Dick's Picks 7: Alexandra Palace London England

Three CD set. Culled from a three-night London stand that was part of a rarely bootlegged European mini-tour, Dick's Picks Vol. 7, like so many of the other volumes in the series, captures The Grateful Dead at a unique point in their evolution and on the brink of yet another major transition. These are some of the very last Wall of Sound shows, a mere month before the group took a 20-month hiatus from live performing; and yet the Dead show no sign of the physical, emotional and financial exhaustion that the marathon touring with the mammoth sound system had, by all accounts, caused the band and crew. The set is bookended by strong performances of two favorites, Scarlet Begonias and U.S. Blues, from their latest album release, From the Mars Hotel, but it's the three long jams that anchor the release: a 23-minute Playing in the Band, an 18-minute Weather Report Suite and especially the 24-minute Dark Star that's immediately followed by the whimsically entitled Spam Jam (a nod to British favorite sons Monty Python?) and perhaps the most moving version of Morning Dew the band ever played in concert. Another long out-of-print gem!