Rhino Records
2007
Three From The Vault (Live At Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY - 2/19//71)
About This Album
The Grateful Dead were literally at a crossroads when they took the stage at the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, NY, on February 19, 1971. The previous night, the first of six shows at the venue would, for a number of reasons, be the last for drummer Mickey Hart for more than three years (a primary reason being that Lenny Hart, Mickey's father and the band's manager in 1969-1970, had absconded with a large chunk of their bank account). Suddenly, for the first time since late 1967 when Hart joined, the Grateful Dead were back to their original five-piece lineup: Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir (guitars), Phil Lesh (bass), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (organ and harmonica), and Bill Kreutzmann (the other drummer). They had already shed a second keyboardist, Tom Constanten, in early 1970 and now this new downsizing allowed the Dead to return to the harder, more primal rocking sound of their acidic early days. (They would add a new keyboardist, Keith Godchaux, later in 1971, thus altering the dynamic again.) There were differences from 1967, of course: the more than two years of the first Hart era, a period of prolific touring (nearly 50 shows in the New York tri-state area alone during 1970), were highly experimental ones that had taken the band to stellar heights and new complexities; their musicianship, both individually and as a unit, had matured and refined greatly.
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5 and 6)

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