This is the Dead at their best. Although this is a great SBD, I wish there were a matrix recording available to really capture the energy.

There is also an undocumented cut in The Other One at the 30 second mark. I seem to have misplaced my patched copy I made years ago where I noted the timing but it was a standard 30--45 second cut from memory. I'm not sure how they handled it on the official, it's probably blended just a bit more smoothly than it is here. But once you hear it you'll notice it.

Is this the year the Dead started slowing everything down? Some of these songs sounds like they are stuck in mud, Loser, Friend of the Devil.
Been a Deadhead for a number of years and maybe I just am not understanding the progression of the band because even the shows I have heard from 75 the songs are not this slowed down.

The Dead opened for The Who on these two dates, playing on their stage and using their PA. The Who were a bigger ticket draw and considered more of a radio/hit/teen band, but the Dead were contracted for a cut. The day before is slightly better overall but the highlights are different on this day and the three repeated songs are better. From reading reports from both camps, most people interested only in The Who came late the 1st day, and those that didn't complain of boredom (to this day); whereas this day has more people claiming they came early and were converted. It may have something do with fog the first day and areas of poor sound that were probably ironed-out for the 2nd day. Due to low sales the stage was set in center field. Most agreed The Who were better on the 9th (like most bands, they played rehearsed, identical sets). The Dead sound different playing through The Who's stacks. So if a newbie asks "is it true one of the best shows was when they opened for another band and borrowed their gear?"...

First Set. After a bit of a warm up Might as Well, the set gets better and better. Bobby and Jer weave in and out of unison through a slick Cassidy. Listen for Keith on El Paso. Loser is very well-played and it's a wonderful Friend of the Devil. The top Dancin' is uptempo, then slowly decelerates (Fall is here and the time is right). It's a major version, if not unlike 9/28. Wharf Rat is simply one of the best ever. Though it so often drags, you just won't believe how good this version is. There's 14sec missing from the SBD @6:59, but it's complete on the AUD. Instead of patching DiP33, they cut 57sec @6:22, editing the entire "got up and wandered" verse. The bottom Dancin' is a slower reprise with an incredible segue. I can't get over it. Listen to how Bobby teases it, and listen to the sequence Jer plays to jump in, while Phil bombs down to the drop-in on a fucking dime and the drummers are in-sync on hi-hat drops and shuffles.

Second Set. After a repeat-but-decent Samson, the Brown-Eyed Women is one of the best of the year. The rest of the set is average '76. The official release has a 16sec cut @7:26 (~7:30 on the SBD) in Playin' - probably to meet the Red Book standard. The jam out of The Wheel is a cool psych-noise piece with another Drums. The back nine loses the tightness of the weekend but it's still fun. Jer leaves nothing behind for Johnny B. Goode but the rest of the boys sound tired. This First Set and the day before's Second Set would be the best show of '76.

1st Set:   A
2nd Set: C+
Overall = 4 stars

Highlights:
Entire First Set, particularly from Cassidy>
Brown Eyed Women - up there with 6/14 & 6/29

SOURCES: One SBD in circ, and one AUD. Dick's #33 has most of the show.

I was watching the Rays playing the A's from the Coliseum on T.V. yesterday when I heard a pretty cool drum circle going on during the game. (Only in California.)
Another great show! Really if you love the band's music
How can you not enjoy two hometown shows?
Dancin really stretches out/ Garcia is all over the jam!
It is pretty free form all the way into Wharf Rat.
2nd big jam is during PITB and it is on the mellow side,
They do hit some interesting territory headed back toward Daybreak but choose not to furthur explore it at the time.
The 3rd jam and probably the most intense is the OTHER ONE which is fierce especially for 76. No worry they ease into Stella and all is mellow and chill yet again.

Wow, finally a complete board of my first show ! (I'd already seen Kingfish in '75 at the now defunct, Fox Venice Movie Theatre in L.A., as well as the Garcia Band, (only time I saw him with Keith and Donna unfortunately), at the Santa Monica Civic back in May of this year; besides having heard the live broadcast on the now defunct KMET in L.A. of the San Francisco Great American Music Hall show the previous year when it was put on the air, (I like to think of that that was my "zeroth" show since that was an invitation only show); so I knew what they were capable of)!
I've had that end of the first set part, that Gans put it on the air since he broadcast it, so I knew this existed. That ending to "Dancin' in the Street" during the end of which Bob announces the break before they'd even stopped yet, struck me as so spontaneously casual, and indicative of their style; but I never saw him do that again! Also I don't recall ever again seeing Garcia at least extensively, (probably because he later had more advanced equipment), use a slide while his foot was on a wah pedal in the Dancin' jam.
But luckily Rob Bertando's audience recording, what gen.(?) has held me over ever since early '78? This board doesn't have much gain. On the other hand, it isn't distorted, not to imply Rob's is. I also miss the ambience I got used to . We can't forget the fact that this is The Who's P.A.; which Grateful Dead, borrowed again for Egypt! I always wondered in what part of the stadium was Dr. Bertrando? I had a big overlap in my copy of the second set, since the guy I got it from was not to flexible about checking where my cassette would flip vs. the reel copy he had of unknown lineage but most likely first or second generation?
I remember this guy near me who had arrived around the beginning of the second set saying he only wanted to see The Who. But by the middle of "Brown Eyed Woman" he was asking "Wow, what is the name of that song?" I didn't really answer him straight, but waited until the chorus came around, pointed and started singing along, yet didn't stop after the word "Women", just continued, smiling! So whether or not he caught on, that that was the title? But in any case, he was by then, a convinced "Dead Head"! There are photos from this or the day before inside the Warner Bros. double vinyl compellation release "What a long strange trip it's been". All the songs on that had previously been issued on albums except for the ~1 1/2 min. single version of "Dark Star" with the banjo at the end; making it the only thing on the album worth buying it for!
Moreover, the poster that Kelly/Mouse designed for these "Days on the green #8 & 9", opening for the Who, is a big green one. (Also my first time I saw The Who, since I previously sold my Who tickets in L.A. in favor of going skiing at Mammoth earlier this year instead. Only time I saw Keith Moon, who had a red and white horizontal stripped shirt on; there is a video of them released of the next to the last show he was at in 1977 in England where The Who look exactly like at this show)! Like Bill Graham said at 11:00 A.M. "On a nice Sunday morning the Grateful Dead!" You don't have to read the following part, it is just my childhood memories, good and bad, in relation to this show.
My father sure got pissed at me for skipping high school to go up north to this show, but I was getting good grades anyway! He said after he found my stub, which I stupidly left in my pants when he was doing the laundry, "Don't you ever go to a concert again".(Or was that my ticket to my second show 1976-10-15 at the Shrine in L.A.?) Although both of us went to see Dylan/The Band together two years prior to this as well as the Hendrix Rainbow Bridge film. A couple years after I'd finally got out of college but still hadn't gone to grad school yet I took him to the second Ventura show in '85, (i.e. I suspected but he denied that by that point he could accept my lifestyle more so than when I was only 17 since I had a job. I never of course, told him that during that film I was trippin', but I wasn't at the Ventura second '85 show with him however). Anyway, enough about me, the show was quite memorable, and I feel fortunate that the first four shows I saw were all increasingly fantastic!

Augy
San Diego

check my review of yesterday on the absolute must purchase of dicks picks 33.......one of the truky greatest set of shows you'll ever find.......

It will be 4 CD's of complete 10-9 + 10-76

Both 10-9+10-76 will be released as the next Dick's Picks - on only 2 CDs. Something tells me that we are talking about the second sets only.

Ain't no way they can get it all in one package like the last 5-19+21-77 bundle that reqired some 5 disks to complete that prject.

these two shows are being released as dick picks on nov.15 get em' while you can!!!!

Love just blindly picking out shows based on my fellow heads recs.... start to finish primo+ playin wheel great drippy where are we??? jam into where he breaks out the wawa other one hot jam after stella great sugar mag... what an odd pairing with the who however apparently they were friends - hard to believe they warmed up for them with a show like this... unquestionably a 5 great quality very origonal and tight...half the jams in the latter half would have had people running for cover because they were melting ;)

Simply put, this is the Dead at their best. Every single song is played "just exactly perfect", both vocally and instrumentally.
I love the late '76 sound, Jerry is loud and out front in the mix and at the top of his guitar abilities, the drummers are not overpowering.
Additionally, this is a great sounding soundboard.
By the way, the above comments also apply to the preceding day, another classic show. These could make for a great Dick's Picks.