| Dick's Picks Volume 23 | |
| Type: | Live |
| Artist: | Grateful Dead |
| Cover: | Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks Volume 23.jpg |
| Released: | October 16, 2001 |
| Recorded: | September 17, 1972 |
| Genre: | Rock |
| Length: | 206:35 |
| Label: | Grateful Dead |
| Prev Title: | Nightfall of Diamonds |
| Prev Year: | 2001 |
| Next Title: | The Golden Road (1965–1973) |
| Next Year: | 2001 |
Dick's Picks Volume 23 is a three-CD album by the rock group the Grateful Dead. It is the 23rd installment in the Dick's Picks series of live archival recordings. It was recorded on September 17, 1972 at the Baltimore Civic Center in Baltimore. It contains the complete concert, except for the encore, which was "One More Saturday Night".
Dick's Picks Volume 23 was released in 2001. It contains the longest CD version of the song "The Other One" to date, clocking in at nearly 40 minutes.
More music from this tour can be found on Dick's Picks Volume 11, Dick's Picks Volume 36 and 30 Trips Around the Sun.
The release includes two sheets of paper stapled together in the middle, yielding an eight-page enclosure. The front duplicates the cover of the CD and the back features a picture of a crab.
The first two pages inside the enclosure contain a collage featuring a flier listing the shows the band played during their east coast tour in September of that year, along with three color photographs of the band's members performing on stage. The middle two pages feature two reviews and the left side of the last two pages list the contents of and credits for the release. The right side of the last page features a reddish-tinted monochrome photograph of the band members playing on stage.[1]
The review on the left side of the middle two pages was written by Gordon Chaplin, is from The Baltimore Sun, and dated September 24, 1972. It is entitled "Grateful Dead: whistling through the fog" and subtitled "It seemed, for a while, like San Francisco."
Having relocated from San Francisco to Baltimore in 1970, Chaplin spends most of his review reminiscing about the time he spent on the west coast in the 1960s. Bemoaning how "the Haight-Ashbury fell apart", he claims the scene ended when "Neal Casady's body was found lifeless on a railroad track in Mexico" because Neal "had been sparking the movement, or whatever it was, ever since the Fifties."
Entitled "Not free or friendly", the third of the three sections comprising Gordon's review observes that "a line of police keeping the crowd in their seats" contributed to the band getting off to a rough start. He goes on to say that once "they moved into one of those expanded renditions of a familiar piece" he finally felt "as if I was back home again." The author ultimately closes his piece on a positive note, stating that eventually "the police moved away from in front of the stage" allowing people to move "up through the fog to get closer to the band."[2]
The review on the right side of the middle two pages was written by Angie Thornton, is from The Afro-American Newspaper Archives and Research Center, and dated September 23, 1972. It is entitled "A review: Baltimore" and subtitled "Rock show."
Thornton's review is much shorter than Chaplin's and lacks his reminiscing about bygone days. She makes it clear she was one of the band's newer fans by misspelling Jerry Garcia's first name as "Gerry" and referring to the songs "Mexicali blues", "Friend of the devil" and "Me and my uncle" as "Mr. Kelly blues", "Friend in the Jungle" and "Men and my uncle".
Despite her being a new fan and making a few mistakes, Angie's review is very perceptive. She notes, for example, that the music "grew and grew as the concert went on. And just as a book has a climax, so did the concert." Near the end of her piece she notes that the band had "left the stage, but the audience was not ready for the music to be stopped." The author is clearly amazed by the fans' "hands clapping and feet stomping" until the band returned for the encore, and she concludes her review by observing that "though their names may be Grateful Dead, this group is very much alive."[3]
Each volume of Dick's Picks has its own "caveat emptor" label, advising the listener of the sound quality of the recording. The one for Volume 23 reads:
"Dick's Picks Twenty-Three was mastered from the original 1/4" analog tapes, running at 7.5 ips. The mix you hear was done live to two-track at the show, and the results are remarkable. We hope you'll dig it as much as we do."
Second set: