moster good minglewood, cold rain.,satifation etc\ditto to all other posts
ONLY A MARTRIX 80 aud/ 20 board could do better!

with Garcia in odd but creative form. Sound is very deep-ranging; you have to turn it UP to get the full flavor.

The Dead's sound system and Jerry's guitar playing in 80-81 are essential. Nothing afterwards is comparable Jerry wise or sound wise. I absolutely loathed the sound of the digital era frankly, but for me it's a moot point!
this show is representative of the fact that this was it.

Arguably, one of the negative factors of the otherwise beautifully polished yet downhome Fall 1980 dual residencies at the Warfield and RCMH was the tentativeness of some of the electric sets. During the acoustic sets, (particularly the Warfield ones), you can hear them respond with chagrin to mistakes that serve to disqualify otherwise sublime versions of songs (the 2nd To Lay Me Down, I think, a couple of Ripples.

Well, freed from the nervewracking yoke of expensive, multitrack recording, the Dead can finally go to Florida and unwind. They let it all hang out at this show. No acoustic set but they do a few of the tunes, most notably, the first modern, electric "On the Road Again". It becomes clear during this version that they are less than enthusiastic about turning it into a jammy, first-set rocker like Mexicali Blues. They shortened it considerably after that and it also became quite rare. They seemed to have so much fun playing it acoustic. You can tell they probably hadn't played it since the RCMH shows as they are all quite experimental in their approaches to this "in the moment" performance.

This is a fully committed second set. Remember how some of these shows, (I can think of a couple of Rochester ones), were just a little more generous than others and you got the feeling that, maybe the Dead were trying to reward us as an audience or something on this night, or they really liked this city etc...all these deadheadsonification imposed on the Dead that had no basis in reality, or likely fact.

In any case, this 2nd set plays like that, like they had decided to do the show of the year on that night. It;s one of those nights when you think they might play Dark Star or St. Stephen because maybe they're reminded somehow of their 60's origins. In fact, I would contend that after the great and primal "Cold Rain and Snow" Phil is pushing to play BIODTL, which, of course would be the first album. The Sampson that follows is funky and very rhythmically complex due particularly to Brent's ability to slam a quick organ burst in between drumbeats and Bobby bleats. It's a fast version with an unconventionally abstract drum intro.

Then it's like they start over and do an entirely different 2nd set, a China>RIder, Estimated>Eyes. By the end of Eyes, they've been on stage about an hour. This Jim Wise recording is great and is recommended over the available soundboard which suffers from some hiss and limited range. This is full and clear and has nice presence.

A blazing four show run. This is the rocking energized GD at their best. Coming off the big 3 set shows of Sept./Oct. things were definitely clicking in Florida. Just listen to Minglewood and you'll get the idea of what we are working with here. Sometimes all I can do is shake my head and grin. Damn, Jerry!!

A superb aud recording and a tremendous 2nd set. Perhaps my very favorite version of Cold Rain And Snow. Jerry does some great stuff at the end of Estimated and he is on fire throughout EOTW. The D/S portion is very interesting, especially Phil during space. Also an epic rendering of Wharf Rat. This show was one of my very first tapes, much thanks to Jim, CM and Jobias.