I have to add my two cents to all three of these uploads. To my ears, New Potato and Viola Lee run fast. I couldn't tell you what the percentage is. But to me, it's plain as day. And nobody else notices it? Hmm. The duo is five stars after audio correction.

5

Just listening to anything from Anthem often provides me with that little jolt in the gut as if I were experiancing a flashback.Any live new potato might actually cause me to fail a drug test,this one is no exception!And of course the Viola kicks ass!

Many reviews (including my own) focus on what Jerry was doing, but Phil was also a key part of the improvised counterpoint up until about 1975 (about the time alcoholism took its toll). Both Jerry and Phil do a good Viola Lee, though the New Potato is average for '67.

Viola Lee different, in that it is one of the first performances to end in feedback, one of the first extended feedbacks. Through 1966 and much of '67 they ended on the chord. But they had recently performed at the Monterey Pop festival, where Jimi Hendrix shocked the audience with 5 minutes of feedback, during which he burned and smashed his guitar--feedback still going.

Instead of violence during the feed back, the Dead go into campy vaudeville "outtro" that they had been ending shows with this year. Unfortunately, it's cut off here.

From this Monterey/Hendrix-inspired feedback ending, the Dead would expand feedback into a lengthy "song" in it's own right. Over the years, this evolved into the "space" that was a standard part of shows for decades.