I'd give the show a B- above average rating and A- AUD rating. Very nice recording. It's happily surprising how many centerally located FOBs have been uploaded for early April. Those new D5s sure were compact little units. I think I got mine in '82 also. First time I've heard 'ol Jer agressively verbal on Big River? Kind of funny. Poor Bobby - totally blew the beginning of lyrics of LL... fast, sloppy and energetic. Bertha is a nice end to set one.

ok so.... bobby still has the cold... but maybe it is getting to that point in the disease when you have gone through the bad part and now your nose is running and you still gag up a lung every now and then but you have some ENERGY BACK -- or maybe it is just the silly fun JACK STRAW opener that has me thinkin BOBBY IS GINNA LIGHT IT UP TONIGHT.... i wasnt there but i gotta think he was putting in MUCHO extra HEAD NOD!!!!!! WOOOOOOO...... raging start to this show! TLEO:.... oops, JERRY's GOT IT:( how will he fair? -- sometimes it is the key, sometimes the cold.... he was sounding in VERY CLEAR voice the beginning of the tour.....NONNO he's fine. he flicks out some very funny percussive licks and lets off an EXTRA SPECIAL BLUEGRASS RUN with super sauce at about 5:30 of TLEO.... jerry stumbles at the tale end of his solo -- he would come back on the 18th and just kill it ....

LAZY LIGHTNIN'>SUPPLICATION: i am not a big fan of lazy lightnin' but i love supplication. so tune in with me at 3:20 as the DEAD lay down a signature crescendo -- it is a lazy wild ride to the top -- one of their constructed best. and then a sweet BERTHA to make you go awww.... they get a bit gassed in the middle but plow through to the end like champs --SET BREAK-- they come back with a nice uptempo CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER:

jerry sounds like he is open to finding some new territory on this rendition, which was not particularly common. even once WEIR starts his series of licks JER KEEPS ANGLING quite a bit, in a moment of quiet around 5:50 Jerry gives in and gets to work on i know you rider -- he is really playing heavy and loud and just plucking like mad, double stopping and just sounding FANTASTIC AND FLUID -- this is a wonderful all-time version -- at 7:52 he lays on one lick w/heavy twang, and then goes straight into a very dreamy riff that conjures up the OPEN (ON THE) ROAD so beautifully -- i think everyone was carried away by this point -- only JERRY GARCIA can steer this ship. you can feel him inject all sorts of emotions, and at the right times, CALM, -- THE MASTER OF HUSH.... this performance is breathtaking, the recording, PERFECT!.... rest of the show? ....... what, what happened? (ok, he has the cold, but tell me MR WEIR ain't feelin it on Playin.....apocalypse now?)..... must mention:very dreamy/jazzy brent space at 8:00 of playin.... bobby plays great through this whole jam. nuff said. (apparently not, hear how jerry really wants bobby to do OO and he opts for... miracle!)

I had forgotten that crazy intro by Bob. This was my only Deep Ellem in over 100 shows. Those hop skip and a jump unpstate NY shows were great fun. The sound on this one is about comparable to many of my old AUD tapes when I first got them back in the day. Hearing the excitment of the croud somewhat balances out the loss compared to soundboard recordings. I'll listen to the rest of it for sure and see if it jogs my memory some more!

Haven't finished the entire show yet (into Black Peter at the moment) but this is a fine AUD recording in fact I made a note to download it.
Loved the entire first set..Deep Elem was great, Great Jerry throughout and some mighty fine Weir.

Jim