Lucky enough to be at this show. Candyman blew everyone away--best song played that night. Awesome trippy guitar jam &Jer belts out vocals

Gorgeous, incredible, up and down, carnival-like bridge jam by Jerry. Picture perfect version--no flaws

April '78 S>F's often mentioned are 4/16 and 4/24 (rightly so) but this one is every bit as good. Superior transition jam--, beautiful, & powerful

Starts out Jazzy, explorative, takes its time, 3 minute intro, then blasts off into the stratosphere with intense Garcia-led jamming

Just gaga over this one. Candidate for all time best jam into the "wind in the willows" verse. Transition jam is unlike any I've heard--not necessarily smoothest (this ain't the mind meld of 5/8/77) but funky good and oddly endearing...most likely because it's still one of the earliest combo versions they ever did and they're still finding new paths to "Fire", but this version--especially now that it can be heard in a clean SBD after the 30 Trips release--deserves to be ranked among the very best of '77 and really, any era.

Just exactly perfect in all possible ways with the bonus of having a slightly peppier tempo than most other stellar versions from this year. This one, however, really stands out and the main instrumental jam section is a marvel, most especially with Keith and Jerry's contributions. Might be my favorite all time.

There's a CM cleaned up SBD version of this show available and I went right to this Dark Star once I found it. Gorgeous opening salvo that glides along a jazzy free flowing river for about the first 10-12 minutes before the verse, then some contemplative, mildly dark but never dissonant space intrudes--nothing to edit out as I would so many otherwise excellent '72-'74 versions (I'm looking at you in particular 11/11/73), and then there's a mind-meld tighten up/feelin' groovy/whatever you want to name it jam that is just the Dead at their finest. I don't mind necessarily that they never sing verse 2, but I take half a point off for that fact that this doesn't really go into Birdsong...instead there's a VERY pregnant pause and you can even hear the boys talking about what to do next ("Wharf Rat" is clearly nominated by someone, not sure who), and then we get the aforementioned Bird Song, which is a nice treat to be sure, but don't expect much out of it. The tune is still in its live version infancy and it's played at a too-fast clip, not especially good vocals by Jerry (compare it to any version he sings in '72 or '73) and the jams in between verses don't amount to much in comparison to those other years either. But as for the Dark Star itself, this is a prime "Best of '71" candidate--not to the level of 10/31, mind you, but very VERY good and upvote worthy.)

The solo on this one is just transcending, and a little bit longer than most. Instead of Jerry returning to the verse after the "high point" conclusion of his solo, he re-enters the gentle main theme for a bit, letting everyone settle down, before continuing on to the final 3 verses. Just extraordinary stuff.

Needs to move up! Everything you want from a Bertha, and a perfect way to start a classic show