09-04-1980
Providence Civic Center
Providence, Rhode Island
1980 was one of those years when the boys were playing consistently well. And here in early September, the epic Warfield-Saenger-Radio City run that resulted in Dead Set and Reckoning is just a few weeks away. But this date in Rhode Island caps a couple show span in which the band’s playing was particularly fine.
The band kicks things off with a super hot Stranger, and this despite the fact that they had just played the tune the night before. And while the rest of the set is delightful, the highlights of the first half have to be the Peggy-O and Althea, with Jerry just killing it on both.
The second set, previously released as one of the Download Series, is a luscious tour-de-force, beginning with a powerful Samson. But things really kick off a tune later with a fiesty Supplication jam that is as fine as it is rare. And that tasty nugget leads the way to a ferocious Estimated that is replete with earthy jams. After that, we get a frenetic Eyes that sets up a segues from Jerry’s blistering raw energy on the guitar to the immense power of the drummers as they break out the earthquake drum after the rest of the boys leave the stage. This percussive performance is like a tocsin call from the ancient past, as Mickey and Billy create some alternative, but vaguely familiar world. From the Drums, a ridiculous Space flows forth, distressingly alien and then suddenly luscious and comforting as it bubbles forth, gathering into a steamy Other One. The Other One eventually heads into a well-conceived Wharf Rat> GDTRFB. Then don’t miss Bobby cheesing out in the Good Lovin’ closer before the US Blues encore caps it all.
Charlie Miller reworked the soundboard to this one, giving a crispy base for Hunter Seamons’s matrix that we have cued up here. The matrix not only captures the audience and gives us some feel for the atmosphere of the Providence Civic Center, but it also replaces the board’s rough Stranger with an audience patch, giving us a much more copacetic recording of this ripping version.

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