The newest installment of the Dead’s Road Trip series just arrived in my mailbox. I swear, after I order the discs and between the time when the Dead send me notice that the product has shipped and it arrives I spend each day in anticipation wondering “will it arrive today?” I wait for the mailman each morning, groan when I don’t see manilla packaging, even go back later in the afternoon in the instance that the mailman forgot to give me all my mail and made a second trip. When I finally turn my key and open that mailbox and see a package with the Grateful Dead insignia stamped on the return address, I am like a kid on christmas morning. (and then I don’t even listen for days just so the anticipation can be taken up a notch!).
I purchase the Road Trips because the sound quality is dynamite but one thing I despise with a capital D is that they sell you a bonus disc which only the first few thousand orderers or so get. This means if you buy too late you get two discs instead of three and sometimes that bonus disc has the best material on it and the most amount of music. This to me is insane. Just include the disc as part of the set. Don’t make me panic waiting for my order to come to see that I am getting the complete release and freak when I do not. Luckily I found a website that has downloads of pretty much every Road Trips and their bonus discs.
Let me set up what Road Trips is all about. Instead of a complete show (though Vol. 2. No. 2. from the Carousel Ballroom in Feb. 1968 is a complete show), you get highlights from a specific run at a venue (MSG September ’90) or a certain period (such as Summer ’71, October ’77 or Fall ’79). Perusing the message boards at the Dead.net store will show you just how outraged some deadheads are that someone they don’t know or trust is chopping up or paring down shows for them (click. I promise that just because you click doesn’t mean you are a complete loser. (that’s what I keep telling myself every time I click)). I don’t care about the rearranging and pairing. I just love the Dead and am psyched each time they release anything in Hi Def sound. I would buy the soundchecks if available. Sad?
Which brings us to the newest Road Trips. Vol. 2. No. 4 comes from the Dead’s 1993 run at the Cal Expo venue. The 1990′s were not the Dead’s greatest period. A. Jerry was so sick at times he eventually…died. B. The band began using ear plugs to hear their monitors and stopped listening to one another and C. At a certain point the Dead just stopped exploring except in Drums/Space which could go on for longer than a third of the concert and even then the setlist staples could drag. Disclosure: Road Trips Vol 2. No. 1 from the 1990 MSG September run is the complete opposite of the above. Proving that every once in a while these guys could still get it up. The band is so energetic you can feel the Garden floor moving through the headphones.
The music on the newest Road Trips comes from two of the three nights of the Cal Expo run and is an interesting take on the Dead at this stage in their career. Jerry’s voice is shot, the recording job is a bit flat and the band seems to have lost that thing that cannot be named but makes you play your favorite air instrument as you listen, but you get some fair to good to something better than good that is nowhere close to great takes on songs from their cannon such as Here Comes Sunshine, Deal, Fire On The Mountain, Cassidy, Uncle John’s Band, Ramble on Rose, Playing In The Band (over 18 minutes), Shakedown Street, Dire Wolf and High Time.
Some rarities are also present: Box of Rain, Crazy Fingers (a real treat), Liberty, The Same Thing, Gloria and Broken Arrow. For Dylan fans the Dead played When I Get My Masterpiece as well as Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again. There’s a little bit of everything including a Rhythm Devils for the completely insane but it’s not a compelling listen from beginning to end.
If you do the math, this is not a rave review. If anything this Road Trips is probably a great example of a typical Dead performance during this final era but that’s not really a selling point is it? More like a historical marker or document. Though it may actually make you toss on something from their past and marvel at just how great these guys were once upon a time.
