1974-05-21 Portland, OR

 

5/21/74 – Portland, OR ***** (47-minute PITB of the Gods)

The first set of songs are fine but noone will hurt you for skipping straight to the extremely up-tempo Scarlet Begonias. Keith is high in the mix tonight addling lots of great playing! I hesitate to say it's excellent, it seems rushed. But it defintiely has it's moments. 

Let me put it like this, it's '74 it's Scarlet. Shut up. 

Row Jimmy is surprisingly excellent tonight. We then get the third and final Money Money. Shame it got canned as it's downright rockin' and Keith is shredding up the ivories! Ship Of Fools sounds heavenly tonight with some very intersting church organ sounds from Keith. A great WRS then is slammed to a halt with China Doll. Come on, guys. Thankfully, we get, I think, the lognest PITB ever played!  

47-MINUTE PITB HOLY MOTHER OF HELL.  

Wow. Now before we get a hold of ourselves, the previous WRS>China Doll was OUTSTANDING, but this PITB just takes it and smashes it to pieces. Holy jeezus. It starts with an excellent version of the song portion. We then get Billy doing his up-tempo thing while Jerry does his “Space Wah” soloing. Everything is pretty coherent and “together” though for now. It then coalesces into a more frenzied Miles Davis-style of jamming. 

Around 14-minutes, we get the mother of all meltdowns. Jerry EXPLODES with his shredding and it's the aural equivalent of shock therapy (in the best way). Things then calm down a bit. Billy is still going ape-shit, but the rest of the guys are laying back and choosing their notes. 

From about 18 minutes onwards, some of the greatest GD jamming you will ever hear is played. By 28 minutes it's still going strong and it's so tasty and delectably infectious that you want it to never end! 

Around the 34-minute mark this comes to an end and a quiet, more spacey passage begins. Come 36-minutes and Billy and Keith give us some latin flavoring to the proceedings. Rim shots, etc. Eventually the epic behemoth comes to an inconclusive concludion and segues directly into US Blues. 

After the awkwardly placed US Blues (as great as it is), we get the Stella Blue of Stella Blues. QUEEN STELLA REIGNS SUPREME! This one is just so beautiful it's beyond words. Really. 

After a rocking Around and Around, we get a typically-gorgeous Eyes. Eyes is concise, at only 14 minutes, but its 14 minutes of primo-suprimo playing. Phil's bass solo is EXCELLENT and the Jerry solo immediately following is as perfect as can be. Wow, this might be the most note-perfect Eyes I've ever heard. 

After an epic Wharf, this crazy show comes to a rocking close with Sugar Mag and JBG.

1974-05-19 Portland, OR

5/19/74 – Portland, OR***** (from Bobby McGee onwards) GREATEST TRUCKIN JAM EVER

A MUCH better looking setlist tonight. BRB, Scarlet, BT Wind... Yes, BT-Wind is excellent tonight but the guys don't really seem to turn off the breaks until the WONDERFUL Bobby McGee. 

Everything before, while fine, is basically a warm up to this awesome rendition. Wonderful noodling from Jerry on it. It's like the guys said “hey, we need to wake up!” and they flipped the “ON” switch. The vibe and energy is totally transformed in an instant. I can't describe. They go from sleeping to running just like that. 

Sugaree is downright excellent. 8 minutes of killer. Jack Straw sounds really good, but unfortunately the vocals weren't recorded, so if you want a great “instrumental” version, this is the one for you! :) Roses and El Paso follow and sound good too but the vocals are still absent, unfortunately. Thankfully this is remedied by the start of a great Loose Lucy. These '74 versions are so enjoyable to hear. :) 

Up next is the 2^nd of only THREE performances of Money Money. Donna sounds great on it! Guess she could hear herself tonight, lol. Great stuff! 

Up next is THE GREATEST CHINA>RIDER EVER. Ok, that's exaggerating, but it's a DAMN EXCELLENT AND AWESOME VERSION! The jam between China and Rider is just phenomenal. Perfection at it's most, well, perfect. This China Cat is INSANE. 

Up next is the one-two punch of a ROARING Promised Land and a perfect Bertha. Actually make it a threesome – GSET is smashing like the first night of Euro '72 at Wembley! Things just keep getting better and Weather Report Suite is downright fantastic. It's 18-minutes long and Let It Grow just goes on and on and on and on! After Wharf Rat, we get the most delicate, fragile, gorgeous Peggy O these ears have ever seen. Holy moly again.

TRUCKIN IS FRICKIN AWESOME. LISTEN TO THE JAM THAT BEGINS AT 9 MINUTES IN. GREATEST FRICKIN TRUCKIN EVER JERRY GOES ALL STATIC WAH ON US JSUT LISTEN TO THIS JAMMING HOLY MOTHER OF EFF.  

Faints.

The Truckin>MLB>GDTRFB is all-time-greatest-must-hear material. This cavalcade of holiness comes to a conclusion with the hottest OMSN this side of the sun and an unenventful US Blues to take us home.