I sang a little while and then flew on.

I shit my pants! This was the show where I shit my pants!
Great sound and a superb performance for this era and it would hold up pretty well against some of the early/late 80's show, and that's what made me shit my pants.
I thought the Dead were a spent force at this point and they would never rekindle ANY semblance of classic Dead. But here to my surprise they came as close as they ever did post 92. So 5 stars for the era(cough, cough. That's not saying much) but a 3 star show compared to early 80's/late 90's Dead! And there ain't a show post 92 that gets past a less then satisfactory rating when compared with the previous era, AND that's what made me shit my pants in sheer joy!

Great show! Playing very good and no lyrical flubulations that my ears could detect and brain remember. Say What? This is a 1994 show that plays and sounds like a, well, amazing 1994 show. This tour actually had some above average gigs, and this could be the best played one out of the bunch (although my heart leans toward the MSG run and the "missing second set"). Neither set was marred by a Vince tune or Easy Answers, so the setlist was solid through and through. Pre-Drumz and Drumz of set 2 was the highlight due to song selection and jams. An very sweet Standing on the Moon also stands out in this show. Five stars for quality of the setlist, playing and sonic superiority!

5 for sound 5 for show they had "IT" this night I was there this is a very good show

Really thought Weir was toying around with the idea of busting out a "Sailor > Saint" instead of "Miracle" while I was fairly mesmerized by what I was hearing during those moments of the show. I still hear it, hear them, those subtle inklings whenever I listen to this performance.

one of my favorite tours!midnight hour/cumberland/playin/uncle johns band wow!

Holy shit! I made most of the good ole "Rectum" shows from 82-95 but cannot honestly tell you if I made every night of this run without looking at my stubs at the moment. Yes, it's hell to get old. But I felt compelled to write this after listening to that heartfelt, searing, soaring rendition of SOTM. When he was singinging about the lovely view of Heaven but he'd rather be with us I lost it. His voice is so emotional in this version and that line sent the tears streaming down the cheeks like a waterfall. I'm still crying as I write this and it usually takes a lot to get me like this. Man! I sure do miss you Jerry! Peace brother, we will all be dancing together again someday.....

60s - 70s - 80s - 90s fuck the decade / year. This is the Grateful Dead, this show is flawless.
This show is a GRATE Grateful Dead concert. Listen and enjoy !!! Miss you Jerry AHH HUM BOP BOP BE DOP BOP

I was a tremendous fan of the band with countless bootlegs, but only made it to about 10 shows and maybe 10 or so more parking lots.

This was BY FAR the best show I ever saw. Buckeye Lake '93 was pretty good, but this show was great. The Midnight Hour>Cumberland Blues was probably my only taste of what Heads would experience on a regular basis in the old days... Cumberland was just f'ing awesome!!! And the Deal at the end of the 1st set was off the hook as well. Great Standing on the Moon... just a great show.

Funny story.... me and my friends got into the venue about 45 minutes or so early and no one was inside. So I walked down to the stage. The usher asked what I was doing and I told him that I just wanted to get a closer look at the equipment and he said, "OK, that's cool." So my friend follows me down there and mind you he didn't really give a fuck about the equipment. He just sat in the front row, center stage.

So when I was done I started walking up to our seats - behind the stage:( - and I turned and my friend was still sitting there. I looked at him and he looked back and just shook his head. He was staying until someone asked him to leave. Well no one asked him to leave. I think he even dozed off there for a little while. And no one ever claimed the seat so he sat there the whole show! Go Jondo!!!!

This show was one of the best of`94...hands down..The 1st set had great transitions from tune to tune."Jack-A-Roe>QueenJane Approx.>Lazy River,"came together like magic...and that`s what it is..MAGIC!...The 2nd set opens with the greatest,"Midnight Hour>Cumberland Blues,"two songs that were out of place,compared to the setlist at the time.Midnight was usually an encore and Cumberland usually appeared in 1st set sequences...but together as an opener was right on time...Then after "Playin`"..the best"UJB,"ever,gently took us into D/S,only to play their way out with,"Miracle>SOTM,"which IMO,is one of the best renditions of SOTM,ever!!All in all,...it was a colorful night,in more ways than one!

For '94 this is very good. Exellent sound quality as well.

Just a great show. Damn. I'm loving it. I always like when I find a great 90's-era show.

I'm not the greatest fan of most Vince-era shows for many reasons. However, this show really stands out in terms of song choices and playing.

First Set: Great FOTD, Eternity, and Deal. I'm not much of a first set person and this honestly doesn't stand out as an amazing first set, but it's definately solid.

Second Set: ...And here's where the fun begins! Opening with a really strong and powerful "Midnight Hour," the band keeps the momentum going for the rest of the set. Highlights include a great transition jam into "Uncle John's Band," a really far-out "Drums/Space,"and a well-played version of "Standing on the Moon." But really, just about everything in this set is pure gold, which can be pretty hard to find in this particular year/era. Vince sticks primarily to piano-ish tones for pretty much the whole thing, which really cuts down on the cheese factor I normally associate with '94 shows.

Overall: 4.5 stars. Definately worth a listen, especially if you're looking for a good show from this era.

Sound on this is as good as it gets. The Spectrum is a home venue and this recording is true enough to accurately capture the character of the space. Huge soundstage, fantastic body and nuance to the instruments, percussion, and voices. The mix is balanced and smooth. No foggy window here, just clear polished glass or on a true reference system, perhaps, just an open window.

As for the performance, I casually listened to Set I and found it in-line with the favorable reviews of others offered here. Having critically listened only to Set II it forms the basis of my review.

I was shocked to discover a performance this good in '94. From end to end, the set is a solid beam of masterful artistry. That the boys hit their gestalt is indubitable. The tide starts out high with robust, yet focused energy for Playin' and UJB's. The familiar verses and lines like warm water over your toes. It will draw you in. With UJB's jam you'll be afloat when the powerful current changes, the undertow seeks in all but unnoticed. Land is gone now and you are cast into the oceans deep mystery by, certainly, one of the best drum/space sequences played. By a miracle, you'll find yourself standing on the moon, with Jerry, and the huge heart of his, clear enough to be beside you. At end of this full spectrum passage its high time to party down with Eskimo. If you've listened, you've just lived a lifetime, or every lifetime, in roughly an hour and a half. To an open-minded listener willing to give it it’s due, would not be falsely advertised as psychedelic experience in a nut shell--no chemicals required. That is the dead at their best.

Sonics 5
Performance 5

Great second set. Really nice UJB jam with heavy dreams and really nice piano work from Vince. The others said it all.

I am confused by some previous discussions in the reviews of the Seattle and Eugene 94 shows that someone mentions having occured a couple weeks before this night. The Seattle and Eugene's in 94 were in Mid June (4 months previous, and worlds away in terms of comparison..??..). Anyhoo, this is an interesting show b/c of the fact that Jerry and assorted others stuck around during all of drums. I don't think it's quite as amazing as people make it out to be b/c of the novelty of the boys not leaving during drums, but then again it's been a while since I heard it....

The first set is great/excellent. Eternity is a nice surprise, a sweet and sad performance, very well done, progressive and increasingly jazzy being on the borderline between melodic and abstract/atonal. The second is nothing short of excellent. One traces these great spacejams to Miles Davis avant garde jazz. the whole band is truly inspired (perhaps by Garcias great performance and obviously physical shape in general) and drives the band into the unheard, reminiscent of the great late 60s performances. Garcia staying on stage during Drums section and playing excellent riffs and jams. What more can possibly deadhead ask for? Forget the great Scarlet-Fire jams for a while and listen closely to the second set and the energy this band posesses. This enduring energy is a seldom one for an increasingly weak Garcia of the 90s.

This show -with the excellent but more traditinally October 1st- is definately a 5 point based on 90s standards.

Coming off a very strong Boston Garden run with only a day of rest, I didn't expect this show to be quite so amazing. Jerry's fully present in this one, locking into some very nice grooves. Either you love the later Garcia tones, or you dislike them. I'm a huge fan of this sound. I think it really is Garcia in full virtuoso mode. Jack Straw is crunchy, and despite a couple song selection clunkers (Wang Dang, FOTD, Eternity) the first set is really an excellent time. Lazy River road is much improved (I've said before and maintain that this song really came into being as a strong GD tune only after the acoustic Phil and Friends show (with Garcia) at Berkeley High some two weeks prior to this. Listening to this tune in 1993, it's pretty obvious that Jerry is dragging everyone reluctantly along with him, by Fall 1994, I think the rest of the band gets it. I don't think it hurt to break it down in a small acoustic setting.

It would be nearly criminal for me to review this show without a few words about the Cumberland or Standing on the Moon, but before we get to that we get a lovely (13+ minute) Deal, Jerry hits a couple spots of lyrical uncertainty, but these aren't major flubs, just occasional hiccups. Vince is actually pretty decent (though far from endearing) on the corners of this tune. By the 4th minute it's pretty clear that Jerry's off to the races.

Midnight hour might actually be the weakest tune of the second set. More cowbell? You got it. Weir and Welnick don't really link up on the vocals, until Weir ventures a ("one more thing" interjection and a series of Howls - (see the October 3rd, 1980 show where Weir admonishes a audience member "we said sing, not howl" - good advice there buddy!) the midi tones do not do much to add to feeling of the song. For a good minute we are on a cartoon merry-go round, we finally get off around 4:40 into the song where Garcia begins to really soar.

Cumberland seems to be a Garcia selection and the way it comes in so quickly after the end run on Midnight Hour, there's little doubt he's psyched to play this one, though he takes a little time setting up, deciding, relatively elegantly, on a somewhat slow tempo. There's a couple lyrical pauses and miscues here, but nothing to despair over and Jerry's playful guitar moving quite quickly across an expanded register more than compensates. This is far from perfect, but it's heartfelt.

Playin' provides a nice launching pad for the 17 minute UJB into drums (with Vince actually doing a nice "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" Bach tease into the Âfirst days vocal. Something of a theme beginning as early as 1991). Jerry staying out through Drums is wonderful and in many ways helps make this arguably one of the better start to finish performances of the year (October 1st tops this show in energy if nothing else). Miracle is raunchy in a wonderful kind of way.

And then we are Standing on the Moon. It's wonderful. It doesn't quite rank with 8/21/93 but it's up there. Jerry is delicate while strong in lyrical delivery. This is a goose bumps moment for anyone who saw a lot of shows in this era. The be with you-s are heartbreaking but unlike Eugene 93, we don't get a second set of breakers after the end solo, that's really the only thing that keeps this out of the top three SOTMs.

Sugar Mag > SSDD reminds us why we all got on the bus to begin with. This is just pure fun. Jerry is still as sprite as he was to start the show. Bobby's vocals are strong.

Flaws? Sure, Phil is not all that upfront in this mix, though it seems that there's quite a bit of stuff down low, you just might need to boost everything below 55 cycles (something I would repeatedly long for post Healy).

I'd challenge any basher of the later years to listen to this one and see if they didn't want to rethink that take.

Quinn is a perfect way out of this one. Just lovely. "Come on without, come on within!" Thanks guys.

I remember saying this to my friend after cumberland...

There was a nice jam of Jerry through the drumz this night. Definetely the highlight of the fall 94 spectrum rum.

I give it at least a 3+ for the playing and a final of four for the great time that we had this night.

As far as the comment about eugene 94' I remember the last night out there. The second set was one of the longest I've heard. The only thing that upset me was it would not even fit on my MX 110 analog tape in my D-5. Beautiful weather, Eugene, Heavens Door with the sunset... Great set 2... fond memories

the best SOTM I've ever heard.

This was the best show of the 3 night stand at the Spectrum that fall. Good recording of one of the more solid setlists that was played well for '94!

Yes, the Uncle Johns jam is interesting and it's great to hear Cumberland galloping through the second set. However, one of the reasons that this show often finds it's way into my deck is the 13 min. long Deal. Even most jamming Deals last about half of the length of this one that keeps building in intensity. Goes to show, you dont ever know...

People were critical of Jerry at the Seattle and Eugene shows several weeks earlier ... lines like "Whose turn is it to walk Jerry tonight" went around.
This show pretty much quashes those criticisms. Jerry stays on stage through and past drums. 'Nuff said about that issue.
Upon hitting the floor at The Spectrum, I was told much to my disappointment that they had aired out "Jack Straw" two shows (three nights) earlier in Boston. I could have left happily after the first song on this first night of three.
(I did stick around and was completely blown away with the "Midnight Hour" second set opener.)
Another example of those magical Spectrum shows.
(Catch the "Liberty" encore from the following night for another great, late Jerry moment.)

I had the tape of this show. I thought the second set was excellent, espically for 94. Always loved Quinn. Great to see it hear. It will not disappoint. If you dig 94 at all, you should add this to the collection. Maybe only outshined by 8/1/94 for the year.