Site Sponsor

Not Sure Where To Begin?

The intro posts are always a good start, followed logically by
my thoughts on Music & Being, which guide my writing.
You could also try my current favorite show on the blog,
plus there's good reading under the trading community label.
Or, take a walk on a
Listening Trail.
Showing posts with label Late '70's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Late '70's. Show all posts

Thursday, September 23, 2010

1978 December 19 - Jackson, MS

GRATEFUL DEAD
Tuesday, December 19, 1978
Memorial Coliseum, State Fairgrounds - Jackson, MS
Audience Recording

A classic and fantastic audience tape from late 1978, the Mississippi State Fairgrounds show on December 19th goes well beyond showcasing stellar heights attained in ‘78. This show works that special sort of time travelling magic we occasionally find where the exact year of the performance becomes indistinguishable to even the most seasoned listener. And even before the knobs and dials are turned back to 1973, this tape will be knocking your socks off.

Set 1: Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodeloo > Franklin's Tower, New Minglewood Blues, They Love Each Other, Me & My Uncle > Big River, Loser, El Paso, Row Jimmy, Lazy Lightning > Supplication
Set 2: Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain, Promised Land, Stagger Lee, Truckin' > Drums > Other One > Stella Blue > Not Fade Away > Around & Around E: Casey Jones

We are treated to a fine show opening Half Step > Franklin's with Garcia shredding his way into the transition and liquidly loopifying his way through the solos in Franklin's Tower. The show gets off to a delightful start.

The first set works its way along, establishing a quintessential Dead vibe. The set wraps up with an extended Row Jimmy (over 12 minutes) and a Lazy Lightning > Supplication which, while experiencing a drop in levels just at the transition that will force you to crank up the volume a bit, caps the set on a crest of energy sure to pour over into the second set.

That said, Scarlet Begonias has a somewhat shaky start with what feels like a dragging tempo and Jerry blowing lyrics. But things quickly pull together, and as Garcia plays his first solo he stokes embers into flames, and flames into shimmering heat. We come out on the other side for the song's last verse slipping directly into a sublime musical journey. The tape is sounding perfect. Everything spreads out for miles in all direction and each instrument occupies its own distinct space. The jam moves like wind over a gigantic sail. It ripples and swells, sometimes slowly, sometimes in gusts. The music pushes from several directions at once. Fragments turn and reflect light into unexpected colors and there is a subtle disjointedness to the otherwise rolling and rocking which provides brief secretive glances into a chaotic underpinning far below. Before we can truly grasp these secrets, Fire On The Mountain's theme appears, and we drift effortlessly toward a more familiar shoreline.

The solos through Fire On The Mountain soar. Jerry's tone cries with an emotional voice as Bobby indulges (over indulges?) his love of playing slide up over the 21st fret. Still, the song builds beautifully. Garcia's voice begins to roar and scream. He hits the final solo section and rides the song's theme into the sky. Everything begins to tremble and shake. Phil and the drummers crash and tumble. Jerry continues to burn as the song comes to a fine finish.

In Truckin' we find a full exploration of the secretive chaotic worlds hinted at earlier. The jam unfolds quickly into a swirl of Other One infused darkness. The downbeat slips completely from view and a sparkling canopy fills our visual field, full of slowly undulating clouds. A wonderfully extended jam ensues tinged with a delicacy that belies the typical themes of a 1978 Dead show. Slowly a creeping intensity floods the sky and we are being driven into showers of fire and glass. The chaotic underpinning of twisted roots gives way to Drums. They stand as tall as mountains before us, and the recording offers them to us as no soundboard could.

We come out of Drums not into Space, but rather into a lilting jam section that instantly transports us to the thick summer pastures of the jams found on June 22, 1973. The tone of all the instruments is warm and fluid. Phil and Bobby, especially, sound as if they have been grafted in from five years prior. And the music has an ease to it that is unmistakably 1973-esque. This haunting reminiscence goes on for what feels like forever and leaves us in a space of breathless joy. When Phil hammers us into Other One proper, caves and twisting fractal caverns spin us in all directions. Electricity pours through the outer layer of our skin. It is as if there are several versions of the song being played at once with multiple bands swelling in and out of view—cross fades pull in like tides, then recede like shadows. There is little room for anything but the music here. It is as if we've been absorbed by an enormous intake of the band's breath and will not return to our known place in the cosmos until they have finished with us.

This “finishing” actually transports us to as tranquil a setting as can be conceived. Stella Blue appears out of thin air, and Jerry has us huddled close to hear his story. And as we travel out of this songs into the next, we are treated to a segue of such magical intertwining that it feels almost criminal to realize the Dead never did it quite like this again, ever.

There's little point in trying to describe in words the way Stella Blue and Not Fade Away become one during this transition. It goes beyond most indulgent expectations related to the Grateful Dead's ability to weave one song to the next. If you've never heard it, this is a slack-jawed and drool producing passage of music that may amaze you in its having been hidden from your ears all this time. But such is the world of Grateful Dead concert recordings, is it not? This is really why we're here together now. And I'm glad to be able to pull little gems like this out from time to time, even years after starting us down this path of musical guidance and recommendation.

Enjoy. And enjoy again.

12/19/78 AUD etree source info
12/19/78 AUD Download

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

1977 May 9 - Buffalo, NY

Jerry Garcia early 1977

GRATEFUL DEAD
Monday, May 9th, 1977
War Memorial Auditorium - Buffalo, New York
Audience & Soundboard Recordings

Immediately after what would later become arguably their most famous show of all time, the Grateful Dead just rolled right along. On the very next night they were simply playing the next stop on the Spring 77 tour in Buffalo, New York. For them, the events of the previous night were very likely to have passed relatively unnoticed. It was just what happened yesterday. A good show, no doubt. But the earth didn't shift on its axis. That said, when you go back and review the musical events of that May 1977 tour, you can appreciate that the band had set its own bar pretty high in early 77 and was coasting completely in the zone at this time. What felt commonplace in the moment clearly became the stuff of legends as the years wore on.

Set 1: Help On The Way > Slipknot! > Franklin's Tower, Cassidy, Brown Eyed Women, Mexicali Blues, Tennessee Jed, Big River, Peggy-O, Sunrise, The Music Never Stopped
Set 2: Bertha, Good Lovin', Ship of Fools, Estimated Prophet > The Other One > Drums > Not Fade Away > Comes A Time > Sugar Magnolia E: Uncle John's Band


This show opens up with a Help>Slip>Frank that is spun directly from the cloth of the night before. And it's almost no wonder that something like this is what comes directly out of the gate the night after Barton Hall. It's as if the massive energy of the previous night's second set needed further release. It finds it in spades here.

Slipknot comes on like a surging thunderstorm hurdling towards us over a mountain range in the distance. For a time, the music is awash in hazy, cloudy mist. Slowly elements and energy begin to take form and before long potent eruptions and gales lash at us from every direction. The show is getting off to one of those starts where you feel we may have dropped into the start of the second set rather than the first. Things are just too intense. The music approaches its climax as great fists of power knock us off balance. Eventually the band gels into the song's head again and they smolder through the structured final section. We are dropped directly into a Franklin's Tower that is about to nearly lay waste to everything that just came before it.

Bill Kreutzmann - March 20, 1977It is in Franklin's that we find that effervescent full dimension of the Grateful Dead appearing. And leading the charge is Mr. Jerome Garcia, as on fire as he ever was in 1977. As you will have already noticed, the audience recording featured here is quite fine. We feel the hall, but are up front enough to experience the vocals in extreme clarity. It's a perfect setting for a musical experience of the highest order.

Garcia proceeds to blow lyrics in nearly every verse. And somehow, as deadheads are often ones to notice, these slip-ups seem to propel Jerry's soloing into the stratosphere. He is crisp, he is clean, and the band is in lock step behind him. And Keith is playing the organ instead of piano here – a truly rare and amazingly satisfying treat to be sure. It takes a verse or two, but eventually Garcia and the boys stretch out into an inferno of classic Grateful Dead rock. The performance engraves itself in the book of 1977, and you can feel every nuisance from each musician. The music is palpably loud, streaming out and over your head. It's exploding sunshine into a sea of joy beyond measure as Jerry continues to climb and climb. He approaches shredding without giving in, and the entire band is catapulted into the sky. Amazingly the show has only just begun.

The rest of the set continues as textbook 1977. There's no mistaking that certain blend of energy and enjoyment that the band was emitting at this time. Because of this, much of the set is dappled with highlights. One worth calling to your attention is Big River. I've said it before, Big River may be one of the most overlooked tunes in the entire songbook of the Grateful Dead. Jerry must have looked forward to this song more than most as he would almost always lay down solos that went beyond expectation. This night is no exception, and deserves a good listen. By the time he goes around for the third and fourth laps in his last solo, Jerry has fire flying out of every pore of his being.

The first set closes with The Music Never Stopped. Friends, there is little I can do to suitably set the stage. Accolades are rightly lofted upon this version by many a tape collector. The crescendo is so fierce that you can't help but marvel at what it was like to be there with the band back in 1977; to be in the presence of something so ferocious. And it also goes a long way to supporting the fact that the night before isn't so much more special or unique. Considering all the songs at the Dead's fingertips, it took far more than one night to allow them to express them all. Tonight, on May 9th, we are clearly experiencing an extension of the previous night. It's just one long ride in May 77. Enjoy.

Jerry Garcia 1977Second set highlights do not fail to match the fireworks of the first. Estimated Prophet coils out with snaky and mysterious tendrils. They curve and caress their way through the crowd painting a rich watercolor of stained glass rivers. These waters seep into everything, infusing the experience with the psychedelic unknown – like tipping over a precipice that leads into a great sea of kaleidoscoping fog. After spinning entirely away from Estimated, a subtle jam finds itself launching an Other One that packs infinite intricacy and detail. There are endless featherings of reflection and echoing tremors that peel off of every corner of the music. These rushing rapids send our hearts spinning, completely at a loss to find solid ground. We come out in a wide open terrain where Drums impossibly liquefies the earth beneath us.

This transitions into Not Fade Away and again the music comes to tower over us, performing an endlessly intricate weaving of streaming lights and textures. There's too much music to be coming out of just one band here. Everything is playing off of everything else, and the occasionally whispered reminders of Not Fade Away come and go, teasing us with a knowing smile. Then a segue born upon night mist leads us into Comes A Time.

The juxtaposition of Comes A Time against everything that preceded it demonstrates yet another layer of the Grateful Dead's magic. We are in church again, at complete peace. Every cell of every body sings this prayer together. It's as if we've known it our entire lives. The connections between audience and band are unmistakable, and we expand into another moment that we both wish would never end and goes on forever at the same time.

Comes A Time jams. There is nothing quite comparable to the exit jam section of Comes A Time in 1976-1977. They are a breed unto themselves. Here on 5/9/77 we are spun out into such gorgeous emotional expression that one can barely hold back tears. Things become indescribably beautiful. These are the moments that define the love many of us have for this band.

Sugar Magnolia ends the set with a bang, and then we get treated to an Uncle John's Band encore that closes the evening right back in the happiest of places. We glow with the music. We sing with the band. They proceed to stoke the wild fire embers again as they let the song's 7/8 section blossom into rainbow moons and cascading stars. Sensationally this encore crackles and shines, closing a show that could only have happened in that mythical year of 1977.

05/09/77 AUD etree source info
05/09/77 AUD download

05/09/77 SBD etree source info
05/09/77 SBD Stream

Thursday, January 21, 2010

1979 September 1 - Rochester, NY



GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, September 1, 1979
Holleder Memorial Stadium - Rochester, NY
Audience Recording

You have to love the way that even after so many years, the riches of the Grateful Dead's concert catalogue can continue to bear fruit. It's not just the occasional previously unheard show coming to light, but as you get more than knee deep into collecting shows, you find that these riches can also come in the form of "upgrades" to classic tapes, let alone by bumping into a date that previously evaded your attention altogether. For me, this happened in spades with September 1st, 1979.

As much as it may have been new to me after so many years, there are, no doubt, scores of traders who have treasured this show for decades. Such is the nature of Grateful Dead tape collecting. There's more out there than could ever be universally experienced. In the case of 09/01/79, this is a wonderful show that I have now found represented by a stellar audience recording. And that sends it right to the top of worthy additions to the Grateful Dead Listening Guide.

Set 1: Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodeloo > Franklin's Tower, Me & My Uncle > Big River, Friend Of The Devil, Looks Like Rain, Don't Ease Me In, Lost Sailor > Saint Of Circumstance
Set 2: Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain > Drums > Space > Wharf Rat > I Need A Miracle > Bertha > Good Lovin' E: One More Saturday Night


The show is chuck full of delights spanning a fine Half Step > Franklin’s opener, to only the fifth rendition of Lost Sailor > Saint Of Circumstance (still in it's formative stages). And the first set burns with the fire that we would come to associate with early 80's first sets in the years soon to follow. But, for me, the crowning jewel is the enormous Scarlet>Fire that opens the second set. Long enough to fill the entire pre-Drums portion of the set, this is an under appreciate version that can stand with the best of them.

Scarlet Begonias gets started in a somewhat standard fashion. We are bathed in audience recording perfection as the music pours into us. Brent is slightly out of the mix, but to mention it is to be overly nit-picky. This is one hell of a recording. The song finds its way into its extended jam, satisfying on all levels. Eventually Phil hints at the transition into Fire On The Mountain but Jerry will have none of it. Garcia proceeds to launch into a nearly cosmic level of playing, pushing his only weeks old Doug Irwin "Tiger" guitar into the heavens. His tone absolutely shimmers off the tape, and we are left slack-jawed as he drives himself into one amazing phrase after another. It goes on for several long minutes before the band finally does transition into the next song, and the cosmic level of playing only continues from there.

Fire On The Mountain – all 16 minutes of it – is a 1979 snapshot of the Grateful Dead's evolving essential core magic. Sure, there are folks who proclaim that there is nothing worth their ear after 1974. But this is the sort of performance that even these people would be delighted to hear. The pulsing beat and syncopated rhythms of this Fire On The Mountain display the voice of the band's primal groove in the late 70's. The magic is alive and well, and Garcia wastes no time riding the wave. All of his solos are tinged with something special, but his last efforts goes beyond all expectation. Amidst his inspired and passionate soloing, his exploration of tone via his collection of processing gear pushes his sound into something we might otherwise associate with his midi work ten years later. His guitar's sound pushes completely out of bounds as the world around us is alive in rippling waves and sparkling starlight. We are flashed directly into a singular experience with the music, like some tribal dance reaching its zenith.

The post Drums portion of the show seems to fit an outdoor football stadium party atmosphere perfectly, as the band delivers a nearly solid rockin' ride straight to the end of the show.

A good time had by all, with part of our consciousness left permanently in the outer reaches of the Grateful Dead’s cosmic muse-garden forever. A fitting resting place we’ll happily return to again and again for sure.

Enjoy this stellar audience recording.

09/01/79 AUD etree source info
09/01/79 AUD Download

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

1977 February 26 - Swing Auditorium

Grateful Dead 07/27/1977

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, February 26, 1977
Swing Auditorium – San Bernardino, CA
Soundboard Recording

There was a wonderfully harmless war started in the online Grateful Dead community throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s. It came down to people having to choose allegiance to the year 1976 or 1977. ‘77 fans found it abundantly easy to laugh at and ridicule the Dead’s output from 1976 as tired, slow, limp, and utterly outshone by the following year, while ‘76 fans (or perhaps more accurately phrased, people who didn’t find 1977 to be the year above all other years) stood fast on the merits of 1976’s often overlooked psychedelic wonderland of creativity and inspiration which could make 1977 seem somewhat too organized and contrived. Just in writing that last sentence I can feel the ire of both camps rising to defend the motherland. And if I haven’t already made it abundantly clear in my writings, I was a banner waving member of the 1976 crowd.

And while I spent my heavy trading years obsessively collecting everything I could ever find from the Dead’s entire output of the 70’s, 1977 was never part of that blind obsession. While I can call to mind the merits of nearly every stop on the calendar in 1973, 74, 75, 76, and 78, such is not the case with 1977. Oh, I know my way around that year. I know that I gravitate to the feel of the spring and summer shows more than those from the fall and winter. But I don’t bleed the details of 1977 like I do the other years.

Jerry Garcia 10/11/1977Flash forward to today, and I can freely admit that 1977 is like a new flower opening up before me. It represents new discoveries for me tucked within an era to which I’m already intimately in tune; and what a glorious hidden jewel to be able to discover after all this time.

I went in to revisit this 02/26/77 Swing Auditorium show remembering that it was good, and little else. What followed was a heart opening ride into a sensational Grateful Dead show which towers with perfected Grateful Dead energy and groove throughout. Beyond the clear set list highlights, the show is filled with songs I’d normally pass over, yet everything from this show shines and delivers a full cup of the Dead’s most potent elixir.

Set 1: Terrapin Station, New Minglewood Blues, They Love Each Other, Estimated Prophet, Sugaree, Mama Tried, Deal, Playin' In The Band > The Wheel > Playin' In The Band

Set 2: Samson And Delilah, Tennessee Jed, The Music Never Stopped, Help On The Way > Slipknot! > Franklin's Tower, Promised land, Eyes Of The World > Dancin' In The Streets > Around & Around, E: US Blues


The opening Terrapin (its debut) ushers in the fact that 1977 was going to bring with it an entirely new level of Grateful Dead musical exploration. It’s a mind-blowing thought to consider what it must have been like to attend this show and have this be the opening event. An instant classic to be sure, the Dead waste no effort on trying to figure this tune out from the stage. It fires at near full strength immediately, and by the end we’ve been thrust into the wild pulsing heart of the band right in the show’s opening number. The band rides this wave into a sublime first set of song delivery. 1977 is getting off to a magical start. Minglewood, They Love Each Other, Sugaree, the Estimated Prophet debut – really everything in the first set is terrific. It just feels utterly wonderful.

The set closes with a Playin’ > Wheel > Playin’ that funnels the entire set’s wildly energetic magic into a concentrated psychedelic ride. Playin’ In The Band creates a slow churning boil like a lava lamp under high heat. The ground shifts and buckles and bows in all directions until there comes an eruption into a galaxy imploding wormhole which transports the entire auditorium out of the physical plane. Out beyond the stars images flicker and glow. Sound passes in ceaseless ripples of energy riding the drummers’ beat, while great mountains and rivers of energy swell and recede on Garcia’s phase shifting distortion and Phil’s slow popping bubbles of starlight.

Jerry decides to move into The Wheel, and it happens without the drummers first locking onto the standard Wheel rhythm pattern. The transition is fabulous (great transitions being something of a hallmark for 1977), and The Wheel come on riding all the psychedelic energy of the Playin’ before it. A lovely and twisted exit jam follows and the outer space landscape of the Playin’ jam slowly fades back into view spreading our depth perception out beyond planets and stars which gently bob and turn around us.

Donna Jean Godchaux 05/21/1977Set two rockets out of the gate with a fine Samson And Delilah and a Tennessee Jed containing a Garcia solo that leaves you wide-eyed and smiling from ear to ear. The Music Never Stopped follows and it spirals ever-upward to a high-stepping crescendo.

We then reach Help > Slip > Franklin’s, and the Slipknot opens us back up to the misty magic we enjoyed in Playin’ In The Band. The music is a swirling blanket of distant clouds, corkscrewed hallways and shimmering fractal glass. At times overpowering enough to sweep your breath away yet mysterious enough to leave you unaware of your need for breath at all, the jam rolls in on itself as it reflects the glowing patters in every cell of your body. The tides rise and fall in random patters eventually bringing us back to the jam’s theme and on into Franklin’s Tower.

Franklin’s kicks off with its infectious uplifting energy. We are immediately locked into a dance around the most precious hearth of Grateful Dead music – the place where everything is simply infused with joy and pleasure. The solos stretch out and return to verse as our attention to time dissipates. To a degree this Franklin’s Tower is made more enjoyable by the absence of any triumphant explosion or peak. It rides a buoyant stream ever onward with the occasional parting of mountain tops revealing a blazing sun above pulsing and dancing along with our hearts and feet.

After a curiously placed mid-set two Promised Land, we reenter this joyous bond with the band in Eyes Of The World. Again we are treated to a flowing output of music that doesn’t attempt to dazzle us with acrobatic feats, yet locks in just the same keeping the gaze of our heart transfixed on the music’s soul-reaching expression. We are treated to a nice Phil solo that sounds grafted right out of 1973, and then we roll right into Dancin’ In The Streets.

Dancin’ turns up the disco funk dial to ten and Jerry springboards his solos into the sky. He’s fully cranking on his auto-filter wha-wha pedal and the music cooks along. From here the show powers through its finale with Around & Around and the US Blues encore.

1977 exudes a certain glorious level of Grateful Dead energy and psychedelic adventurism. It’s nearly impossible to go wrong anywhere you step. And it started out of the gate on the right foot with the very first show of the year.

This is a fabulous quality soundboard recording with titanic Phil throughout.

02/26/77 SBD etree source info
02/26/77 SBD Stream

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

1979 July 1 - Seattle Center Memorial Stadium


GRATEFUL DEAD
Sunday, July 1, 1979
Seattle Center Memorial Stadium – Seattle, WA
Audience Recording

I don’t think it matters what goes on moving forward, 1979 is one of those years that is forever going to reside a bit in the shadows. It’s okay. Some Grateful Dead years are meant for a more quiet and lurking seclusion. They serve an interesting purpose for collectors. For many folks, getting deeply into 1979 comes long after scouring other years that first drew the eye and ear. And once this exploration begins (like when you tell yourself, “I need to collect that entire run leading up to New Year’s Eve,” or, “I have to hear Brent’s first tour with the band. I’ve heard that May ’79 was hot.”), there is the pleasure of discovering a whole universe of music that seemed to have been hiding from you. More amazing Grateful Dead! Why didn’t someone tell me?! Well, it just doesn’t work that way, and that’s okay. Part of the mystique and draw here is how we all grow into the music of the Dead. It’s definitely the journey and not the destination. The music can only be experienced in real time, and one show at a time. And that recognition that there may have been an entire year of music you overlooked is part of the journey. It enriches the enjoyment, and probably all Dead tape collectors have shared that experience. So, 1979…

Not only is this a year that bleeds and fades into the crossover between decades (kinda can’t avoid it on the calendar and all), ’79 is also the first year where I start to hear that element of the Grateful Dead that displays a real timelessness. Certain songs in 1979 call back to many years earlier, and defy being described as 1979 versions. More than this, many classic tunes begin giving off a reflection to the wonderful history of the Dead. In 1979, songs like Uncle John’s Band, Stella Blue, and Half Step not only feel timeless, but they draw beautifully from the past, making their present experience all the more sweet – a feeling like, “they’re still my good old Grateful Dead.” This feeling isn’t there for me prior to 1979. Before that year, they simply were that good old Grateful Dead, and didn’t need to “still” be them. Does that even make sense?

Jerry Garcia 1979On July 1st, 1979 the Dead played a wonderful show that is ripe with this reflective power. It overflows with that special timelessness. The song selections often enhance this, and make for an extra enjoyable ride. There are actually a lot of shows like this somewhat lost in 1979. July 1st is only one of them. There’s a lot of gold to be mined out here (you just don’t hear much about Summer 1979). This show offers us a great path into these backwaters because the recording is fantastic, and I still tend to use audience recording quality as a bit of a guiding light as I pick shows to review. As I’ve said before, a good show matched with a good recording makes for an ideal listening setting. So, in hunting around the summer of ’79, July 1st stood out as a logical choice.

“Hey, God damn it! Get up there and play!”

This audience tape opens up with nearly four minutes or so of pre-show chatter, leading off beautifully with a guy screaming admonishments at the band to get the show started followed by folks near the taper offering their opinion of this guy – precious AUD tape moments. Idle chit-chat around the taper continues, including talk of the previous night’s show, and a request for a copy of tonight’s recording. It’s a nice set up for the music which follows.

Set 1: Half Step > Franklin's Tower, Mama Tried > Mexicali Blues, Peggy-O, Minglewood, Stagger Lee, El Paso, Brown Eyed Women, Passenger

Set 2: Don't Ease Me In, Samson And Delilah, Sugaree, Terrapin > Playin’ > Drums > Space > Stella Blue > Truckin’ > Around And Around E: Shakedown

Opening with a Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodleloo is always a treat. The song casts out a beautiful bird’s eye view as it paints the Rio Grande gently snaking across a sun dappled landscape. The song tends to strongly point back to the years of its inception, 1972-1973, wiping away associations to the actual date of its performance as it lopes along. And here in ‘79, it serves to instantly bring us to that island which was so much the Grateful Dead – converse to most of the popular cultural and musical trends by the end of the 70’s. Half Step gives off this “sound of the Dead” – something more than a straight up cowboy song, and yet not flamboyantly psychedelic by any means. It’s more “American Dead” than anything. Sliding into Franklin’s Tower, the crowd ignites as the music swirls. The mix is a little Bobby heavy at this point in the show, but given his extremely strong and creative playing there’s little to complain about. And the mix will soon even out into lovely AUD bliss. Half Step>Franklin’s show openers were always great at getting the party started, and by the end of this one the audience is left frenzied and wide-eyed.

The first set continues to roll along, angling in and out of true cowboy territory, and finally closing the set with Passenger which could often rip it up, and this set closer is no exception. Garcia’s slide soloing is an incredible blend of teeth clenching intensity blurred with a dizzying melodic line. All in all this song goes from hot to blistering as Jerry continues to solo without his slide and fires bullet after bullet all over the place, picking faster than we can keep up. Breathlessly, the song ends, wrapping up the first set.

The second set wastes no time in continuing to blur the time stamp on the show as they open with Don’t Ease Me In. Side note: let’s all thank the taper for catching that something was wrong with the left channel mic input. We almost ended up with a horrifically flawed recording of the second set. So, it’s good times out of the gate with Don’t Ease, prancing and dancing a carousel ride all the way.

Out of the space between songs, the drummers begin hammering out a tribal groove and we get treated to a rather exceptional Samson And Delilah. This takes quite a bit for me to say, as Samson is a pretty regular throw away for me. But Mickey and Billy draw you in, and the song comes off without a hitch.

And then Sugaree manages to both take us back and catapult us forward. When Sugaree first made the scene it was never a 13 minute monster. But by 1979, the song had become a showcase for Jerry, and a staple favorite working its way solidly into the line up both with the Dead and Garcia’s solo projects. This version gets started and seems to push and pull like forever reaching and receding waves lapping at the shore. It breathes and pulses, and the solo sections slowly build to blur the lines of the music’s coming and going. Eventually, in the third solo, Garcia reaches his rapid staccato picking and fingering and a slow plume of energy begins to cascade across everything, as if the tops of mammoth redwood trees have turned to molten showers of fireworks and streamers of light. The second set is going very nicely at this point. And then Terrapin.

Gilded columns and archways recede beyond our vision above us as the haunting and regal mystery of Terrapin Station consumes the air. As 1979 moved along, Terrapin grew and grew. The mid section solo here on 7/1 extends its reach into softly pinwheeling suns, clouds, and mountains. This section of the song was really starting to find its legs in the summer of ’79, and here we encounter some of the most delicious passages of music very much cut from the current Grateful Dead cloth. Terrapin truly paved new ground for the Dead, while drawing at times on the haunting grace of so much that they had always done. Eventually fitting in like as if it was always meant to be, Terrapin moves into Playin’.

Playin’ In The Band is an absolute joy to behold. Hard to find much to disappoint in any Playin’ jam, here the music expands and quivers in and out of pools which pull our vision deeply within, never failing to find more and more intricacy and detail the longer we look. Soon, the music begins rushing at us like gusts of wind rippling through a flag, casting everything into an endless undulation. The pulsing and rushing of the music climbs in intensity; much of which comes at the hand of Bob doing unbelievable things with his strumming hand. Eventually, things appear to simmer down, and Garcia’s guitar begins to sing like a bird pocketed between more of his staccato snaking brilliance. Sound gathers into rapidly blooming flowers which fragment off at impossible angles, first by the handful, then filling every space of our visual field. The Dead have rolled out a tapestry which weaves through the hearts of all in attendance. As was often the case, we are brought to a selfless moment of connection to the music. As it sings its song we are as much the voice as the instruments playing. Somehow Drums begins…

Space takes us to strange science fiction terrains, where inverted laws of physics and multi-mooned skies baffle and confound our senses. While this world swirls around us, leaving us only able to desperately try to stand still and hug the wall, hoping the air itself won’t grab us by the shirt and toss us into a boundless maze of confusion, Stella Blue forms around our toes. It starts completely woven into the pattern defying chaos and soon soaks into everything around it. We come out of Space into a Stella Blue that can stand as a defining version. The Dead and the Jerry ballad – something that would always serve to separate them from being “just some psychedelic jam band.”

Stella Blue is delivered on delicate wings, and brings the entire musical experience directly into the Dead’s common “church-like grace.” The abundantly raucous and vocal crowd is gone, and for every one of the thousands in attendance it has become a one-on-one session with Jerry Garcia. His earnest vocals whisper for you to take heed, yet offer enough time bound weariness that he seems caught singing the song as much for his own ears as yours, and this only serves to draw us in further.

Then, as is often the case, it is Jerry’s soloing which catapults Stella Blue into the heavens and down to the fiber of each cell in your body. Finding more room than you’d think possible to draw on emotion, Garcia’s guitar work communicates untold volumes of expression. He towers over lofty mountain peaks, filling the sky with song, and draws to a delicacy that could rock a baby to sleep, all continually conveying heartfelt lyrical emotion. The end solo climbs on and on, and eventually Jerry is layering in the opening refrain to Truckin’, letting it weave into the slow back and forth rocking of Stella Blue’s chord structure.

You need to know that this audience tape has what we in the trading community have long come to call a “Cut Of Death” occurring exactly at the worst possible time in the music. Back in the day, this would be followed by having to stand up and go flip the cassette, or at minimum suffer through a few seconds of blank tape hiss. Here the cut, which tears the heart out of this Stella>Truckin’ transition almost completely, is stitched end to end, but is not much less painful for it. There is just enough of the transition on each side of the cut to make us both appreciate it and cringe for having missed this bit of music – just a few measures, really. Boys and girls, this is life in the world of tape trading. The best thing you can do is warn your friends when you are about to play this wonderful tape for them (as I am clearly doing now). It is far better to know it’s coming than not.

So, Truckin’ explodes and the crowd is set ablaze once again. The version is hot and contains a really nice treat in that it segues into a Nobody’s Fault But Mine Jam. It isn’t all that long, but it has all the high step strut we could ever ask for. The way Around And Around appears from within is also very fine with Jerry finding fragments of the song’s opening and allowing them to coalesce into the traditional hard-stop transition for which the tune is so well know. From here the set cruises to a hard rockin’ close.

A cherry on top in the highest degree, the band returns to the stage to deliver a Shakedown Street encore which is a true rarity. While it doesn’t expand out into an extended jam, it is still a decidedly enjoyable way to bring an end to a Grateful Dead show.

Enjoy this show for the window it can provide into the deeper recesses of the Grateful Dead’s concert history. May you find yourself drawn down side roads and into gullies. It’ll be good to see you there.

07/01/79 AUD etree source info
07/01/79 AUD Download

Thursday, March 26, 2009

1978 February 3 - Dane County Coliseum

Grateful Dead T-Shirt 1978

GRATEFUL DEAD
Friday, February 3, 1978
Dane County Coliseum – Madison, WI
Audience Recording

Early 1978 marks a wonderful peak in the career of the Grateful Dead. Many folks like to say that 1977 didn’t really wrap up until the end of the Jan-Feb run in ’78. I’m not one of them. 1977 can have its own 365 days. 1978 deserves the credit for its early section of musical mastery. Even with Garcia battling laryngitis early on in January (which only made him play more intensely while not being able to sing at all), the first tours of 1978 are worth exploring in detail.

Looking at another stretch of shows that makes choosing one to review nearly impossible (including yet another great run at the Uptown Theater in Chicago), I’ve come back to an old favorite tape for its somewhat subdued, yet wickedly potent dose of phenomenal Grateful Dead music – February 3, 1978. The Dane County Coliseum was some sort of ignition point for this band. It’s hard to find bad shows played at this venue. Featured on Dick’s Picks 18, the highlights from this night make this pick one everyone should own. To add color and perspective, there is also an AUD of this show to enjoy. It’s not what we’d call A quality, but it fully succeeds in delivering the full spectrum of the power that was happening on this night. The deeper the music goes, the more the quality of the listening experience improves, and the music goes quite deep, to be sure.

Jerry Garcia 1978While it’s set two that will receive most of my focus, I can’t help but call attention to the first set’s closer, The Music Never Stopped. After revisiting it for this review, I can’t believe this one hasn’t always stuck in my brain as one of the best ever. How could I have forgotten this? Why don’t all Deadheads hold other versions of this song up to 2/3/78 to judge their worthiness? Do not pass it up when you pull out this tape for a listen. And then, you’ll want to get right to the meat of the second set…

Estimated Prophet > Eyes Of The World > Playin' In The Band > The Wheel > Playin' In The Band

Estimated Prophet expands like we’ve found a veiled entrance to an underground cavern of ancient, untouched mystery. Slowly torches reveal a labyrinth of loosely coiled passages, all reflecting a soft shimmering glow of prism hued light off of flickering flames. The music is soaked, cool and dark, with a hypnotic power that is hard to see coming. The evening’s concert has slowly begun to evaporate around you, and before you’ve even noticed the shift, it’s already nearly gone, leaving you quite powerless to defend the music’s insistent pursuit toward waking your soul to its siren call. By the time the music begins blending into a rolling and shifting landscape, sounding more like a mellow Other One and hinting at the Eyes to come, we have found that our pulse, breath, and complete attention have synced into a collective presence with the music. Effortlessly, the music dissolves the cavern’s wet rocky canopy into sunlight, as if small fissures are allowing starlight to pass through causing the walls to liquidly evaporate like steam, and slowly fade away.

Eyes Of The World brings with it that buoyant joyfulness that gives off the distinct impression that the music is smiling broadly. Relaxed into the moment, Jerry rushes nothing. He runs through solo after solo, and just when you figure he’s stepping up to the microphone to sing, he flows back into another solo section, cart wheeling up mountain peaks again. In between each verse he triumphantly soars and delicately floats in a gorgeous interplay of sunlit peaks and valleys. Even at 16 minutes, the song seems to stretch out far longer, eventually leading up to the highpoint of the evening, Playin’ In The Band.

This Playin’>Wheel>Playin’ captures an enormous segment of quintessential Grateful Dead creativity, reaching well outside the bounds one can easily pin down as simply 1978 Dead. The Playin’ jam begins with Phil taking a relaxed solo over drums and whisper quiet instrumentation from the rest of the band. It’s as if the bass is strolling through a forest, gently kicking up swells of musical texture, like leaves in its wake. The haunting mystery of Estimated Prophet has returned to bring a hushed reverence to the musical experience. The band seems to be allowing their musical magic to reach its own deepest levels of inspiration. They force nothing, and the jamming that slowly begins taking form appears organically, as if born of the music itself, not from the individual members of the band. It courses into you, more than just music – the sweet magic of the Grateful Dead has fully opened its flower, its rich color and fragrance so strong as to wipe all other sensation away from your senses.

Grateful Dead 1978Formless grace seems the most apt description of the long jam that follows. Things aren’t veering aggressively away from the Playin’ theme, yet it has been left miles behind in the distance just the same. As this was the section of the band’s career which saw the formalization of Drums>Space as a fixture in the second set, it is worth noting that while the drummers reach a passage where they are musically calling for the rest of the band to give them room, it doesn’t happen. On the fingertips of small hand percussion the music continues to gently evolve into one intricate tapestry after another. Eventually, the musical beat slips away, as the band coxes the gentle grace into a shifting, tilting landscape of Space. Beware a somewhat brutal tape flip edit as this Space gets started. It’s a bump in the road that quickly passes and leaves you deeply immersed in a pulsing sea of light and color. Throughout this passage, The Wheel is hinting its way into being, and eventually we come out on the other side into the song proper.

The Wheel tends to always strike me as a pop song that someone dosed heavily with LSD, driving it into a realm beyond mere hallucinations to a pure resonance with all things – an awakened spiritual grace tinged with a quiet peaceful knowing. It wears psychedelia like a flowing garment on a body of spiritual serenity. That there is a real song going on binds this inner world quality with a more tangible form. The song’s lyrics and musical structure call us into the same pure church-like setting as Attics Of My Life, or Brokedown Palace. This is a song you often “attend” more so than simply hear. The exit jam embodies a pure distillation of the ocean of grace that has been going on for over a half hour now. It is absolute Grateful Dead music, undeniably marked with the personal expression of the collective musical muse underlying the band’s creative energy. Gently, and with the hands of a loving parent, the music settles us back into Playin’ In The Band, and the set wraps up there.

Like an ace up your sleeve, this show hides out of view for most folks as they draw from the deck of Grateful Dead music. It's a card worth playing time and time again. Enjoy.

02/03/78 AUD etree source info
02/03/78 AUD Download

Friday, January 16, 2009

1977 March 19 - Winterland

Grateful Dead May 7, 1977

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, March 19, 1977
Winterland Arena – San Francisco, CA
Soundboard Recording


In the long musical history of the Grateful Dead, 1977 is clearly the most famous year. It’s an odd thing, and I can’t really pin down the reason why – but in my case, that year never filled me with the desire to collect every single note of it. Where I did make it a mission to get absolutely every drop of years like 1973, 74, 76, and 78 in the 70's, there must have been something about 1977 that didn’t set off this same spark. It probably had to do, in part, with the ’77 shows I collected early on not scratching some sort of itch like other shows. And it might have been a little bit of my rooting for the underdogs of 1976 and 1978 – two years that have always suffered in popularity due to being in such close orbit to the behemoth of 1977. I kept finding great music (to my ear) in ’76 and ’78 hiding in shadows, and it focused my collecting skills to get more and more. For whatever reason(s), for me 1977 was never the bees knees that it was for so many other folks. Hey, one man certainly gathers what another man spills.

It’s interesting to me then, that there is a certain show from 1977 that I’ve always held up as being one of my all time favorites. After finding March 18th and 20th early on in my trading years, and not being completely knocked out (which is not to discount the wonderful stuff happening on both dates), the experience was altogether different when I eventually managed to find an AUD of March 19th, 1977. It was only in circulation as a multi-gen AUD at the time, and quite difficult to come by in my circles. I think I managed to get a copy of the master (taped by Rob Bertrando? I’d have to dig the tape out of a box somewhere to be sure). The AUD wasn’t perfect sounding despite good seating location (Winterland was sometimes that way), but it was enough to fully convey the power of this show. And it was only shortly after stumbling upon this AUD that the SBD made it into circulation. Ah, perfection…

Jerry Garcia Englishtown September 3, 1977The show quickly became a personal favorite, going against my general feelings about 1977. The performance brims with that certain energetic enthusiasm so easily associated with ‘77. The band is hot, smooth, focused, and bubbling right out of the gate. A slew of fun first set tunes is elevated by a sensational 40 plus minute set closing Terrapin > Playin’ > Samson > Playin’. Terrapin Station was about as new as new could be here, in the midst of the band auditioning it in different points of the show to see where it might find a final home. It’s a lovely early version. Then things catapult to the stars with Playin’ In The Band.

The Playin’ jam begins with Jerry buoyed atop soft undulating waves of sound slowly seeping out of the other instruments. Keith, in particular, is working some lovely magic out of his keys, drifting in and out of view. The entire passage pulls the listener’s ear down to the subtle layers of music below the fray. In fact, the fray is utterly missing here. It’s as if we’ve wandered into an undisturbed patch of forest glen, a knoll where dust, dew, and sunlight have slept for centuries. Slowly, our steps into this scene melt into the ground itself. We disturb nothing, dissolving into the musical landscape, bodies as much moss and mist as flesh and bone.

Energy grows like sun speckled breezes after dawn. Slowly there come more distinct shapes and patterns. Deep in the jam, Garcia explores his effects rack and begins digging into his distortions, compressions, and flanges, dipping into some of the tones that would later work their way into other songs. And then there come the great slow motion geysers of leads catching fire as if Jerry had been working dry tinder to the point where it ignites under his careful attention. These leads soar out of his hands and bloom into the air as fountains unencumbered by gravity. Laughing colors mushroom overhead. Jerry changes tone and sends another fountain out into the air. Soon it feels like we are sitting in a grove of these towering, slow moving sprays of music. These passages are riveting on the AUD tape, and luckily, the SBD tape manages to bring across the same sense of exploding light out of darkness, making for a wonderful listening adventure.

Jerry garcia December 4, 1977Under the cover of dark, the band builds the foundation of Sampson And Delilah, and with that they are off to the races. The version rocks mightily along, and even on the soundboard you can hear the frenzy of the crowd. The song transitions back to Playin’ in a nearly perfect transition. It’s hard to say if Jerry entered one measure too soon, or if Bobby and Donna blew it by tearing that old building down just one time too many. Regardless, the transition still scores close to an A+ on the pleasure factor, quickly sweeping everything back into the fairyland forest where sunlight caresses tree bark and dust specs alike into hundreds of colors. There are more passages where energy soars and the music spins. The Playin’ theme returns, but takes a sweet long time to fully mature back into the final stanzas of the song, bringing the set to a close.

Eyes Of The World opens set two and feels like a 9 out of 10 on the energy scale. It’s as if the band hasn’t skipped a beat coming out of set one. They spend the first few minutes delightfully exploring the song’s theme before Jerry steps to the mic. This is the late 70’s style Eyes. The tempo is much faster than it was back in ’73-’74, and here Garcia is fully loaded with the joyous energy that this tune would come to exude throughout the band’s career. It’s just one power packed, smile inducing ride after another. Garcia’s play embodies everything we think of when we say he was “soaring.” He is wingspan full, high in the sky, flying here. Eventually, the song rolls out into a gurgling pool of ripples and waves that churn in colored oils mixed with the spray of crystal waters. Pure Space elements begin to flood vision, dislodging our sense of stability. Phil’s bass throbs and groans. Jerry flips on the auto filter and we can hear Dancin’ In The Streets brewing.

Garcia’s soloing on Dancin’ is electrifying, as much the pure essence of this song that we generally associate with the ever-famous 05/08/77. He finds his way into wonderful riffs and melodic lines, each of which build over the other. It’s early in 1977, but already he has complete mastery of his “'77 Dancin’ sound,” and he uses it to push on and on into gorgeous pockets of themes and syncopated lines. His tone burns through the air, and ripples through the music. This is hallmark 1977 goodness. Eventually, things simmer down and Jerry turns a corner into Wharf Rat. It’s a good version which ends with Garcia sending spiraling lines out in a triumphant musical march landing at a total rest from which he twists directly into Franklin’s Tower.

Grateful Dead 1977While it would come to happen more often as the years went on, at this point, this was only the third time that Franklin’s showed up in a set list *not* coming out of Help>Slip. And it’s one fantastic version. The song is filled with one star exploding solo section after another, rocketing the energy into the heavens over and over again. Perhaps it is all fueled early on when Garcia blows the lyrics of a verse and comes back with an over delivered “If you get confused, listen to the music play!” that launches him into the first of many truly blistering solos. One after the other, he blasts over the top, only to outdo himself on the next one.

From Frankin’s we make it to Sugar Magnolia, and if you’re thirsting for a little bit of hard rockin’ Grateful Dead, look no further. It starts off feeling a little slow, but eventually delivers with devastating force to end the set. The show wraps up with a double encore of One More Saturday Night and Uncle John’s Band, a perfect end to one darn near perfect evening of Grateful Dead music.

Curiously, the AUD of this show is not currently in online digital circulation. But, I do recall being far more drawn to the SBD after it came around whenever I thought to return to this show for another listen. I think it will do nicely. Worth noting (and perhaps hunting down), there happens to be a Matrix (SBD/AUD blend) out there too.

03/19/77 SBD etree source info
03/19/77 SBD Stream

03/19/77 Matrix etree source info
03/19/77 Matrix Stream

Sunday, October 26, 2008

1977 May 8 - Cornell University

Grateful Dead - May 17 1977

GRATEFUL DEAD
Sunday, May 8, 1977
Barton Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY
Audience & Soundboard Recordings


5/8/77 Barton Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY is heralded as the best Grateful Dead show of all time. How does one even attempt to put this tape into perspective? If you do any research at all (heck, you might have just found this writing here by doing just such research), you will quickly come to realize that May 8th, 1977 holds a very special place in the hearts of Deadheads. But it’s far more than that. This tape (not the show, but the tape itself) is the living breathing example of a sum being more than its parts. While many people might think it’s the show, it is actually the tape that holds all the star-like status.

First things first: 5/8/77 is without a doubt a very very good show. There is magic going on in Dancin’, Scarlet>Fire, NFA, and Morning Dew that make it a must to be heard (thus its inclusion in the GDLG). But, as a show, it’s not necessarily the best ever. It's not light years beyond the music that surrounds it in May of 1977. May ’77 is simply blessed as a pinnacle tour for the Grateful Dead. Much like the Fillmore run of February 1969, or the string of shows from June 1974, each show within each of these runs is a critical piece of the puzzle that reveals the excellence of these multi-show stretches. That said, and all props understandably due, the Cornell ’77 show is far more an example of being in the right place at the right time, than of existing completely above the level of all other performances. Yet, 5/8/77 holds a stature which points to it being far more than just the really good Dead show it is. Its legend has reached mythic proportion. In reality, it’s the tape, and its historical place in our tape trading community, - not the show itself - that holds the true honors associated with this date.

5-8-77 Cornell Grateful Dead PosterHere’s the thing, the 5/8/77 tape was one of the earliest “A+” quality soundboards to get into mass circulation, and not even too many years after its performance. From a tape trading perspective, Ithaca ’77 was like a banner carrying sojourner who travelled hundreds of miles from home representing the monument of music that was May 1977. The sojourner had good reason to set off on the journey. 1977 is very impressive. For many, May 1977, the most impressive month of a year that is perceived as the best year of them all. It’s somehow cosmically fitting that a tape from this run managed to leak out of the vault very early on, allowing the mythical story of the Grateful Dead to have one hell of a soundtrack. But the truth is, when you stack May 8th, 1977 against the rest of the month, it is simply another shining example of what was happening musically around it at the time. In fact, you can only really gain a full appreciation of what was so special about this month by hearing the rest of it.

With such a large songbook, you almost always do best to look at the Grateful Dead across multiple shows. It’s not enough to simply hear Dancin’ In The Streets and Scarlet>Fire from 5/8 in May '77. You need to hear what the band was doing with Help>Slip>Franklin’s, Playin’ In The Band, Eyes of the World, Other One, etc.., let alone all the first set song magic going at this point of their career. Now, I know this immediately sounds like something only a tape trading freak would say. After all, you don’t *have to* hear the rest of the month to know how great the Dead were in 1977 - 5/8/77 demonstrates this amply. The point is, most people give so much credit to this date, that it makes one think it may have been a startling stand out of a show. It was not. It was just a really nice glimpse into a historic portion of the Grateful Dead’s evolution as a band.

Because this tape went into circulation early, and in such high quality, it literally ended up everywhere, pervading everything. Much like our own solar system’s sun shines so brightly in the sky as to block out the light from the other billions of suns no more or less its equal, Cornell ’77 is like our sun in the daytime sky of Dead tapes. You can’t miss it, and it’s so dominant, that just about everyone refers to it as a shining example of what being a sun is all about. It’s a false, yet understandable perspective.

Jerry Garcia 19775/8/77 is the most easily recognizable example of Dead tapes there is, and being such a good show, people have come to call it the best ever. This happened, not because the show was something so much more amazing than any other, – it wasn’t picked to be exactly the one 1977 SBD to get into early circulation in pristine quality because someone decided it was really the best show ever – it just happened to be a show that got into this level of circulation. The power of the Dead’s mythical, Americana, Folk-Freak Psychedelic underground subculture took over from there, and because the show was “very good,” and the tape quality was “very good,” it was swooped up in the collective energy of our entire societal subset and slowly attained the accolades that make it even more than it was. It is in this way that the show came to embody the sum of parts associated with not just the music, but the recording of the music, the nature of the music being played at the time, and the rising development of the Dead tape trading community all at the same time. Make no mistake, there is some palpable mojo connected to this show – nearly everyone has a story about it. But it’s not the best Dead show ever.

It’s like trying to definitively answer an unanswerable question of existence. Grateful Dead tape collectors would not spend hours, days, and years debating which show/run/year was the best ever if there was actually an answer staring us in the face. There is no answer. But, you gotta hand it to 5/8/77; it brought a whole slew of neophytes into the debate, sparking an obsessive love for the music of the Grateful Dead. Barton Hall, Cornell College, Ithaca, NY 1977 was in the right place at the right time.

Musically Speaking:

My story around Cornell ‘77, which I’ve referred to a few times now, was that of having this tape (Dacnin’ through the end of set two) left in my car after going on a road trip from Chicago to Milwaukee to see my first Dead show in April of 1989. My then new-ish Deadhead friend, Fritz, brought along this tape and set one from 06/23/74 for the ride up, so we could get our ears wet. The very first Dead bootleg I ever heard was Cornell ’77. Burned into my brain forever is the view of driving up US94 while Jerry bore his wha-filtered Dancin’ In The Streets solo into my heart. Fritz forgot those tapes in my car. I made copies almost immediately, and hand painted some water-color tape labels to go with them. That this was the most popular Dead tape ever didn’t even become clear to me until the Internet brought me in contact with so many people and tape lists, and I began to recognize a trend – nearly every tape list, no matter how small – had Cornell ‘77 on it. The unseen energy that fostered this passionate adoration of the Dead had somehow seen to that.

Bob Weir 1977It wasn’t until a few years ago that Jerry Moore’s audience recording of the Ithaca show got into wide circulation. And while there are now even better quality soundboards of 5/8/77 all over the place, I can’t help but point listeners to another top quality Moore recording from 1977.

If you’ve never heard the show, you’ll do best to just dive on in and let yourself experience this most famous show ever. However, there are a few wonderful moments along the way worth noting.

At right about the mid-point of Dancin’ In The Streets (at exactly 8:23 on the Jerry Moore AUD track), Garcia hits a short string of notes that seem to both explode and implode with electricity and power. It’s a transcendent bird chirping sound that grabs me completely. The entire solo is fantastic, but when I heard this small portion again after years and years and years, it brought me right back into the car ride from 1989.

Probably the most famous element to this show is the invisibly smooth transition from Scarlet Begonias into Fire On The Mountain. The Dead did this well in most years, most of the time. But one thing that can indeed be handed to Cornell ’77 is that it has probably the most seamless Scarlet>Fire transition of them all. So subtle is the movement from one song to another, the archived Moore AUD wisely leaves both songs as one single track. To have placed a track marker in the middle would have only served to raise a debate around whether it was placed correctly at all. Do Deadheads really have nothing better to do than argue these points? Also not to be missed are Garcia’s solos in Fire On The Mountain. They build beautifully, going from a subdued energy to an all-out blaze of guitar power. Great peaks are reached again and again.

Barton Hall Cornell UnivNot Fade Away finds Garcia pushing the limits of energy again, soaring through and burning up the air around him. Late in the jam, the drummers discard the traditional NFA thumping beat and the music slips into a more rolling cascading rhythm that hints a bit at Other One. This allows the music to get nicely *out* from the NFA theme, as beats begin to fold in on themselves like flower petals. NFA returns as its own beautiful reminder that this was the song being played in the first place.

Then there’s Morning Dew. This is an all-time version, not only because the entire song is so expertly delivered, but because it contains a crescendo of all crescendos. The shredding that Jerry pulls off at the end of the song, quite literally blows the roof off the hall. The crowd is left absolutely beside itself in joy afterwards.

AUD or SBD, you can’t go wrong with this show. Whether it introduces you to May 1977, or serves as something worth a long overdue re-listening, it’s hard not to appreciate the music contained on what is easily the most famous Dead tape of them all.

05/08/77 AUD etree source info
05/08/77 AUD Download

05/08/77 SBD etree source info

Saturday, October 11, 2008

1979 November 5 - Philly Spectrum

Grateful Dead 1979
GRATEFUL DEAD
Monday, November 5, 1979
The Spectrum - Philadelphia, PA
Audience Recording


Here’s another show that falls into that category of slightly unknown gems that go somewhat unnoticed. Famous from a statistical standpoint – it has one of the longest Eyes Of The World on record, clocking in at 23 minutes – the show lives a bit in the shadow of some other stellar performances from the days before and after. Captured here in a very nice above average AUD that only needs a bit of time to warm up sound-wise, the show is strong from start to finish, as most are from this portion of 1979. Treated to a show opening China>Rider, the stage is set for a special night of music.

While it seems patently obvious, the sound of the band from this period is a fabulous example of the transition from the late 70’s into the early 80’s, and this AUD captures it perfectly. This applies to not only the manner in which the band was playing, but also the actual sonic output of their sound system. There’s no end of good songs to discuss here, but I want to concentrate on what causes this tape to remain in my mind as one of the very first I grab whenever I’m thinking about 1979: the epic sized portion of the Eyes>Estimated>Frankin’s in set two.

Phil Lesh - Jan 20, 1979This jam ends up forever in my mind not because of tremendous peaks and valleys filled with hairpin turns, but more for its ability to strike a chord that resonates so deeply into the pure pleasure of Grateful Dead music. As I’ve said before, there is often more power in the way this band would sometimes do nothing more than settle comfortably into one of its elemental grooves than the times when they crafted and pushed the music into mind numbing acrobatics. Here, we land in the elemental groove zone and it goes on for the better part of a solid hour.

Eyes flips on like a switch, and Jerry’s opening solo quite literally goes on forever. He stretches out into the unending reaches of comfort provided by Eyes, and allows himself to wander the foothills of his own magic valley, never worrying for the sun to rise or fall, beautifully lost in the pleasure of a fully open-ended moment. He often returns to the core rhythm of the song where he seems bound to step to the mic and sing, yet turns away only to go more deeply into hidden grottos that sing to him with the secrets of the earth itself.

This audience recording is of high enough caliber that we feel ourselves only a heartbeat away from Jerry’s guitar as he rolls completely back off the treble knobs, mixing the colors of his sound into deep earth tones of dark green and orange. His voicing of notes goes beyond the tune itself, speaking in a language we’ve at once never heard, yet our souls speak fluently. And it goes on and on and on...

Jerry Garcia - Dec 30, 1979A verse comes and goes, and Jerry again trails out into the boundless garden, down a seemingly infinite number of wandering paths. We are joyfully lost with him, swept along in his wake of delicate exploration. The verses continue to come and go, framed by Jerry’s continually long solos, each one toying back to a verse only to fly out again for more circuits around the hillsides.

By the time we get into Estimated Prophet, the band is navigating deeply into a psychedelic ocean of music. The song throbs and shimmers with spectacular motion, like a fountain tossing sound into the air which then coils and floats like smoke around you. Beautifully, Franklin’s Tower peaks its head around the corner before fully bounding into view. The energy picks up and the joyous march is back in full swing as Jerry’s guitar peppers the air with its lyrical dance.

As is consistently the case, Franklin’s Tower ignites the crowd and everything elevates into a jubilant atmosphere. The archetypical Grateful Dead groove pushes the song beyond anything categorically 1979 by tapping into the undercurrent of music that binds all Dead shows into one. There are no highlights needed as the band and audience are comfortably settled into such familiar territory. Until the end of the song...

After the last chorus is sung, the horizontal axis of the Philly Spectrum begins to tip at odd angles, slowly back and forth like the deck of some enormous ship at sea. Bobby alters his chording while layering on a phase shifting effect, and his sound sprouts multi-hued flames and feathers. Phil’s bass lines begin to growl like a storm approaching, and Jerry casts his lines into the swirling wind. Bringing the entire crowd into this ever-tilting landscape, the band pushes through a barrier with some heavy block chords that leave the music completely unraveled. Deep groans and swells open before you as the flat ground beneath your feet spreads into endlessly deep canyons. Footing is no longer necessary as gravity disappears and burns the remnants of musical structure away completely. A feverish space jam ensues, overwrought with Caution-like leanings as the drummers pound along like a speeding train. Eventually this dissolves into Drums, closing out an amazing three song jam that tops 55 minutes.

I remember getting this show in trade on cassette with no fanfare what-so-ever. I recall popping it into the deck and letting things roll on Eyes Of The World. As the song never stopped opening up in front of me, I fell completely into the music. 1979 just has a certain way of doing this. You never really see it coming, and thereby it sneaks it’s way deeply into your musical soul, lighting a fire you never want to see go out. Let it shine, let it shine, let it...

11/05/79 AUD etree source info
11/05/79 AUD Download

Saturday, September 20, 2008

1976 September 28 - Syracuse, NY

Jerry Garcia 1976

GRATEFUL DEAD
Tuesday, September 28, 1976
Onondaga County War Memorial - Syracuse, NY
Audience Recording


This show is featured almost in its entirety on Dick’s Picks Vol. 20. But it has history from long before it came out commercially, and that history is in part related to demonstrating the glory of AUD recordings from a part of a year that isn’t famous for its soundboards. Most of the SBDs from Fall 1976 fall a bit flat. They just lack a lot of sparkle. As we have been dabbling into this period with AUD tapes, there are a fair number of good ones to be found, and it is now time to add 09/28/76 to this list as one of the more satisfying 1976 AUDs. Very up front, with exceptional low end, this tape permeates the sound field with the power of the Dead’s new (in ’76) sound system. Particularly sweet are the sound of the kick drums and Phil’s bass. These instruments tend to lay very flat on the SBD’s, while in the AUDs you can literally touch the energy coming out of them. The drums, especially, pulse with power. You can almost feel the push on the air, absent almost completely from the soundboards. On 09/28 we are thus treated to that most wonderful alignment of the stars – a wonderful recording of a wonderful performance.

Grateful Dead 1976It’s hard not to talk about 1976 without mentioning the dismissing the year gets in many Dead trading circles. Generally you either love 1976, or absolutely don’t. However, even some of the most anti-76 folks out there will generally acquiesce that there are a few glowing spots in this year. 09/28/76 falls into this category easily. In fact, after revisiting this AUD after a good many years myself, I regret that it took me so long to share it here on the blog. This show and recording demonstrate all that I love about 1976, and then some. It was one of the first late-1976 tapes I acquired in trade, and as an AUD, continued to cement my preference for this recording medium over soundboards. For this show, and a few others from the Fall of ’76, the audience tape brings an entirely heightened level of experience to the music itself – not because of the crowd, or the energy in the air, but strictly based on the way the sound of the band comes through on tape.

After a first set that contains some fine songs including Candyman and Friend Of The Devil, the set closes with a herculean Let It Grow>Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad. This song pairing only occurred twice – the first being on 10/25/73. The Let It Grow displays a rather ferocious intent to grab the audience’s attention, elevating the overall energy of the first set by leaps and bounds. The solo sections sizzle in and out of verses, and the transition over to GDTRFB is quite extended. Things idle with a raw potency between songs, cascading over a large extended peak while the music finds its own path from song to song. But, make no mistake, set two of this show trumps nearly everything that has occurred on the entire tour thus far. This is music that can leave you changed after listening.

First and foremost we have one of those second sets that looks frightfully good on paper. One complete jam:

Playin’> Wheel> Samson> Jam> Comes A Time> Drums> Eyes> Dancin’> Playin’

If the music therein could even come close to being as impressive as the set list, we’re in for a good time. What we get is far more.

Playin’ In The Band launches the second set directly into your heart, exhibiting the quintessential quality of 1976’s deeply psychedelic-mellow vibe. It’s the sort of energy and music that you could completely miss if you don’t fix both eyes (or ears) upon it – like thinking nothing of walking past an everyday looking patch of flowers only to double-take when you catch the fact that the rich colors of the flowers are somehow flowing from one to another the way light reflects off a huge school of phosphorescent fish as they turn and swirl, as if driven by one mind. 1976 has a lot of this kind of stuff going on.

Jerry Garcia 1976Playin’ moves in a slow watery boil. Garcia pulls out lead lines like fingers pulling honey from a jar. Everything breathes together. There is a point where you can sense The Wheel coming from a thousand miles away. Like pre-dawn light in the eastern sky, it barely kisses the swirling darkness of the Playin’ jam. Eventually, The Wheel hint cracks the horizon and begins filling the sky with a throbbing rainbow sun, each solar flare a different color bleeding into the next.

If we give 1975 the credit it truly deserves for bringing us Help>Slip>Franklin’s, rather than attributing it to 1976 when it merely exploded forever into our vernacular as a Dead classic, then The Wheel is ‘76’s crowning jewel – the greatest gift to us of the entire year. In that, it encapsulates 1976 completely. The way it could form out of a jam (on 9/28 perhaps even more artfully that it does on 10/10/76), somehow demonstrates how the song’s musical arrangement in 1976 was written out of the sheer fabric of the band itself. Simply put, it fills your soul. It seems like nothing more than a “good song.” But placed correctly, it elevates you. It draws you into that distraction-free experience of the Now that is typically reserved as the ability of a deep jam only. The Wheel in 1976 just has this power. The Wheel on this night might easily claim the title of best of the year. As if the song itself wasn’t potent enough to lay this claim, it’s exquisite intro from Playin’ and outro into Samson and Delilah assure it.

And Samson itself is elevated by the seamless transition. The song cooks. But it’s the jam that returns directly off of Samson’s final downbeat that begins to cement this set as one for the ages. We are placed directly back into the night-mist fabric of Playin’ In The Band without transition. It just rushes forward again and silences the crowd which had been brought to its rowdiest level by the previous song. The Dead demonstrate their complete control of the proceedings with this shift. The next few minutes of music are picture perfect – the kind of stuff that could only appear like this, pure inspiration and improvisation tucked deep in a long string of music. Jerry is whipping out lead lines now in his classic swooping birdlike arcs. There is no resistance to the fusing together of everyone in the building. The band’s singularity of being suffuses the crowd – all hearts beat as one. As if this wasn’t elevating enough, next comes a song that could deliver prayer-like spiritual oneness in almost any year: Comes A Time.

It’s arrival is like emerging from a dense forest into a wide valley of grassy hills under a sunlit sky tinged with the smell of Spring. And as is often the case, this song brings out the best in Garcia. His voice - its inflection, emotion, and pure intoxication – is matched only by his guitar work. Man, to hear Jerry and Donna repeat the final sets of the line “only love can fill” sends chills down my spine – absolutely riveting. This section is like almost nothing else, somehow far more than you’d ever expect it to be. The exit solo is short and sweet, and it ends with the band seeming to search for the next step. Drums to the rescue, we get treated to the awesome power of Billy and Micky.

Here you can completely appreciate the already wonderful audience recording all the more. 1976 Drums on a soundboard never sound this energetic. Proving that fact, there is a tape flip covered by the SBD itself for about 15 seconds. You can completely hear what is lost in the SBD. The AUD returns for the last few minutes of Drums and we are headed for more glorious music.

Eyes Of The World charges at breakneck speed. This is a supercharged version of the song, and the music sets off an effervescence of stars appearing and burning out all around you. The speed of the song propels Jerry’s solo work into heavenly realms. His leads manage to float lazily above the locomotive pace of the music beneath them, gently singing and dancing. This is a 1976 Eyes through and through; not better or worse than those of 73-74. It brings about those involuntary smiles throughout. At the end, the song angles sharply back into the Playin’ jam, but only for a moment. Quickly, the band finds itself in a unique thematic jam that walks a line between loping and stomping. It’s slightly Bolero-like - something not quite heard before or after this show. It goes on for a nice while, and then Phil starts hinting back at Playin’. But Jerry has another idea.

Donna Jean Godchaux 09-17-76As if this colossal complete set long jam wasn’t big enough already, the band heads into Dancin’ In The Streets. This late in the year (about four months after the song’s re-introduction to the lineup), the song has fully matured, each musical part integrating perfectly with the other. The crowd becomes fully locked in, clapping along. Yet, the music is so loud, when the band starts jamming, you can’t hear the claps – another great example of the music’s power and energy. The jam dances along (no pun intended), resolving in a near perfect run through of the syncopated end refrain. This leads to the final verse which fades itself to a whisper, upon which Playin’ finally makes it’s true return (after, what? Four teases throughout the whole set?).

The band takes some pleasant time letting the jam float about the arena. Slowly the entire band simmers all the way down and lets the reprise fully take form. Ecstatic, the crowd bursts into cheers as the song draws to its close.

When listening to the audience recording, this set easily defies all negative connotations cast at 1976. This is the Dead firing on all cylinders. Enjoy.

09/28/76 AUD etree source info
09/28/76 AUD Download

Blog Widget by LinkWithin