May 18, 1972
Date Listened
January 25, 2025. I somehow managed to make it through all 3 hours despite doing my normal set of annoying Saturday chores.
Sources
Just listen to the Europe ‘72 Box Set version. There’s really no reason to mess around with the few earlier soundboard rips that exist.
If you’re really curious, Charlie Miller’s SHNID 79057 came out first, but I’m not sure what year (before 2007). Matt Smith then came out with SHNID 94581 from a different soundboard source with a confirmed genealogy.
Smith’s soundboard is heavier in the low end than Miller’s, for whatever that might be worth to you. Still, the official release is so far superior to the others that you really shouldn’t mess around with anything else.
The Europe 72 box set versions of those shows mark the definitive recordings. Whenever I compare them with any community provided versions of the same shows, the official versions win hands down. I’m pretty sure this is because they recorded every note live on a 16 track feed, as explained in this Reddit comment (and elsewhere). These are arguably the greatest live Grateful Dead recordings in existence.
Reputation
This show isn’t quite as famous as some of the others from this samec tour.
It’s not usually considered among the best shows of the tour. In this thread, for example, it’s not mentioned a single time.
Heady Version also doesn’t rate its versions of popular songs all that highly:
It’s kind of hard to rate these Europe 72 shows against each other, by the way. You see a lot of similar track lists and songs played in similar fashion. I don’t recommend trying to listen to each of these shows one after the other, since boredom might kick in.
I’d say this is a pretty underrated show. If this exact show were played during any other tour, it would be rated higher.
Discussion
There’s a lot to be said about these Europe 72 shows — and yet it feels difficult to make sweeping statements about any one show for fear of accidentally slighting the other shows.
There is one thing I want to say, though. I’m convinced that this is the greatest version of You Win Again of all time.
Keith’s piano on this version is brilliant, and Jerry’s singing is simply awesome. It’s a little bit slow, perhaps — but this song was never intended to be fast.