Dead.net, the official Grateful Dead web site and online store, continues its exclusive Road Trips series in 2011 with its fourth volume. Issuing quarterly in February, May, August and November, Road Trips puts a spotlight on different tours and series of shows and includes rarities from the deepest corners of the vault and many rare and never-before-seen photographs. Each three-disc set is showcased in a beautifully designed booklet that contains an essay about how the music on the discs fits into the Dead’s long history.
Road Trips Vol.4 No. 2 [$23.98] offers up the entire April 1, 1988 concert from the Brendan Byrne Arena (called “the Meadowlands” at the time) in East Rutherford, NJ, plus the entire second set and a few first set highlights from the previous night’s performance (the middle show of a three-night stand). The April Fools’ show is a real barn-burner, with a first set that includes a “double-opener” of high-octane versions of “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” and “Jack Straw,” a rare and nearly perfect take on “To Lay Me Down” (played for just the second time since 1983), followed directly by the second (and final) Grateful Dead-only version of Bob Dylan’s “Ballad Of A Thin Man.” Disc Three contains Set Two from April 1st.
LISTENING PARTY – WMA:
Photo by James R. Anderson/photog.com
