Beautiful recording and a great show. For my own personal taste, I tossed the 1st set's Passenger, B.E.W., and Far From Me to splice in TMNS from Peggy-O. It makes for a really nice 43:18.

Great second set though Bobby’s Minglewood and Sailor > Saint are not up to par. I had to snicker again at Bobby “singing” Minglewood at the beginning like he was signing it in 9/2 and 9/4/79 (see my reviews) though he's almost out of his Pat Boone phase and the energy and his growl improves through the song)). Everybody knows you don’t sing Minglewood. You growl it (And why? Because you were raised in a lion's den, that's why.). Both it and Sailor > Saint don’t have much life in them and drag, with Bobby being slightly off key and off tempo at the start of Sailor. So I added a little pep in music editing which helped quite a bit. But the balls-to-the-wall Miracle > Bertha > Good Lovin' with the U.S. Blues encore makes up for it and puts this show over the top to five stars with Barry's sound quality. Those four songs, when they show up together at the end, has always been one of my favorite closers.

Definitely a "sweet spot" or 1st row balcony recording. Just the right amount of reverb and off the crowd for a very pleasant listen. Didn't have to mess with the ambience knobs and sliders at all. And hey, I've got no problem with the location. Thanks Barry. Thanks Boyz.

But the Fox Theater in Atlanta has some of the finest acoustics of any venue the Dead ever performed in. That was definitely NOT the cause or problem here.

After listing to a series of outstanding Glassberg audience tapes this one suffers a bit from location and the acoustics of the hall. Don't get me wrong, this is still a very good audience tape, but the previous handful of shows were simply exquisite.

Thinking about it, most Fox tapes I've heard have some boom. I've seen it but never been in it for a show, so its hard to say what the cause is. I know it's highly regarded as a hall, so perhaps it was just tough to tape in.

By this time the tapers had mastered the art and there was a plentiful supply, often as good as the soundboard. I remember talking to other tapers at shows about the esoterics of microphone pick-up patterns and the precise alignment of the mics to the source speakers - too close and you started to hear stage monitors, too distant and the boom of the hall came into play. All of this is before taping was officially allowed, which would come, but not for a few more years.

This doesn't appear to be an FOB from the notes and just listen to the magic! I guess I give out a lot of 5 stars but then again I don't rate crappy sources much. This one sounds terrific.

It appears the Dead hit the Fox on both the spring and fall tours in 80. That's pretty unusual for a venue to get a stop on more than one tour in the same year--especially in the south--although I'm sure its not unprecedented. Anyhoo, its basically a fun show. Jer forgets lyrics in a few sons, but his playing is kick ass. Barry G's AUD recordings from this era are awesome!!