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

It's the brief addition of cowbell around :22 in that gets my upvote, But in all seriousness, even though official releases always get a bump in the standings, this one deserves it. Even the requisite space section, which morphs from near complete silence to some TC spaceship sounds, doesn't detract from the excellent overall musical output. Very sweet star.

Young Dog knows his stuff. '81 is indeed a great year for exploratory S>F's...some are a little rough around the edges but in terms of thick, colorful, chance-taking jams esp. in transition to Fire, there are a lot from this year under-appreciated on the board. This is definitely one of them. Try also Lehigh 9/25/81.

^^^^ Yeah I’m going to check the rest out for certain. Can’t understand why this was so far under my radar til now. It is hard to crack the top 20 but I do know it’s better than a whole bunch above it currently.

At (as of now) a mere 6 votes this is without a doubt in my mind THE single most underrated version of any tune on this board (supplanting the Bertha from 5/26/77). As stated above this really could be a top 10 all time version (if not top 10, top 20 for absolute sure). This must be listened to by more posters here...it is a phenomenal version for any era featuring (among other things) a crazy good Wind in the Willows Jerry bridge--confident and melodic and in a grand ol' groove)....the lyrics are nailed & delivered with gusto ("Heart of gold banDDDD!") & the transition to Fire is a mind meld with a terrific Garcia solo blissfully absent of any MIDI meddling. Some great jamming in Fire as well and a lot of nice calypso percussion adding background color throughout. It's just stupid to leave this lying down here in the single digits. It's better than every damn 90s version miles above it (and I mean EVERY one) and it's exactly the sort of rendition this board was created to expose--an unheralded version that no one knows about but would love if they did. Come on, folks. Step up to this one.

The jackhammer stuff is in the latter half...the first is some amazing calypso/marimba stuff that bounces and flows. A lot of drums/space is background music.....this one is a sit up & take notice.