A song that always seemed to present a challenge for the band.
But a cool tune in it's own right.
I can remember many a winter day in N.Y.C just singing, whistling and humming this tune.
With all the twists, bends and changes
this song has Phil's fingerprints all over it.
Gets some warm applause!
"They say that is all there is
So I guess that's all there is"- Weir

I originally just wanted to check out the first Cosmic Charlie but reviews convinced me to give entire show a listen which quickly bumped me from a 4 to a 5.
I like the bass drum high in the mix just like i love distinctly hearing Phil's bass riffs...

4

Real easy to listen to, thanks Charlie. Yes, the bass drum is prominent, it didn't bother me (as it does on lots of 1972 tapes!). What a nice little show! I'm not a Lovelight fan, and this one is fun. I totally jotted down in my notes that Pigpen sounds drunk....and I see lots of people mentioning the same thing in these comments! Pretty funny. The Dark Star is very nice, a happy, self-assured Dark Star. St. Stephen sounds great but has a tragic cut right as the middle begins, into the last verse. The "William Tell" section of The Eleven is coherent. "The Other One", solid. This first "Cosmik Charlie" is a bit of a mess...but when was it ever NOT a mess?!! It's probably as together as it ever was in the early days!

I give this show a 3 and a half, a solidly good show with nothing I'd skip. There are better, "deeper" versions of all these songs, sure, but this is well-worth a listen. The "Dark Star" is gorgeous, and there's not alot of that "oversinging" that Jerry sometimes did during this era (like on "Live Dead").

I like TC on this one as well!

And, again, wow, Charlie Miller....thanks, it's like I'm right there.

This actually isn't the first show of '69, but it's the first available recording, and it's a beaut.

I strongly echo Darrylizer's sentiments about Jerry and this Dark Star - it's a big leap forward in playing. This DS is so crafted and precise, yet totally loose and free. Jerry's phrasing and seamless flow of ideas on these '69 versions makes them stand out from a lot of '68s that can be quite interchangeable (with a number of notable exceptions, of course).

The Eleven and Death Don't are the other big highlights in this great show. Of course, things only get better from here...

Have to agree with all - Jerry is a God, and '69's the year he became one.

I started with Live/Dead, then Workingman's and American Beauty.

If this isn't five stars, I don't know what is. This time period is the essence of what the GD are.

When an epic Lovelight is the low point of the performance, you know it's a great show!

This is t h e b e s t....

If you're new to the Dead, you start at Live Dead, i.e., January, 1969.

This one of the very best, sound and performance-wise, shows on archive. The DS is not as developed as 2/27, but it is simply phenomenal in its own right.

The Eleven... unbelievable.

Start here, work your way forward...

I've just gone through much of 1968 and for me that was the year that the Dead grew the most. Gone were the garage band boogy of 1966 and the awkward gangly period of 1967. I regard 68 as the period from childhood to adolescence. But 1969 was when the band hit maturity. Jerry became god-like on the guitar this year and the band was right there with him. Check out the Dark Star, the band and especially Jerry have hit the next level. The exception being Tom Constanten who hasn't quite found his voice with the band yet, if he ever did. But his keys whether for good or ill aren't prominent in the mix. I don't know why they replaced Pigpen because Pig is a much better and more natural, soulful and rhythmic keyboardist with the Dead than Tom and his over-thought keys ever were. I guess because of Pigpen's drinking? In any case there's any easy sort of grace and splendor to the band's playing on this show. It grooves seamlessly. Except for Cosmic Charlie which is a total trainwreck. What the hell though, there's a first time for everything and this was the first Cosmic Charlie.

This show is very well recorded (Micky's over loud bass drum notwithstanding) and any issues with timing have to do with the band playing Lovelight at a slower than usual tempo, not the tape or rather the pitch correction. The vocals and instrumentation sound exactly correct, especially the snare drums. Had this show been incorrectly pitched, any variance in the drums and vocals would be obvious. Nice job on the crossfades to reduce the cuts also. This is a great show in a year of great shows. I can't imagine what it must have been like for the audience other than a transcendent experience.

Pitch-corrected means just that; the tape speed has been corrected by tuning the recording back to A=440, which is what the instruments on the recording were tuned to for the performance. As such, the tempo and the pitch of instruments and vocals are now correct (with respect to the actual performance), whereas previously circulating versions included errors introduced by analog tape speed problems that simultaneously affect both tempo and pitch.

"Turn on your love light" sounds a tad slow...I think it needs to be sped up ...just a tiny bit.

DARK STAR January 17, 1969, are you kidding me? It sounds so new, fresh, and dimensional it's...

It's here, It's all here. This is it, this is where it is, this is where it came from. Jerry's guitar, Jerry's Amps, Jerry's sound in 1969. The Magic Sound, the DARK STAR sound. Download it now, or you will MISS it. Must be TC on Keyboard.

St Stephen/The Eleven sounds nice. Clean mix. Performance is fresh, new and exciting.

Death Don't Have No Mercy is as spooky as it gets.
Jerry's sound is phenomenal.

The Other One, when it was called "That's It For The Other One". Raw, exciting, primitive, and futuristic, layered by sound and held together by syncopation and rhythm...but still sounds slow. When Bobby sings you can tell the tape is slow.
The whole show is probably a tad slow if the "pitch corrected" it, as stated below. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Cosmic Charlie is spectacular. I wish we had the FEEDBACK part to this show if there was one. I love FEEDBACK when THE DEAD did it.

Have to have this one, 1969 is RICH with sound, and the music is fresh. 4 stars because the show sounds a tad slow.

Eat, drink be merry and listen to THE GRATEFUL DEAD.

Thanks for the love.