Have had the FMs for years (and loved them) but this audience really takes the cake, and puts you right there!! The Greek Theatre of course is an amazing venue and this audience recording ranks up there among the best.... won't go into too much detail about the show... there are many highlights... But the Morning Dew is certainly a peak moment and worth hearing more than once!! Don't hesitate to grab this fine source. Do it now!

Shark

"." Nonintuitive

I most remember this show for the extra-trippy Shakedown opener(always a good sign for a solid show, and the way the tiny little Greek felt as if it was going to blow its non-existant top off after space. The crowd was so full of energy(as they usually are the first night of a 3 day run)and the peaks of GSL and Morning Dew only served to take things higher and higher. A great fun weekend. Has anyone seen our taxi driver "Lazarus"?

You gotta love this recording of the boys laying it down at the Greek. A well played and energetic performance. Hats off to the tapers for using the revolutionary Sony PCM-F1 and a portable VCR to record digitally...this is light years ahead of analog taping. Yes, it is still possible to make a good AUD tape via analog, however, digital formats provide techno-superior results every time. THe PCM-F1 changed the way tapers approached their craft forever.

These were great shows to attend and this night was my favorite, I think. The shows were broadcast on FM in the Bay Area and I've had this show on HiFi VCR tape since that time. Those HiFi recordings are quite spatial and capture a sense of the acoustics at the Greek quite well. Healy provided a nice mix of crowd and soundboard in the broadcast. Anyway, we were zooming that evening and had a good spot on the ledge between the upper and lower sections. Somebody brought an inflatable killer whale and we all tripped on that pretty hard as it got bounced around the crowd. Delightfully weird, indeed.

Excellent recording. Neat to hear 9 mins of crowd during set break (w/people reliving Monty Python's HOLY GRAIL while steely dan plays over PA).

Show is quite good, riddled with forgotten lyrics and with Weir being terribly out of tune post space (odd that he doesn't hear it, doesn't hit MUTE and just tune up, but odd also that Garcia can't unwind what verse is what....). But there's a ton of desire and truly delightful stuff happening otherwise.

I haven't taken the time to revisit any of the shows I experienced until now and this was the first disk I burned. I listened to the first set last night and I have been sparkled ever since. Gone are days of my youth but looking backwards through my ears to this day where I pushed up front and center to the pit of the Greek it was better than I remembered and I haven't used any substances for a long time. I missed Brent and when Jerry passed I stopped listening to the dead until now. Been to a fair amount of Phil shows. I knew it was here waiting but I guess I wasn't ready to go back until now. It sounded amazing in my truck even when I had to turn it way down low picking up my 2 year old son. He usually either immediately expresses whether he likes my musical choices and I was nervous. We listened to Bertha together and I sang out loud. He smiled. I have been high off this for about 24 hours but I think I am ready for the second set now. To me, this is a perfect recording of a dead show. Soundboards were nice before technology made recordings like these available. To hear it from the audience perspective is far more provocative. To the person who made this tape and uploaded it I send immense gratitude. Its been a little gray lately and now I feel like I have a lot to look forward to playing after all these years. Peace!

Overall: One of my favorite first sets of 88. Second set is really good as well. Great song choice. Strong playing. Quality-wise, these shows pick up right where the boys left off in Maine a couple of weeks earlier, but these just have more of a laid back energy, instead of that really pent up high energy of the east coast shows. I prefer the other recording currently on archive (the SBD/AUD mix), but this one is much better for hearing Phil. I'm tempted to give a 5 star for this show, but I'm going with 4 because there is a difference between this and '89 Hampton or '77 Cornell, etc.

The scene: my first Greek Theater shows! After driving the bus all over for the east coast summer, I flew out for these shows. I remember first going into the Greek and walking around the walkway at the top of the seating and not believing how tiny the place was. What a cool venue! Before getting here, I don't think I'd even seen pictures of it (just heard lots of tapes :). Old Greek coliseum style seating, a view out over the Bay across to SF, a little "dance"way around the top of the seating and a grass area up above that with some bleacher seats. I had done NYE 87, then Alpine earlier this summer, and so the Greek was the last of the "monuments" (missed out on ever seeing a Red Rocks show). I didn't have anywhere to stay after this show, but my sister had her VW and I wound up sleeping on the grass in the Panhandle next to her bus (her bus only slept two and she was with her bo). Woke up the next day and went to the free show in Golden Gate Park (more on that in my review of the next night).

The music: Set I: Shakedown is always good, but this one definitely explores some interesting ground. Check out Brent leading Jerry into some nice scale deviations to take things a little off the beaten path. FOTD is really fluid and peaks really nicely during Jerry's solo. Never Trust is a sweet taste of Brent and the Hammond. The jam in Cassidy starts with some great interplay - Jerry and Bobby finishing each other's phrases. The jam winds up not being tremendous, like they gave up on it before it could go anywhere really special. But Bertha to end the set is a nice surprise.

Set II: The jam in Scarlet starts off nice and loose with everyone contributing. Again, some nice west coast style laid back jamming. The transition into Fire is a little quicker than is ideal (especially given the really long one we got at SPAC a couple of weeks earlier), but it's still really nice. Fire has some really nice peaks to it and is about as good a Fire as I can recall for 88. Women R is hot, with Brent leading the charge into high energy territory. Estimated is good as well. The vocal improv section isn't anything special, but the jam is nice and isn't too abrievated. Miracle>Wheel>GSL is good, but not particularly great. Brent makes us wait for the proper Hammond intro to GSL until the third time around. The first two times, it's his piano mixed with some guitar and synth. It's painful to hear, but then when he comes in with the real thing, it makes it sound that much better. Some nice rappin at the end too by Brent. Check out Bobby using some MIDI sounds on Dew (was this one of the first times he was using MIDI outside of space?). Phil's bass makes some nice appearances here as well. The peak on this Dew is really fantastic. That deep almost helicopter-like sound of Brent's B3 winding up is enough to send me over the edge. Great stuff. Bobby's off-key howls in Lovelight are just embarassing. Hey Bobby, Donna called and she wants her voice back. Unfortunate end to an otherwise fantastic show.

A hard ticket to find. Heally broadcast via truck parked nearby

'88 was good. this show has some typically nice moments, with good energy. as has been mentioned...good shakedown. also, jerry's effort during dew is very strong, though this is not in the top five of the year, imho (i'm going with 9/18 as the tops). strong finish in general.

fun show

FYI, there's a brief patch from 1:09 - 1:13 in Morning Dew that isn't mentioned in the notes. Sounds like it's mono, so maybe one channel had dropouts?

That aside, this is a stellar recording of a very fine show. Standout renditions of Gimme Some Lovin' and Morning Dew.

1st Set: 84 seconds of tuning. My goodness, I may be too exhausted to fully appreciate this first "Shakedown" in a long while. Ahhhh...now it's the morning after with 8 1/2 good hours of sleep (plus the discounting 105 minutes from which the girl and the cat woke me) let's get thick and juicy with dis thang. U think it's loud at the Greek?! Jerry's first few notes are transmorgraphying my early-morning experience. Nothing amazing, but always remains true to the funk and dance. Staying down and dirty, we move to a full-bodied "Walkin." Both Jerry and Brent are over producing notes on an otherwise muscially electrifying "Friend." (voices sound a bit bland) Although not as ideally pretty, the guitar work ups the 'stirrup' ante on "Queen Jane." Yay, cheery and bright "Dire." do-se-do... The "Good Times Blues" elicited a nice response. Solid rendition. Jerry's reaching peaks but the band isn't completely the formula to add up to an all-time version...good nonetheless. Smooth segue into choral reprise. Wow, so many favorites in one set as an easy to 'like' "Bertha" closes the set off with an energetic flourish. Lovely and bouncy. To make this set stand out even more, the music played over the nine minute set break blabbings (we're privy to) are from Steely Dan's '76 cynical and street-wise "The Royal Scam" ('Kid Charlemagne,' 'The Caves of Altamira,' and 'Don't Take Me Alive.')

2nd Set: "Scarlet" comes in soon after 60 seconds of tune-up...enthusiastically received, it's nicely played... but its not all that jammy. "Fire" is a different story; climaxing several times (esp. 7:40) It's clean and effortless, thumbs up. "Man Smart" is pretty typical good times. "Ship" doesn't do anything to steer this course from the good destination. "Estimated" catches fire during the middle of its jammy section (4:50) Plenty of twisty7 speculation into the netherregions follows and it eventually disintegrates into "Drums" Both it and "Space" are under 8 minutes tonight; they move quickly...the latter features some interesting clanging noises... "Miracle" is a good time and not as cheesy as the norm. "The Wheel" is pretty unnnecessary at this time, but it's standard. Fun noodling for a minute before they commit to "Gimme." It heats up especially during the third verse, clap along... solid Phil lay-downs through this and last half of the "Dew." Jerry's really giving it his vocal-all, whether it sounds good or not...Brent's got some odd carnivalesque noises coming in... a very well-intentioned, Brent carrying the forceful load late, but not amazingly transcendental.

After two and a half minutes of well-deserved loud roaring applause, they offer a casually enjoyable, nice, simple combined final shakedown/cool-off "Lovelite" finale.

3 3/4 stars

Amongst the NoCal heads this was a legendary show. Phil was dropping the bombs most of the show but poured it on during Gimme Some Lovin and absolutely shook the Greek to its foundation during the Dew. Jerry would not be outdone as you can hear him crank up the fx after the quiet intro during the ending jam. Also interesting was Brent layin' out during the early part of GSL, then blazin the hammond B3 after the second verse to the delight of the crowd. Great audience/band interaction and this recording really highlights it.

Thanks, Sean.

Im surprised this one doesnt have any reviews yet. Like the following 2 nights, this one is fantastic. Great setlist and the band soars.

Of particular note is the excellence of this recording, one of the best Ive ever heard. The SBD Matrix also sounds good, but I would strongly recommend this version to anyone who really enjoys a superb audience recording.