This is an absolutely sick Disease in Set II.

High energy the entire way. The final peak has as much force on tape as it did live. That level of energy wasn't gonna last for another 40 minutes so the band had to make a turn to something slower. The final minute of DWD segueing into Sand features some nice noodling between Trey and Page.

During Sand Mike plays through several variations on the primary bass line. Very thick groove with just enough change to make it unique. Around 9:00 Trey breaks into a very dance-y riff that surely got everyone moving. After about a minute he slows back down into a deep funk that echoes his sound from the first half of the jam. Page begins to come to the front on the piano as he and Trey are either going against one another or are becoming in sync. At 13:15 Trey finally washes out what is going on and breaks into The Horse.

Now this transition is much maligned, but I'm not seeing the problem. For about a minute and a half Sand is really sick, but after that it just struggles. If you like listening to a disjointed jam, then by all means let's have them play on. The fact that Mike doesn't immediately find a way to move between two distinctly varied styles shouldn't indicate that it's a bad idea.

That being said, the Tweezer > Horse transition 2010-08-18 is much much slicker.