Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

I Am Starting The Backlash

Let me be the first to declare Peak Cornell. (Who else is getting annoyed? Raise your hands in the Comment Section.)

27 Comments

  1. SmokingLeather

    ✋✊

  2. MiddleManneredEnthusiast

    I’m with you. It’s the most overrated Dead show, even if it’s beloved by so many who had never heard a soundboard tape before 1996.

  3. JP

    ::crickets::

  4. Pete

    Agreed, enough already

  5. The Central Shaft

    OVER-RATED

  6. Tor Haxson

    I am with you.

    “Best show” is a stupid idea to begin with and it has gone way too far.

  7. mikemj

    I think a better case could be made for “best post hiatus show.”

    • Thoughts On The Dead

      Good point.

  8. Big Bambu

    Boston was better

    • Djembefoola

      Better for me because I was there, and it was my first show, and because I wasn’t at Cornell.

      But yeah, to the larger point, there are many better shows pre-hiatus than Cornell. If the Europe ’72 tour had never happened, there would still be many better shows pre-hiatus. And so on…

  9. Grpm4th

    Myself, I prefer the next night in Buffalo.

  10. KC Jones

    I’m less bothered by the discussion of whether Cornell ’77 is the “best” or not than by the relentless marketing of evething GD related Guess it costs a lot to lose . . .

  11. Aiko4386

    It’s not even the besr show THAT WEEK. Stop with rhe “best show ever” stuff.

  12. TooManyRoads

    I’m getting the box for everything BUT Cornell.

  13. wilbard

    If it must happen I’d be much more interested to see some books and documentaries about Englishtown ’77. (Largest concert crowd on the east coast since Woodstock, I believe, and numerous contenders for best-evar versions.)

    • Tor Haxson

      It is time for the mock-umentary.

      ToTD writes and directs.

      ToTD has full creative control, but I personally hope it features Jiggs the chimp, a useless interview with marshal Tucker Band about Englishtown, and of course discussions with objects.

      • wilbard

        Ok, let’s start a GoFundMe and make this happen stat

  14. Dogman

    I love the show. But who really cares if they canonize it? We are a contrary lot to begin with. The band never told each other how to play, who’s going to tell us what we like?

    • Tor Haxson

      ^^^^ Yeah, listen to what the Dogman said ^^^^

      Who cares what other people like!

  15. Time

    It’s like judging livestock, and this show has more bests than most.

    • wilbard

      Personally, I think even if we’re just talking 1977, Englishtown is the clear winner on that front.

  16. Drinkthewater

    I suspect the hoopla is because it was one of the first good soundboards to circulate. In this era of streamable soundboards/auds/matrices, that show seems to be fairly standard fare from a really strong and well-recorded era. I’ve been listening to 5/22/77 lately – the whole show, not just DP 3 – and that might be my favorite of the era.

    • wilbard

      Oh man, that 5/22/77 Sugaree. Hard to pick a top 77 show over that one too. So much to choose from really.

      I mean just to take Englishtown as another example from the same period, it has what are for me hard to debate as major contenders for best-of-all-time versions of Half Step, Peggy-O, Loser, Not Fade Away, and arguably even He’s Gone. Plus a killer Terrapin encore and a fantastic late-70s style Truckin’, with a very fiery Eyes and LLR to boot.

  17. tubro

    best show? as if such a thing could exist.
    but every time i hear it i smile and remember the first time i heard it.
    and how much i looked forward to hearing more may 77. and how great it was every time i heard another may 77.
    plus it’s real good.
    so settle down girls.

    • Tor Haxson

      tubro, this mob has to mob, let us mob, don’t poke the mob.

  18. Mulebyrd

    mini-documentary… really!!! i must watch it but under protest!!! still can’t stop thinkin bout the bobby’s silver hair #handsome

  19. Bojingles

    Cornell? In Ithaca? New York?

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