The tape starts with a Dark Star that is absolutely transcendent from start to finish. It contains the first Feelin’ Groovy jam, which taunts and flirts with a crescendo, but keeps pulling back every time, the band exerting masterful control to tantalizing effect. Next up, the Stephen starts off with a few plaintive notes before barreling forward in jolly fashion, coming to the first verse, spilling forth, and then returning to the lyrics again, before once more streaming out, like a waterfall cascading, then pooling, then falling off the precipice again. Whatever, it is pure bliss right into The Eleven and its whirling organ marking the beginning of the sing-song awesomeness of a scintillating version. The Lovelight that follows on its heels is glorious with Jerry’s guitar licks prodding and playing off of Pig’s best rapping, all while Bobby and Phil duel it out, coming to the fore and then fading back into the background repeatedly. Six months earlier, the band was leaning far more on Pig’s frontman abilities to carry this tune, but here Pig is still doing his thing, but the rest of the guys are slashing and jabbing, adding a unstructured, but somehow polished, musical counterpoint to Pig’s vocal work that makes it all so much more than the sum of its parts. And, eventually, everything comes to a seismic conclusion of contained, shuddering chaos that puts a luscious cap on it all. These four songs prove just how much the Dead had mastered the sound that they had first conceived of back in ’67 when they had begun to turn their backs on any semblance of pop and went out in search of the depths of the blues and the full possibilities of rock and roll and rolled it all into their own quintessential polymorphic psychedelia.