Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks Vol. 2: Columbus, OH 10/31/71 2LP (180g Hand-Numbered)

Dick’s Picks Vol. 2 has always been one of our favorites here at Real Gone, and not just because one of our two partners spent much of his misbegotten youth at the venue where it was recorded, the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Ohio. Which, if you’ve never been there, is one of those grand movie palaces built in the ‘20s. It’s the kind of place where you can easily imagine spirits roam…say on a Halloween evening featuring a band called the Grateful Dead. For, on that 1971 night—captured on this, the only single CD release in the entire Dick’s Picks series, here presented on a three-sided double-LP—the group played the most ethereal, dreamy, and, yes, spooky version of “Dark Star” ever recorded; it’s almost as if Jerry Garcia was communing with his ancestors (and maybe John Coltrane) for the first seven minutes of his beautifully structured, contemplative and yearning solo. Then, after the vocal verse, Garcia, rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, and bassist Phil Lesh take turns suggesting a new impro