Best Local Review Ever of a Grateful Dead Show for Dick's Picks 36, 1972-09-21

Unlike most local reporters, Philadelphia reporters look like they "got" the Dead. case in point the Philadelphia Daily News report by Jonathan Takiff of the Dick's Picks 36 show at the Spectrum on September 21, 1972 (here).

"No rock band in the world flies so high and so brilliantly as the Grateful Dead"
"There is no waste, no sense of repetition, or easy compromise."   I am going to check out more of your writing, Mr. Takiff.

EDIT: Found you, May 28, 2020

Just read all the whole thing now please (below).  Thank you newspapers.com for adding the Philly papers, more to come

set 1 (from wikipedia)

"Promised Land" (Chuck Berry) – 3:50
"Bird Song" (Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter) – 13:40
"El Paso" (Marty Robbins) – 5:06
"China Cat Sunflower" > (Garcia, Hunter) – 5:28
"I Know You Rider" (traditional, arranged by Grateful Dead) – 6:49
"Black-Throated Wind" (Bob Weir, John Barlow) – 6:47
"Big Railroad Blues" (Noah Lewis, arranged by Grateful Dead) – 4:02
"Jack Straw" (Weir, Hunter) – 4:52
"Loser" (Garcia, Hunter) – 7:12
"Big River" (Johnny Cash) – 4:42
"Ramble On Rose" (Garcia, Hunter) – 6:34
"Cumberland Blues" (Garcia, Phil Lesh, Hunter) – 7:40
"Playing in the Band" (Weir, Mickey Hart, Hunter) – 16:47

set 2

"He's Gone" (Garcia, Hunter) – 14:18
"Truckin'" (Garcia, Lesh, Weir, Hunter) – 11:51
"Black Peter" (Garcia, Hunter) – 9:39
"Mexicali Blues" (Weir, Barlow) – 3:26
"Dark Star" > (Garcia, Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Lesh, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Weir, Hunter) – 37:08
"Morning Dew" (Bonnie Dobson, Tim Rose) – 12:10
"Beat It On Down the Line" (Jesse Fuller) – 3:34
"Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo" (Garcia, Hunter) – 10:02
"Sugar Magnolia" (Weir, Hunter) – 8:30
"Friend of the Devil" (Garcia, Dawson, Hunter) – 3:37
"Not Fade Away" > (Buddy Holly, Norman Petty) – 5:57
"Goin' Down the Road Feeling Bad" > (traditional, arranged by Grateful Dead) – 7:26
"Not Fade Away" reprise (Hardin, Petty) – 3:31
"One More Saturday Night" (Weir) – 4:56






The Grateful Dead played 101 shows in Pennsylvania according to Deadbase 11, and more than half (53) were at the Spectrum.  This was only the second show there, and the first since the Quaker City Rock Festival on 12-6-1968 and the best show ever at the Spectrum with the Dark Star>Morning Dew couplet.

12-1-68 Philly Inquirer

Politics and the Dead circa 1972   click article to read

Best Review Ever of a Grateful Dead Show

Jonathan was still writing about the Dead as late as 1995 (click on to read in big type)