While '79 is not one of my favorite Dead years, this show stands out for a couple reasons.

-Amazing sound. Crystal, crystal clear with each instrument so well defined in the mix.
-Saint Jam. i don't know what happened, did they forget to go into Saint and they realized they wanted to ?
-Estimated Jam. I have never heard an Estimated Jam and didn't even know it existed but it is a real nice little ride.

Giving 4 stars, because it is a nice listen, it doesn't deserve the highest rating, in my opinion.

Two things stand out in my memory about this show. Terrapin Station was spectacular. Jerry standing in the green lighting and haze while singing in the shadows of the moon. The other was after the show in the alley out back seeing Bill Walton and some of the band trying to prank the crowd. It's hard to fool the crowd when you have a 6' 11" Dead Head with you!! My second show with Brent on keys. This was a great sign of what was going was going to be a good 11 year run.

and it makes me glad to hear him so high in the mix. His creativity and the energy he brought to the band in '79 is pure magic. The Boys seem to feed off his new lines and experimental jamming, and nowhere else is there a better example of this.

Gah, this is such a good concert. Here, they are instrumentally as close to flawless as I can remember them being; more to the point, this show highlights the capacity for otherworldly genius in their songwriting. Several of the epic/complex/symphonic tunes & jams made their way into this show.

Instrumentally, they nail the tunes: they're on the tight side. Brent's contribution on this night is just right on, fully integrated with the group.

The band is an introverted cadre on this evening, and the lyric delivery is even more of an afterthought than usual - except JG, who seems to be really on point this night.

In the late '70s and into the '80s, when they have a ground-breaking opus of accessible masterpieces, from Loser to Wharf Rat to Lost Sailor to Terrapin (just to name a few from this show - and there are more in this show), you rarely get both that brilliant musical introspection and the extroversion of convincing lyric delivery from Bob and Jerry, like you got in the late 60s, early 70s.

I give this about 1-2 stars for the shoddy group singing. But the instrument work is about 8 stars out of five, so this night gets a 4.

This is the best sounding copy of this performance. Jerry is much higher in the mix which seemed to be the primary complaint on other seeds.

While the first set is pretty ordinary for the times (long set though) the second picks up some interesting steam with the high energy Shakedown-> Samson, and the strange "Saint" and "Estimated" jams. The saint jam seems to have a cut before going into the actual song, and doesn't sound seamless. The Estimated Jam is a good launch pad for some heavy Mydland/Lesh/Garcia improvisations.

Alabama -> Promised Encore is also cool, my favorite performance of the combo comes later this month 12/26 (DP5).

So here we have a developmental show for a very new incarnation of the band. I think its strong in its efforts and its cool to hear the boys trying out the new material and being loose with it.

Thanks for the upgrade CM