Closing of Winterland

The complete 12/31/78 show, with music from the Blues Brothers and NRPS as bonus features.

Set 1:Sugar Magnolia->Scarlet Begonias->Fire on the Mountain, Me and My Uncle->Big River, Friend of the Devil, It's All Over Now, Stagger Lee, From the Heart of Me->Sunshine Daydream

Set 2:Samson and Delilah, Ramble on Rose, I Need a Miracle, Terrapin Station->Playin' In The Band->Drums->Not Fade Away->Around and Around

Set 3:Dark Star->The Other One->Dark Star->Wharf Rat->St.Stephen->Good Lovin

E:Casey Jones, Johnny B. Goode, And We Bid You Goodnight

Pros

-Sugar->Scarlet->Fire and Terrapin Station->Playin' are huge highlights!

Bust out of Dark Star!

Cons

The visual quality is less than terrific.

Overall: 10/10

The audio from this concert is very good, with the 5.1 surround sound mix putting you at the concert. However, the video quality isn't nearly as good as the footage from The GD Movie, but it was easy for me to look past that and focus on the terrific music. The first set of this legendary concert starts off with a bang, that is, the huge joint hitting the ground!!! I guess you have to watch the movie to understand. The Sugar->Scarlet->Fire is perhaps the best way I could imagine to open a concert, with the Fire on the Mountain in particular being performed very well. The Friend of the Devil is also played very well, it is one of the finer versions of the slower type of the song. The rest of the set is pretty standard, but everything is well played, and the Sunshine Daydream to conclude the set has a lot of energy.

The second set is even better than the first, with fiery versions of Samson and Delilah and Ramble on Rose open the set. This is hands down my favorite Ramble on Rose; it crackles with energy and is played perfectly to a tee. The I Need a Miracle is the longest version of the song I've heard, and is probably my favorite. If you had gotten sick of the five minute Miracles following Space later on in their career, check out this beast!. The Terrapin Station is very well done, and it's fun to watch Mickey and Billy bang with such excitement on their drums near the conclusion of the song. This leads way to the first spacey number of the night, Playin' in the Band, and I like this song's placement, and it is sandwiched between what is a very rock-oriented set, unlike set three. The drums that follows is twenty minutes long, and features many guests. While I found it boring on tape, watching it with like ten people on stage made it a lot more tolerable. However, it is still a little too long for my tastes. The Not Fade Away is a monster, with the guests contributing greatly as well...the three drummers make this version even more powerful than normal. The Around and Around is very well played as well, as Bob Weir is humorous to watch throughtout. Overall, this set is mostly very rocking, and is one of the better sets the Dead ever played.

The third set starts with a huge bustout, Dark Star, which hadn't been played since the retirement shows at Winterland. This version is short, but still very good, with Phil in particular playing very well. The Other One that follows is pretty standard, but nicely comes back to an instrumental Dark Star conclusion. The Wharf Rat is nice, and the St. Stephen seems to have more energy than the later 77-78 St.Stephens did. The Good Lovin' is great, with Bobby ad-libbing more than usual, which of course is very entertaining to watch. A **triple** encore follows, with my favorite ever Johnny B. Goode, where Keith finally seems to wake up (He didn't contribute much after 1977) and Jerry is on **FIRE**. The last song, AWBYGN, doesn't have video footage, but that's easy to stomach after you've been watching the band for four hours!

The extra footage is very nice, though hardly essential. The Blues Brothers and NRPS footage are nice to watch, and the Winterland documentary is nicely done, with nice interview footage with Bobby and Mickey. Finally, I always enjoy the Making of the DVD segment, just because I find David Lemieux and Jeffery Norman's jobs very interesting.

Some of the best music every played, called a top five show for the band, and you can watch it unfold in front of your eyes...how can you not afford to own this?

10/10