Grateful Dead - Fillmore West 1969 February 27th FLAC download

Has anybody had an issue where 1 of the records was missing from the sealed box? My copy was missing sides 5 & 6.

I'm missing 7/8 but got two of the final disk with side 9/etching.

Excellent sound on this pressing, but I am not a fan of how there is hardly any lead in on any side of this pressing. It is hard to drop the needle on the record without landing in the grooves of the recording. There is plenty of run out at the end of every side so why no lead in?

I’ve never seen such a small lead in, maybe an 1/8” target and almost impossible to hit more likely to rub your needle against the edge of the record. My guess that this is another platting issue from the folks at Optimal. I doubt seriously that Chris Bellman is responsible.

Fully agreement. One of my favourite GD performance in addition to the Sunshine daydream (1972) and the Cornell university (1977) recordings.

Considered among Dead Heads and others to be one of their really outstanding performances, the Fillmore West event of the 27th february 1969 finally got it's release on vinyl. AFAIK the epic performance of Dark Star, St. Stephan and The Eleven from this evening found it's early way on the groundbreaking double album Live/Dead, released in the same year, being edited a bit different than on this one. The rest of the material has only been released on cd.The recording presents The Dead in a great mood, the vocals are mainly close to the harmonies, what's not always the case when the furious group from San Francisco went up stage or recorded in studio. The concerts in Graham's Fillmore dependance on the west coast were recorded via a 16-track machine made by the Ampex company and the band was out to record some stuff for the future platter Live/Dead, the first 16-track-based album ever done. After a first attempt some days before to record the music failed here it finally worked and one can feel the band giving their best. The a and b side present the first concert in the afternoon, when the headed stage after the admired performance of Pentangle. The That's It For The Other One-suite delivers great contribuitions of each member, the epps and flow of the sound is awesome.The second set late after midnight beginns on record 2. Mountains Of The Moon shows up in a stunning accoustic version, very intimate reading of the track, for me a personal highlight. After that the aforementioned three mindblowing tunes are truly the core of the late set, Jerry Garcia creates soaring leads and plays amazing psychedelic stuff, Dark Star with it's counterpoint lines and rhythms is a mind trip.The pressing itself is done with love and quality i would say, had no issue on my copy. Great mastering job that leads to a very present, clear and full sound. The platters are in black protective inner sleeves, the box looks nice. there's even a 'booklet' or better a gatefold sheet giving further informations about the Fillmore West gigs, displaying some pictures by the band. Nice text, but the quality of this sheet and especially the pictures is rather poor, looks like some kid did it at his home pc in the late 1990ies.For fans a must have in my opinion, but also a great one for people that want to have a classic west coast psychedelic piece of music.

Anyone else have any problems with record 2? My side C has some loud pops towards the end and side D is noisy from beginning to end.

My side four or side two of 2 has under a magnification a 1/2 jagged line like gouge 1/4” from the runout groove, which, if you’ve got the same thing, is most likely a scratch of the lacquer or some intermediary plating. A production blunder for Rhino and dead fans if you ask me. My bet that Optimal’s plating person got sloppy, a then couldn’t be bothered to correct it. It occurs during the records quietest passages 30 seconds from the run out, a loud 5 pops ! Ruins the side.

Can't say that from my copy. It has some very few blisters and clicks, but i think they would remove after a cleaning. There's some optical imperfection at C2 on mine, but the second record is fine as the others. A bit strange is how small the groove-ins are.

!!FYI!! I work at a record store and we've already had 3 of these come back because they had two copies of the same LP!! Like it'll have two copies of side 3/4 and no copy of side 5/6!! INCOMPLETE SET