Makes the Sandy box look like a stroll in the park...
I am willing to prostitute myself for this. All offers considered
From Rolling Stone:
DEAD REACH BACK TO LEGENDARY 1972 TOUR FOR MASSIVE BOX SET
Due in fall, the 60-plus CD release includes every show from European
trek.
On April 1st, 1972, the Grateful Dead arrived in Britain for the
opening dates of their first European tour. The timing was perfect -
"the feast of fools," guitarist Bob Weir says, laughing. "There was a
challenge for us, playing for people not familiar with what we were up
to. But we were ready for fresh ears...we were hot."...
In the fall, the tour will be released by Rhino as a limited-edition
beast: 22 shows on more than 60 CDs. The lavish set, available by pre-
order from the Dead's website, will cost over $400 and is
unprecedented even by their archive-box standards.
"By the time we're finished, we'll have put two years into this," says
producer David Lemieux, who expects mixing and mastering to wrap by
June. "If there was ever a tour that needed a complete release, it was
Europe '72. It's one of the top three tours the Dead ever did, and
there's a pristine 16-track recording of every show..."
"I remember that tour clearly," says bassist Phil Lesh, noting that no
one in the band had been to Europe before. [SIC] "In Hamburg, we
played in the hall where Brahms played. In Paris, I literally felt the
spirits of Chopin and Debussy. I think that made us play better. I
remember being on..."
"Someone would catch fire, and that would spread," Bob Weir says. "I'd
catch a riff everyone coalesced around. Then someone else would come
up with something that took us another way. It was a collective flash
- time to move on."
The Dead were in dramatic transition that spring, emboldened by the
jazzy ambitions of new pianist Keith Godchaux. "It was amazing how
tuned in he was to our music," Lesh says. "In Paris, he played like a
god."
The European tour was also the Dead's last with ailing singer-organist
Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan, who died in 1973. "He didn't have as much
energy as before," Weir says, "but he was trying his best to deal with
it."...
Lemieux says other Dead tours deserve full release, such as the fall
of '73 and spring 1990: "It's such a diverse band. You can do boxes
from '72 and '89 back-to-back, and there's nothing similar about them,
except it's Grateful Dead music."
"It all boils down to, 'Is there a story there?'" says Weir. "If we
can find an era like this, with a story line and development - and I
have a feeling there is - there would be merit in doing this again."
