Source: Dicks Picks 4 (If you are listening to the Charlie Miller version subtract about 5 seconds from all the time codes below).
Sound Quality/Mix: 21 – Sound is good and clear. Guitars sound especially nice. Mix is not good.
Presence: 40
Peaks: 15
Technique: 10
Verse: 8.5
Total: 94.5
Soundstage: Jerry: Left mixed well; Bobby: Right mixed well; Phil: Centered mixed well; Pigpen: Who knows; Drummers: Spread mixed low.
Alligator
Jerry is strong right from the beginning. Bob is mixed well. He is loud and clear to the right but still a little lower than Jerry.
Phil is present and pleasant but not necessarily grabbing my attention.
Mickey rubs something. I imagine that blocky thing with the ridges and the stick with the ridges from music class at Tyler Elementary.
I can’t hear much of Pigpen at all.
2:00 Jerry starts the first real movement toward something.
3:15 Jerry plays sparkly, slightly discordant notes that hurt in a not bad way.
3:40 Dark Star theme and then off we go elsewhere.
5:11 first time Phil really steps out–Jerry follows strongly.
6:20 Perhaps that’s Pigpen shaking things.
6:45 Slow down and start easing off toward spacier territory.
7:45 Faint fluttery bubbling sound almost coming from left. I don’t think I like it.
8:15 Jerry reasserts himself.
8:40 Theme and right into…
9:00 Verse. As good as it gets. Slightly marred by that fluttering in the left channel (heard only with headphones) and a very minor bumpiness coming out.
11:20 Very quickly into deep space.
14:30 Mickey (presumably) is hitting metal things that sound very pretty…off to the right.
14:50 Jerry begins leading them out.
Drummers are making more pretty clanginess and Jerry begins driving harder.
Everybody is picking up tempo, Bob is especially strident.
17:30 Jerry starts veering off. It is somewhat spooky but still good.
18:04 Liftoff.
This is why you listen to the Grateful Dead.
18:19 Bobby dives into a Feeling Groovy jam. It’s not perfectly played but it will do.
20:00 Jerry is off in a new direction.
21:30 Drummers start drumming
22:00 Phil enters with another brief flurry and steps away. Phil is not heavily featured overall, but when he does step forward he does well.
23:23 Jerry is back driving with first pretty then aggressive aggressive aggressive and drops off.
24:45 Jerry begins playing with the theme a little.
25:45 Very aggressive return to the theme by the entire group.
26:40 Jerry’s guitar is screaming, again.
27:10 Back into the theme proper like. 13 minutes of some of the best music the Dead ever played.
Verse 2: Someone (Phil?) muffs the “shall we go” and a touch of feedback detract from an otherwise perfect second verse. Combined with the perfect 1st verse, an 8-9 overall.
29:00 And it is over, just like that…and then immediately, the first notes to That’s it for the Other One. This particular transition between songs is a thing of pure joy and then the CD ends. Dicks Picks 4 butchers one of the all time great song combinations. Get the Charlie Miller version of the complete 2-13-70 show. Sound quality is as good and the CDs are tracked properly.
Posted by 1fingerwillie 
Tattered Reason 