They are absolutely firing on all cylinders from start to finish. One of their best shows for sure.

As others have mentioned, the band is frickin' ON POINT for this show! Some shows you can just detect a certain immaculate glimmer right from the start letting you know... this is going to be ONE OF THOSE shows.

Listen to the little groove Phil finds ~3:38 of China Cat...

Jerry's oh-so-clean playing on Here Comes Sunshine...

Spring 1973: THE VIBES ARE IMMACULATE.

Just discovered this gem yesterday. This is some of the best music I’ve ever heard.

I am so happy to have found this show, because it's quickly becoming my favorite out of the magnificent 1973. I've poured over this numerous times, and note for note, cannot believe how on-point the Dead were here and the nights around these dates. Especially 1973-03-24. That day had another MONSTER of a set. Including Loser and Playing in the Band which are my go-to's. They play into each other perfectly. Writing this, I can feel the heat of the sun on my arms. I am only 26, but I know I was there.

I hear the power of the second set coming in perfectly. Having Wolfman Jack introduce the band is signifier enough of what's going on here. I love it. If you haven't listened to this show, take a morning and let the music play through. It will melt all of your anxiety, I promise you.

This show gets a rare 5 star rating. It is deserving of so much more if you ask me.


Peace ~ Nick.

I took a long hiatus from the Dead, moved across country again and now I'm finding solace in this amazing band.

This is a wonderful show, were there any other kind in '73? Keith is on for this show, nuff said. Highlights for me are the Playin' and jammed out Weather Report Suite Prelude through the shows end, but by god it's all good!

I used to think December 73 was it. Now, I'm back to this last week in March. Well they're all good. I've gone through this 2nd set a couple of times now. And I just really dig the unique musical space between Truckin'...and well...the end of the show. The Eyes>Dew is worth the price of admission. Is there a bad Eyes in '73?

Stellar show top to bottom, and the Truckin’ Jam through the transition into Wharf Rat is some of the best Grateful Dead you will ever hear.

I listened to the Wolf Man's intro and Ramble on Rose like 3 times.
And then I dug into the show. This is excellent!
Already plenty of good commentary. I would just add. I find Donna to be just right with her vocals for this show. I love the blending of everyone's vocals...(listen to the harmonies on RIDER)
Sounded like 'Nobodies Fault' in there somewhere.
Good placement for Me & Bobby
Eyes > MORNING DEW =Outstanding way to wrap up the set

Why didn't they play this tune more, to me it's one of their best, Garcia absolutely cooks on the jam, and the whole band gets the train rolling too a great version of it but not as good as th on dick's pick's one. Excellent sound and the band is up for it, some great tight playing and with only 1 drummer, which is my fav.

some gr8 stuff.

I absolutely love the transition in China > Rider. Beautiful, brings tears to my eyes every time.

Promised Land starts with great SQ and that fun sound we know.
Half-Step has a great tempo, especially this early in the game. The first solo by Garcia is a bit slow, though it picks up slowly.
Race is On is generally fun but a very prominent, and “where’s my martini” voiced Donna isn’t fun.
Wave that Flag is the rough creature that would become US Blues, still fun.
Jack Straw is nice, from fast tempo, to half time on a dime, and back again.
Sugaree is sleazy as ever, not the beast it would later become.
Mexicali is short and sweet.
Box of Rain well performed team effort.
Row Jimmy is rather poignant to me. It sticks out in my ears as I multi-task.
BIODTL
BEW has a nice country rhythm to it, drums chugging along nicely.
El Paso is another effort that does the trick.
China>Rider has a great tempo and feel to it. They get through the transition in a form we will become use to, Phil leading with some be-bop notes in the section of the transition that becomes a feature through the rest of their renditions of C>R until the retirement. Very nice C>R here.
LLR
Don’t Ease
PITB goes through a few phases in the journey of just under 20 minutes, and starts strongly right out of the vocals with nice wah sounds from Jer. Around 8 minutes we take a turn for the jazzier side of PITB. Slowing down after 9 minutes, it then heads into a strongly themed yet exploratory jam that takes us through the rest of the song. Generally it is a solid jam session.

Intro by Wolfman Jack
Ramble On maintains a decent tempo, and somewhat “lights up” as the Wolfman directed. Phil sounds great, especially toward the end.
Big River has the energy we all know and expect.
HC Sunshine is led in with some muted tuning, and then the solid intro. The jam segment is well played, keeping a pleasing tempo and featuring great Garcia licks. Phil is hitting some high notes, at the timing change in the middle of the jam, that are pretty cool, though this is by no means unique in this rendition of the song.
GSET is full of watery wah wah sounds from Jerome. A nice version but there are clearly better out there.
Candyman starts off with a slow tempo, but gets to a nice place when Jer blows away Mr. Benson. Nice, but short, jam.
MAMU
He’s Gone>Truckin>WRS Prelude>Jam>Wharf Rat>Bobby McGee
He’s Gone is mellow. They do into an extended vocal jam which subsides just after 10:30 to Jerry’s guitar hitting those familiar high notes, and we some instrumental jam as our reward. We get a 3 plus minute jam that stays between Gone and the upcoming Truckin theme.
Truckin begins with middling tempo, but precision playing. At the typical 5 minute mark we get the first of Jerry’s solos while the tempo has clearly gained momentum. He whips out some sassy intro notes, and then we head into the build up strongly coming out into the full blues theme/structured musical interlude we all know with more precision. We get a very bluesy jam that goes long (for Truckin) and maintains a decent head of steam, though I would like more. It sounded like Jerry wanted to perhaps head into Schoolgirl (or any the other related/easily segued blues tunes, Schoolgirl being most prominent to my ear), but it never happened. Around the 11 minute mark we get some momentum build up into a little segment I’ve never heard before, but it’s short lived, and as Jerry retreats into low, but higher pitched noodles, we’ve got Phil somewhat dominating. Keith puts in his two cents, and Jerry gets a bit louder as we get another minor build up similar to the thematic build up, which falls into more exploratory areas nicely. As it quiets, there are hints of Comes a Time and China Doll.
WRS Prelude in its early days. It starts low and smooth with cymbals accenting. The band, not ready for Part 1, instead heads into a beautiful, mellow jam lead by a poignant Garcia, the master of never overdoing it. 4 minutes in Jerry starts into some noodles, but still never overdoes it. Jamming like this, off the cuff, is what it’s all about. This is clearly the highlight of the show thus far.
Wharf Rat is great, solidifying the strength of this awesome meat sequence. Synched, nearly error free, powerful. The beginning of the instrumental power section of the song is where they have a minor flub which slows the momentum as they recover but with a slight limp.
McGee emerges from the tail end of the flight, to round out the meat sequence at well over 50 minutes.
Eyes>Dew
Eyes really comes right out of the end of McGee, with no real stop other than letting the previous song end. We’re buckled up? 25 more minutes of awesome coming your way. Eyes is beautiful, the 2nd verse jam has peaks into several nice little corners of groove.
The transition out of Eyes could have also gone China Doll, but Jerry pushes for the Dew, to my delight. Jerry either flubbed the lyrics, or there was a cut, I think it was a cut… it wasn’t a logical kind of flub and the music changed a bit. There was a seamless stitching anyhow! The build up to the finale is powerful and clear, with Keith putting in some great backing notes as Jerry gains us to the finish line, then switches into wah wahed fanning for a moment.
OMSN


Though the 1st set is somewhat inconsistent, with some songs I don’t really enjoy, it was a pretty good effort.
The second set is clearly the highlight, with an amazing sequence from the post-vocal jam of He’s Gone, through Truckin, WRS Prelude and about halfway through Wharf Rat where they were just about invinsible.
Overall, they go deep a lot in this show, but didn’t always have the juice, though usually they did. Definitely worth being familiar with this show.

This set may be just exactly perfect.

HCS and Eyes are very fine and the Truckin jam is excellent. There are actually many other good versions.
3/24-3/31 is high quality Dead.

It's not that the 1st isn't good, but it pales next to the 2nd, which is top-notch Grateful Dead with everything falling into the right place.

'73 is where it's at. The penultimate GD sound.

Ilove March 1973! Especially the Spectrum, Baltimore and Sprinfield shows. ....late year shows are incredible too!

What an amazing year, everyone knows that. I am just starting to get into spring '73. And why has it taken so long? Every damn song could have the word '>jam' attached to it.

This show contains my current favorite 'Playin', 'Greatest Story', 'Candyman', 'Wharf Rat', and of course the Truckin that melts into Weather Report is indescribably perfect.

I can't reiterate enough how awesome this Playin' is...please listen you're absolutely positively guaranteed to start dancing right on the spot!

WHY DO THEY HAVE TO BE SO FUCKIN' GOOOOOOOD!!!!!!!!!!

When Wolfman came out alot of people booded. You could hear Wolfman quickly say " Whoever likes the Dead LIGHT UP" Its seemed quite a few of us lit up more than matches. We repeated this when Jerry said "just like wolfman jack" during Ramble On Rose. Quite a Cosmic moment for me being my first of many shows.

I just wanted to echo Stella and JimF below, about the spring of '73 getting overlooked. Classic example of the difference between music people and Dead Heads. SCertain shows/tours develop these reputation sin these music cliques that are new form only the last 15-20 years or so. When in reality, us people actually at the shows, rememebr things entirely differently. Liek Coprnell '77, sure a great show, we all had the tape in the '80's, but we also wanted Boston, Buffalo, Tuscaloosa, Baltimore, etc. But now 25 years later all you hear from these newbies is Cornell, Cornell. This is another example of that - ignore the hype, listen to the band, all tours have something to offer.

I would add Boston Garden 4.3.73 to the list JimF threw out there of good spring shows - arguably the best Here Comses Sunshine ever, forget the Deadbase reviews and the newbie hype - this is a monster version.

As for this show - classic '73. Awesome improv levels reached during WRS and Playin, and solid versions of the first set material. Stream it now!

WOOPS - 4.2.73 is Boston Garden and it was already mentioned, my apologies...

i especially like the weather report suite prelude. do i hear some "darkness darkness" theme around 3:40 or so? man i love the dead.

A show from my hometown, you know it's gonna be good! Only listened to a few songs from the first set but can definitely hear all pistons firing in this one.

Going along with "monster show" discussion, i'd have to highly, highly endorse the 05-26 Kezar Stadium show they played a couple months later. One of my top five favorite Dead shows.

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Stereo Hi-Fidelity Recording.

31 songs.

5 Stars for recording, mix, performance and transfer.

Another Charlie Miller "Must Have". I highly recommend adding this show to your 1973 GRATEFUL DEAD collection.

I also recommend you click on Charlie Miller's name and collect all his GRATEFUL DEAD shows. It's a good a place to start your collection and a great place to add to it. Mr. Miller has chosen excellent performances, recordings and mixes. His taste in GRATEFUL DEAD shows is impeccable.

Here's one way to download this show:

The IA recommends users of Windows XP view this web-page with RealPlayer. RealPlayer is a free media player you can download at www.realplayer.com.

For easy streaming or downloading you should use RealPlayer.

Using RealPlayer to view this webpage, click the VBR M3U link to open the songs in the Playlist. If your Playlist is not open, open it by clicking the Playlist icon at the lower right hand corner of RealPlayer. Once the songs are in the Playlist, double click the song to play it, then click the record button at the lower left hand corner of Realplayer to record it.

When the red line reaches the other end click the stop button to download the song. Your song is in the RealPlayer Downloads folder. Repeat these steps for each song

Eat, Drink, be Merry and Listen to the GRATEFUL DEAD.

Thanks for the love.

Fall/winter 73 does get a lot of hype, and deservedly so, but the first half of the year has equally wonderful moments that should not be overlooked, like the big jam out of Truckin' from this show. Honestly I probably find myself turning to shows like this, and 3/24, 3/28, 4/2, 3/22, etc more than the Fall shows. This one is definitely a must have for 73. It's as good as a 73 board Miller transfer gets, and again, the second set suite of jams is truly superb. You get a FAT jam out of Truckin, a Wharf Rat, an Eyes, AND a Morning Dew. Nuff said.

I am guilty, as many of you, for listening to more fall shows than spring shows from 1973. Well that just changed. This is a monster show with almost everything you could ask for in the first set.The Playing is incredible.

Then you get a taste of some '73 commercialness with an unlikely appearence of Wolfman Jack, if you have to ask continue reading on. The second set is one masterpiece.Ramble On works quite well as the opener followed by a driving Big River that rips.Next is an early rendition of HC Sunshine, a taste of the fall to come, the band is excited to play the "new" material and explores it well.

This show does have a relaxed pace but all songs are played with focus and passion but with many surprises. A smokin version of Greatest Story that is off the hook is a perfect example. A rarely played Candyman is also very sweet too.

A quick cowboy song and then it is onto a 79 minute masterpiece of music that begins with He's Gone. I will fast forward to Wharf Rat which is stellar, fragile and brimming with conviction. This flows effortlessly into a beautiful Bobby McGee, which I love, then into a slower paced Eyes that is exciting and dynamic with Phil really adding much to it.Keith is on big time too. It all ends at where it should, with an amazing reading of Morning Dew.I like the tranistion into it,it is unique too.

Jerry is passionate, subtle and full of conviction. His solo at the bridge is like being on an warm summer night breeze. Phil closes it out with a powerful ending note too.

This contains one of the greatest jam moments ever - the jam between Truckin' and Wharf Rat, the WRS Prelude jam. Pure magic. Mesmerizing. Five Stars for the recording and show.