Grateful Dead - Closing of Winterland: December 31 1978

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Music reviews of Closing of Winterland: December 31 1978

Music Review: One of their best shows ever finally issued on CD and DVD
Rating: 5 Stars

Kicking off with "Sugar magnolia" only seconds after midnight, The Dead keep on playing and playing and playing 'til the morning comes. Bill Graham forced the band to play three sets plus two encores. People, who were there, have told that it was morning when they went home! The ticket actually included breakfast! The Dead played one of their longest concerts ever, if not the longest.

After the opener "Sugar magnolia", "Scarlet begonias" and "Fire on the mountain" (the combination often known as "Scarlet fire") followed, before they went into two favourite covers, "Me and my uncle" and Johnny Cash's "Big river". The first set also included rare songs like "Stagger Lee" and "From the heart of me", the latter sung by Donna Godchaux. "Terrapin station", Playing in the band", a 20-minute "Not fade away" and Chuck Berry's "Around and around" highlighted the second set. The boys announced they would be back for a third set (something they hadn't done since 1973)! And what a set? It was all back to the late 60s and early 70s.

It all opened with the crowd pleaser "Dark star", a song they hadn't played in San Francisco for 1535 days, according to a banner amongst the audience. In fact, they hadn't played the song since their "Farewell shows" at Winterland, October 1974. No wonder why people got nuts. The band swept through "The other one" before returning for an instrumental second verse of "Dark star". This version of "Dark star" is just beautiful. It's definitely one of my very favorite versions ever! It has this really good feeling. It's like you're just floating away. The tempo is not too fast and not too slow. The only thing I don't like with this version, with only 13 minutes, it's just too short. The band played more oldies: "Wharf rat", "St. Stephen" and "Good lovin'". PS! Did you know that The Dead played "St Stephen" only four times after this performance? After three sets, one would think that Jerry and co. wouldn't play any encores. But they did. They also come out for a second time, finishing this marathon show with "We bid you goodnight". It would have been more correct to change the title to "We bid you good morning" since the sun had been up for hours when the crowd finally got home!

PS! If you want to SEE the entire show, buy the "Closing of Winterland" DVD!

Description of Closing of Winterland: December 31 1978

Classic Rock CDs

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