Ladies and Gentlemen, The Grateful Dead
If someone wants to cut to the chase...with limited time to explore the now thousands of hours of wonderful, live Grateful Dead...one might be hard pressed to come up with more stunning, vibrant Live Dead than this release!!!
I know I have a bias...as many deadheads do relative to when any of us got on this magic carpet train ride. Spring 1971 is when I first had the privilege and pleasure at a Winterland show in San Francisco on March 24 of that year. These discs capture such a lively period in their history to a wonderful degree. Enough so that in the absence of "the boys" playing live New Year's Eve shows after 12/31/91, "Ladies and Gentlemen..." has offered an outstanding place to go for a chart-busting, dance until dawn substitute. Simply a superb time and compilation these discs capture just weeks after I got to see them for the first time. Can't go wrong with this. (this does not subtract in any way many, many other fabulous releases by this beloved band).
What also fits and reflects well on some of my adulation and adjectives here is, of course, LIVE/DEAD from 1969. But I'd have to add that the feeling and avant-garde nature of their psychedelic explorations in '69 is all but in another universe. And some of the very best GD ever! EVER!!!