Bear's Fillmore East - ABB - 1970

"On Valentine's weekend 1970, the Allman's shared the stage with the Grateful Dead and Love at The Fillmore East along with Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac who'd showed up as they'd been sharing the bill with the Dead the previous week. Musicians from the other bands actually joined the stage for the late show on the 11th although none of that is used here. The Dead's sets have been used to make up both History Of The Grateful Dead Volume 1 (Bear's Choice) and Dick's Picks Volume 4. Grateful Dead soundman Owsley "Bear" Stanley was running his Nagra reel to reel deck as he pretty much always did at the time. While preparing Dick's Picks Volume 4 in late 1995 and very early 1996, Dick and Bear contacted the Allman Brothers and their archivist paving the way for this release not too long after.

This is a fantastic release and features thundering performances by the band from early in their career. These shows took place about six months after the band began recording their first album. This is also currently the earliest concert release by the Allman Brothers Band as the Ludlow Garage was recorded about 7 weeks after these performances. I'm really surprised that this release has been allowed to go out of print as I was sure that it would've been grabbed up by Peach Records by now. There's not too unusual as far as the songs go as it's pretty much a standard list for the time but the performances are blistering. The disc itself runs over 72 minutes so it's pretty full for a single disc release. It's a shame that there wasn't enough room for a version of Dreams as well but that would've put it over the maximum run time."