7/31/74 – Hartford, CT – Dave's Picks Vol. 2 **
A very rare opening Scarlet begins this 3 hour and 36 minute (!!!) show. Being the first song, it starts off slow but eventually builds a head of steam. Jerry does some very nice soloing towards the end. MAMU is pretty hot with lots of perfect lead lines from Jerry. Next is a fantastic BE Women before a flat-out rocking BIODTL with some nice Jerry.
Mississippi Half Step is stupendous tonight. Check out Jerry's first solo! PERFECT! This is like a preview of those awesome 1977 versions. This Half-Step is must-hear! Holy crap Jerry's solo at the end is unbelievably great!!!
From that amazing Half-Step they do another perfect segue into Roses. Phil is very high in the mix tonight and this is especially evident in this delicious Roses. Mexicali blazes and Row Jimmy puts me to sleep as always. Thankfully Jack Straw wakes me back up.
Terriffic Straw, this is. Just as good as the previous show in Landover. China>Rider is excellent. Jerry lays back and lets Bobby do some soloing!!! This China Cat just drives hard. Upbeat and uptempo, this is what I look for in my China>Riders. :) Set one then ends with a fantastic screaming version of Around and Around.
Set two opens with a chill-but-bouncy Bertha. Big Rier scorches, but then it's into Eyes. It's always a good sign when it starts with a bass solo! For a while, Jerry lays back and lets Phil take the spotlight. Jerry's vocals are perfect and he eventually steps up to the spotlight with his usual sublime Eyes soloing. Jerry then lays back again and lets Phil solo to his heart's content. This is easily the most Phil soloing I've heard in an Eyes. Great stuff!!!
12 minutes in and things are still, excuse the pun, truckin' along EXCELLENTLY!!! This is a fantastic Eyes. Eventually around 17 minutes, things break down – the boys lose it but they save it by drifiting into China Doll like it was supposed to happen. Oooh and this China Doll is downright exceptional. So gorgeous. Like Stella Blue on steroids.
China Doll comes to an end and we are hit with a rocking Promised Land – perfect as can be. Jerry does some pretty cool soloing. Ship of Fools immediately brings us back down though. Poor placement, imo. Still, a good version.
Weather Report Suite is terrific tonight – around the 9 minute mark things start going haywire and the band is going full-throttle off the rails in some of the best high-intensity jamming you'll ever hear. Check out that jam that begins around 15:30!!! What a great end to set 2.
Set three begins with a good El Paso to get us back in the groove. A pretty good GSET has some killer drumming and terriffic Jerry soloing. To Lay Me Down is just awesome as usual. The final meat platter of the show is a 40 minute Truckin>MLB>Spanish>Wharf. Truckin starts with the pedal floored.
The song portion is as good as any other. The jam that spirals out of it is pretty unusual. It's a very quiet and thoughtful Dark Star-esque portion of jamming not reminiscent of your usual Truckin' outbursts of energy. The jam eventually regains tempo, but it remains rather chill. Jerry does some cool sparse soloing. This jam actually sounds very tropical! Weirdest Truckin ever?
The “Troppo Jam” as I'm calling it, morphs into a very nice and played out MLB before morphing again into Spanish and Wharf. Not much to say about this Truckin'. It's very enjoyable but very uncharacteristic. After a nice Wharf, the show comes to an end with a rocking trio of US Blues, OMSN and UJB. Great show overall. Definitely underrated, imo.
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