If you’re a proper Deadhead then you may well have already headed to www.dead.net to line yourself up with Spring 1990 (The Other One).
That $240, 23-disc boxset documents the Dead’s three-week tour of the US in 1990 as they celebrated their 25th anniversary. Guitarist/vocalist Bob Weir maintains this was their “hottest era” as, with Jerry Garcia in a phase of good health, they played inspired, energetic shows to sold-out venues across the States. For the more casual fan this wallet-friendly three-discer serves as a tantalising taster of the fine form they were on back then. Wake Up To Find Out was recorded on that tour at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. The band open and close in amiable downhome mode with Jack Straw, We Can Run, Ramble On Rose and Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door. The real meat rests in the middle set, as sax great Branford Marsalis joins them in free-flowing, quarter-hour explorations of Eyes Of The World, Estimated Prophet and Dark Star. Long-serving engineer John Cutler buffs these gems to a radiant, unmissable glisten.
