The next installment of the Grateful Dead’s Road Trips series of archival releases focuses on one of our favorite years for the band – 1973. Road Trips Vol. 4 No. 3 features the Grateful Dead’s epic November 21, 1973 performance from the Denver Coliseum in Denver, CO.
Take a look at this sequence and you’ll know why fans have fawned over this show for decades: Mississippi Half-Step > Playin’ In The Band > El Paso > Playin’ Jam > Dark Star Jam > Wharf Rat > Playin’ In The Band > Morning Dew. You can find every note of that majestic song suite on Disc 2 of this release. Whether we’re talking Phil’s thunderous work in the Dark Star jam or Jerry’s tear-jerking delivery of Wharf Rat or the subtle bounce added to El Paso by Kreutzmann or Keith’s fiery piano work throughout, each member of the band was “on” during this show. Okay, Donna screams a bit too much for our tastes, but nearly every member of the Dead was “on.”
Back in January we shared the latest installment of Joe Kolbenschlag’s Steel Cut Oats series, which contained this show and the previous night’s performance (some of which is included in Road Trips Vol. 4 No. 3) if you’d like a sample of what you can expect from the official release. Road Trips Vol. 4 No. 3 is currently available for pre-order through Dead.net. The actual release date is set for May 1.
READ ON for the tracklist for Road Trips – Denver ’73…
