I've been listening to a 1993 show quite a bit lately, and it suddenly occurred to me that I'd never properly listened to that Ready or Not release from a few years ago. Why that association? Because Ready or Not is an album composed entirely of live tracks from the '90s, and it's conceived as something of a "what if Jerry Garcia hadn't died and a new Grateful Dead studio album had been released?" As a result, I don't really know what to do with it. You clearly sense that typical Grateful Dead live feel, which sometimes throws you off the flow when a song from another show comes on, but on the other hand: it's interesting to see what the Dead were up to during this period. It's therefore very nice that David Lemieux and his band chose to fully include Vince Welnick in this setlist. His Samba in the Rain and Way to Go Home are phenomenally good and are among the two best tracks on the album. There are also a few songs I already knew from some live performances, and it's especially funny to hear how they have a kind of Knockin' On Heaven's Door moment with So Many Roads and those "ooh-ooh-oohs." Eternity and Corrina (Ready or Not, by the way, is a direct reference to that song) aren't my cup of tea, but I'm quite charmed by Liberty. It's a song I hadn't heard before, and although it took a while for it to sink in, I now find it a really great opener. We'll never know how the band would've evolved, and although I regret that Lemieux simply releases very few full shows from the '90s, in retrospect, this is a more enjoyable release than I initially anticipated.
Tracklist:
- Liberty
- Eternity
- Lazy River Road
- Samba in the Rain
- So Many Roads
- Way to Go Home
- Corrina
- Easy Answers
- Days Between
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