Search - Grateful Dead :: Hundred Year Hall

2004 reissue is not HDCD encoded

Jaska | 04/10/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a great album, to be sure. I've owned the original 1995 release for about 11 years now, and finally decided to replace it with the 2004 Rhino remaster in hopes of benefiting from the sonic improvements of HDCD. Sadly, upon receiving this set from Amazon.com, I discovered that it is NOT an HDCD like the rest of the recent Rhino remasters. There is no HDCD logo on the packaging or on the CDs, and WMP 9 confirms that there is no HDCD encoding (when all of my other Grateful Dead and other HDCDs invoke the HDCD logo in the player window).



My own comparative listening tests between this 2004 remaster and the original 1995 CDs suggest that there is little, if any, sonic improvement whatsoever. Strangely, other major music e-tailers such as [links removed by Amazon.com--use your favorite search engine] list this as an HDCD. It would seem that either all claims of HDCD encoding on this release are false, or for whatever reason the title I received from Amazon.com is simply different than the product sold by these other e-tailers. My feeling is that this 2004 Rhino release is simply a reissue of the original 1995 release, with neither HDCD encoding nor any actual remastering.



My less-than-perfect rating of this product has only to do with the lack of improvement in sound quality compared to the 1995 master. With HDCD encoding, assuming the album would sound as great as all the other Grateful Dead Rhino remasters I own, my rating would certainly change to 4.5-5/5 stars."

Best Grateful Dead full concert disc I have heard

kireviewer | Sunnyvale, Ca United States | 05/08/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I don't know whethter to give this 5 stars or 2 stars. On its own, this is a fantastic 2 CD set. It is the best full concert CD set that I have heard. It is very strong on every song.



But, most of these songs were already available on other albums. Most of them are on either Europe 72 or Grateful Dead (Skull and Roses). The versions done here are not much different than what was previously done. For instance, Me and Uncle is also on Skull and Roses. On Hundred Year Hall you get Keith Godcheaux playing piano in the background, but it doeesn't really add that much to the song.



The sound quality is very good. Plus, the audience noise has been held to a minimum. There ia s little cheering at the beginnning and end of the songs, but you don't hear the audience while the song is being played. Many new live CD's are ruined by the audience noise being mixed in way too loud. Even some the of the Grateful Dead live CD's suffer from this.



The performance on the songs is very good and the band is very tight. There isn't a bad track on album. However, Bob Weir does mess up the lyrics on Truckin' twice. The band always seems to have problems getting this song right.



I normally don't like full concert CD's. The Grateful Dead classic live albums (Live/Dead, Skull and Roses and Europe 72) all came from a number of different shows. The best performances from each of the shows were included on the album so you end up with some truly fantastic music.



Plus, on all the classic Grateful Dead live albums, the audience noise is kept to a bare minimum so it doesn't interfere with the enjoyment of the music. I want to hear the band, not a bunch of drunk idiots yelling stuff and whistling.



There have been a ton of Dead shows released, with Dick's Picks, From the Vault and other offerings. Most of them don't come close to the quality of the classic Dead live albums. There are always some weak tracks. The sound quality is not is good, and the audience noise is sometimes mixed too loud.



Especially in the later years, the first set of a Dead show could be less than stellar. It always took a couple of songs for the band to get in sync and play well together. Also, the it took a few songs for the engineers to get the sound right.



But, Hundred Year Hall is different from the other full show CD's. The band starts out playing songs it knows and is tight and in sync from the beginning.



Of special interest is a 19 minute Turn On Your Lovelight that is more a guitar jam than any other version I have heard. There is very little of the usual Pigpen vocals. Then there is a very spacy 38 minute The Other One (incorrectly titled Cryptic Evelopment).



I know a lot of people love the complete concerts, to make it feel as if you there. But, is it really necessary to include the whole concert? Grateful Dead's 69 even includes a 3 minute break of nearly silence as a guitar string is being changed."

Rock out with Dead

wharfrat | United States | 02/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"While you can debate the relative merits of the four selections from the Europe '72 tour that are commercially available, there should be no debate that Hundred Year Hall rocks out like none of the others. There is some space in "The Other One," but it's ready for takeoff during most of the set. The jamming in "Truckin'" and "Lovelight" has already been mentioned, but this rendition of "Playing in the Band" is one of my all time favorites. That song was still relatively new to the band's playlist and had yet to morph into the 20+ minute monster it would become later that fall, but this one features an absolutely scorching high-pace solo by Garcia."