Grateful Dead - Road Trips Vol 1 No 4: From Egypt With Love

Not only did we get the release of the Egypt 1978 shows we also were given a nice little bonus of a new Road Trips CD Vol. 1, No. 4 October of 1978 From Egypt With Love. This falls right in place with the Egypt 1978 release. After the return from Egypt, The Grateful Dead did a five night series at Winterland in San Francisco to give the hometown folks a little taste of Egypt. They had a slide show. Hamza El Din (a Nubian musician living in the Bay Area) reprised the Egyptian song he’d sung at the Sound & Light Theater in Gizah—called “Ollin Arageed” for the Winterland Fans. So you get to hear something new and different in both of the new releases.

The CDs are made up of mainly two performances 10/21 & 10/22/1978, but if you get the bonus CD you also get a couple of songs from 10/17 as well. See the Track List below for all the songs that made this release.

The quality of the recordings are nice. The remastered 30 year old recordings turned out pretty darn good. I'm always happy to hear some of these classic recordings.

There's some really good highlights on these cds. The Got My Mojo Working > The Other One > Stella Blue jam is really nice, a must hear. If I Had The World To Give is only one of 3 times this was ever played. Sugaree, what can I say, awesome as always.

The Scarlet > Fire on the second CD is awesome. Honestly I can't tell you that there is anything on here that isn't amazing. I really dig whole show. I wish there was a DVD companion to one of these shows as well. That would be a classic to see.

Great show, good quality, well worth the $20 for the 2 plus bonus CD ordered directly from www.dead.net.

Disk One - 10/21/78

Sugaree
Passenger
Stagger Lee
I Need A Miracle
Got My Mojo Working (with Lee Oskar)>
The Other One>
Stella Blue>
Sugar Magnolia
US Blues

Disk Two - 10/22/78

Olin Aragreed>
Deal
Peggy-O
Jack Straw
Scarlet Begonias>
Fire On The Mountain
NFA (with John Cipollina)>
GDTRFB

Bonus Disc

Bertha (10/21/78)>
Good Lovin (10/21/78)>
Estimated (10/21/78)>
He's Gone (10/21/78)
If I Had The World To Give (10/17/78)>
Around and Around (10/17/78)

Grateful Dead - Road Trips Downloads 11-05-1979 & 11-06-1979 The Spectrum Philly, PA

Dick's picks are in the vault stopped at 36 volumes. So what's next for the Archive gurus of the Grateful Dead. Well that would be a few really cool volumes of the best live material from different years, months or places. These are called Road Trips. So far there are 3 physical cd sets, Road Trips Vol 1, No. 1 Fall 1979, No. 2 October 1977, No. 3 Summer 1971 and soon No. 4 From Egypt With Love. The Fourth will be released at the same time as Rockin the Cradle: Egypt 1978 2 CD 1 DVD set at the end of September 2008.

So what more could they thing of? Well how about let's release some more full live shows as downloads and call them Road Trips full Show Downloads. the first installment of this series is the 11-05-79 & 11-06-79 Spectrum shows from Philly, PA. They are a spin-off of Vol.1, No. 1 Fall 1979. You can pick these downloads up directly from http://www.dead.net/ at the store.

This particular download if put to cd would be a 5 cd set all for $17.98 if you purchase the two dates together. If you prefer to have only one of the two nights, you can pick it up for $9.99. Pretty awesome deal I have to say.

I pretty much have every one of the official releases from all the Dick's picks to the Live download series as well as the limited edition box sets that have been released. I have yet to actually do a review of any of the material until now. So here's my first review of the Road Trips Live Download Series.

Listening to these shows reminds me of all the great shows I saw over the years. It was too bad I didn't get to my first show until Alpine Valley 1987. From there I was hooked on what an amazing live performance these guys put on.

So the first night 11-05-1979 they seemed to be on fire. This was the longer of the two shows. This was a good era in Dead shows. Donna wasn't there and it was before they started letting Brent sing too much. Don't get me wrong, Donna Jean was great, but I really like the time without her.

They kicked off the night with a nice China Cat>Rider. You can hear a little different style of keys in there, but these were some good days and some nice jams. Cassidy has always been one I like and then going into a FOTD with El Paso to follow. What a night. The quality level of the recordings is good.

They follow up later with an Eyes of the World to an Estimated Prophet followed up with a Franklin's Tower. I had to listen to this over again, it was awesome and then to finish off the night with Sugar Mags and into Casey Jones. Such an amazing show to hear. I really like a lot of the shows over the years, bit this one really has a great set. If it had a Ramble On Rose I would be in heaven. Man this is an awesome show to hear.

If you pick one of the two, grab this one, but I would recommend getting both. Here's the link to purchase the 11-05-79 show: 11-05-1979 Link .

For the link to buy both click Here.

Setlist 11-05-1979:

DISC 1
China Cat Sunflower
I Know You Rider
Cassidy
Friend Of The Devil
El Paso
Stagger Lee
Passenger
Peggy-O
The Music Never Stopped
DISC 2
Althea
Easy To Love You
Eyes of the World
Estimated Prophet
Franklin's Tower
DISC 3
Space
Drums
Space
Lost Sailor
Saint of Circumstance
Sugar Magnolia
Casey Jones

The second night had a pretty upbeat start, a little shorter of a set and not as many of my favorites, but still some great songs. How can you not dig an Alabama Getaway to start.

I love hearing Tennessee Jed and Me & My Uncle. Bobby sounds great on these shows and so does Jerry. It really was a good time in the career. Jack Straw is an amazing one as well. They finish off the night as big as they started with a little US Blues.

These come in either FLAC or 256kbs and I can tell you that the I picked up the 256kbs and it sounds pretty awesome on the iPod. I know some people are snobs about this, but I'm quite happy with the sound myself.

Happy to have them continue to put out these awesome shows.

Setlist 11-06-1979:

DISC 1
Alabama Getaway
Promised Land
Tennessee Jed
Me & My Uncle
Mexicali Blues
Candyman
Easy To Love You
Looks Like Rain
Jack-A-Roe
Jack Straw
Deal
DISC 2
Terrapin Station
Playin' In The Band
Drums
Space
Black Peter
Good Lovin'
U.S. Blues