpen. Earlier, I just didn't get him and I would constantly skip forward to more of the GD extended jams. Lately, I've started to get what he was all about and what made him such an important part of the early dead shows. I'm glad I picked up this set.
It's Pigpen's night and we should all be happy for this nice memory. Pick it up.

Note: the rest of the band has some fine moments too!!

I have to reply to Muddy Moe: I only have Europe '72, and do not own many Dead live cds. So to me, it is great to have a whole show from Europe '72, with that same type of sound as Europe '72, but other versions and other songs, to compare to those tracks that have been so familiar to me for so long. Too many releases? Did you see too many shows? Each person has to make his own decision of when he has had enough, but it can only be a good thing to have as much Grateful Dead as possible on cd for us to choose from. This 3-cd set is just amazing to me!

3 CD set of the well-documented Europe '72 tour- April 24, 1972 complete. Disc Three (Set Three) starts out with a 26 minute Dark Star for the ages, but then suddenly out of nowhere "Me And My Uncle" phones in for three minutes --then we are transported back to the center of the Universe for another 15 minute Dark Star coda. Almost 45 minutes of dark star then one of the best Wharf Rat renderings and the jam still isn't over...we end up at Sugar Magnolia.

And you still have disc one and two!

This full-length concert recording contains several high points and a few stretches where the program seems to sag. Disc 1 is a pleasant stew of "new" material and old standbys like "China Cat Sunflower" and "Truckin'." The audience is mildly rude when it is not inert. This disc seems to go on forever, with impatience reaching its apogee during Weir's rendition of "Me and Bobby McGee." Disc 2 kicks off with a great Pigpen showpiece, the Rascals' "Good Lovin'," which becomes unrecognizable when Pigpen and the band start to funk it up. Then a nice long "Casey Jones" closes the first set. The second set actually begins on Disc 3 with the monster "Dark Star" everyone has raved about here. Much spacier and also busier than the LIVE/DEAD version, it ventures way, way out and begins to break apart when suddenly we're listening to a brisk version of John Phillips' "Me and My Uncle." That song ends on a loud resounding chord, inciting another 15 or 20 minutes of gassy "Dark Star" stuff. The second "Dark Star" and the first don't really fuse together very well because the second grows out of the preceding song - it doesn't pick up where the first "Dark Star" left off. Then, into "Wharf Rat" and a solid "Sugar Magnolia" to close the second set. Sincere applause and cheers from the audience now! Back to Disc 2 for the third set, which seems gratuitous in light of the preceding hour of fireworks. Pleasant performances of "He's Gone" and "El Paso," then on to Disc 3 again for a solid medley of "Not Fade Away" & "Going Down the Road Feeling Bad" to end the show. (The encore, "One More Saturday Night," is glibly introduced as "our latest single" which Bob Weir asks the audience to go out and purchase.) In all, a good reflection of the Grateful Dead at this juncture in their career - serving up a generous heap of mid-tempo Americana-type songs, not skimping on the hallucinogenic bread and butter that distinguished the Dead from their peers. This is not ideal for the uninitiated - HUNDRED YEAR HALL, from the same tour, is a more concisely edited version of the Dead's Europe '72 show, and the EUROPE '72 is a kind of "greatest hits" of this tour that really can't be beat - though it lacks a 60-minute "Dark Star."

First CD is typically great Dead stuff. 2nd CD is Pigpen Heaven. 3rd CD is AWSOME jams and great recording quality... can't speak HIGHly enough about CD 3. Spacey rockin' freaky DEAD. Sits so perfectly in your brain next to Europe '72 but it adds the jammin' aspect that we all NEED so bad from the DEAD.

On April 24, 1972, I believe the Grateful Dead played the longest Dark Star and I know that it's on this great CD. The Grateful Dead was and is the greatest band in the universe. Their combination of music styles, awesome songs and adventurous jamming truly put them in a league of their own and that league is on the top of the mountain. This has some of Pigpen, their most talanted vocalist's best songs like his original,. but short lived tunes like Mr. Charlie, Chinatown Shuffle, and his most beautiful, The Stranger(Two Souls in Communion). This also showcases rare songs like Black-Throated Wind sung by Bob Weir. Overall, this is a great and raw representation of the greatest band ever at their height and turning point. Pigpen McKernan would die less than a year later on March 8, 1973 of a Gastrointestinal Hemmorhage.

As a big fan of the Europe '72 shows, I as many others got into these shows because they were Pigpen's finest. The good lovin' jams were exceptional throughout the tour and the one on this show is the amazing highlight of the show...20min of pigpen bluesy bliss. The Chinatown Shuffle is wonderful and so is the Dark Star jam. The vocals on some of the songs could be better but they don't really detract from this killer show. The lesser point of the show is the playin' in the band -- featuring horrible donna screaming...hide your glass objects, they are likely to break. All in all its a wonderful show and definetly worth your investment if for no other reason than.......it contains another one of Bob Weir's infamously corney jokes!

(its been awhile since I last visited my tape collection, but I believe my favourite pigpen good lovin' is on the tivoli show, I want to say 4-14-72 -- those are some good shows to dig up)