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Showing posts with label Mid '70's. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mid '70's. Show all posts

Monday, March 21, 2011

1974 May 25 - UC Santa Barbara




GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, May 25, 1974
Campus Stadium, UC Santa Barbara -- Goleta, CA
Audience & Soundboard Recordings

Judged across the entire 30 year span of Grateful Dead music, 1973 and 1974 possess tremendous similarities. However, when viewed in detail they reveal stark differences at many levels.

The explorative playing style in 1974 has an aggressive and intentional bent. The band was pushing in ‘74, whereas in 1973 things seemed more about open discovery. By 1974 the discoveries of ‘73 were well catalogued, and the band spent that majority of '74 working these discoveries to their bidding.

The entire 1974 opus displays this tendency, but the Santa Barbara show on May 25th seems to do so in extreme fashion. 5/25/74 sounds nearly nothing like 1973. It is a show full of an almost hell-bent intensity which pervades the entire performance.

Set 1: U. S. Blues, Mexicali Blues, Deal, Jack Straw, Scarlet Begonias, Beat It On Down The Line, Brown Eyed Women, Me & My Uncle, Sugaree, El Paso, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Around & Around
Set 2: Promised, Ship Of Fools, Big River, Tennessee Jed, Truckin' > Jam > Space > Let It Grow > Wharf Rat, Sugar Magnolia > Going Down The Road Feelin' Bad > One More Saturday Night, E: Casey Jones

We are treated to both a fine soundboard and an audience recording of this sweet show. Being at an outdoor venue in midday, one can't help but appreciate, yet again, the glory of the Wall of Sound being preserved on tape in the open air. The audience tape, recorded by Jeremy Witt, pulses with a thick and almost suffocating electricity that only 1974 could produce. It is not to be missed.

I'm not keeping tabs on such a thing, but the Scarlet Begonias here on 5/25 may be the fastest one on record. The song's syncopated rhythms stand out like spikes. Scarlet churns like a great ball of fire, packed with the energy of swirling suns and titanic plumes of lightning. In whiplash fashion, the band flies through the song's verses, leading to some Donna wailing that eclipses anything you may have heard in another show. She truly outdoes herself -- the energy of the song possessing her in a way that I've not heard before or after (and I've heard my fair share of Donna wails). It's brief, but she seems catapulted into the air by the rushing music. Jerry follows this up with a rapid solo which rounds into the end of the song so quickly it will make your head spin.

But this barely hints at the intensity found in the China>Rider later in the set. Searing, devastating, nearly brutal in tempo, this China Cat jam will evaporate the air in your lungs. The Dead explode through the descending four chord block section and whirl into I Know You Rider amidst a blaze of glory. Phil is causing continental shifts while Garcia's guitar strings become comets burrowing into the atmosphere, their trailing tails crackling with strobe light sparklers. We reach the end of the song as if it was speeding by like a rocketing freight train. It slams to a stop leaving our eyes as wide open as the horizon.The music is taking no prisoners today.

You won't find too many mentions of the tune Around & Around on these pages, but as if to outdo the entire first set leading up to it, this version steps in and demolishes everything for miles around. Rock-n-Rock all the way. Whoa. They need to stop here just to let the Wall cool down a little.

The May 1974 run is punctuated with four fantastic Truckin's over six shows.Number one can be visited on 5/12/74. Here on the closing day of the run, with the full head of steam this sweltering show has been building already, we launch into another epic rendition.

Out of the final verse great torrents of molten lava and serpent tongue licking fire flood every pore. Melting wagon wheels of imploding light fuse all senses into one avalanche of power. Slowly, the band lets the crushing energy of the music give way to a more liquid and loping landscape. Garcia eases into great rich bell tones and the music slips into the air as if turned into ten thousand multi-hued feathers. The air becomes filled with music streaming and trailing in all directions. Eventually, the ironclad connectivity of sound is broken and the music forms undulating mountains spread across a valley stretching into the distance. Coils and tendrils seethe underfoot coming to grip the terrain more and more tightly. Wind shifts and Let It Grow shimmers into view.

Let It Grow, as one might expect, takes off like a rocket ship. Played as fast as any version I can recall, the surging music allows Garcia to reach speeding staccato notes in his solo while also giving way to great swooning shooting stars. This Let It Grow jamming distinguishes much of the 1974 playing style and stands in direct contrast to 1973. Things just didn't move this fast in that earlier year.

Let It Grow tips over the edge of the world into vast clouds, cascading sublimely into Wharf Rat. The song goes on to brew a deeply entwined tapestry of sound-colors. It latches itself to the pulse of our breathing; the marrow in our bones is awash with the touch of this timeless rhythm. The veil of reality dissolves into infinite details, strumming an ancient and haunting song of the soul. Music becomes water and wind finding its way into every crevice; filling every vessel. Here, again, is the forever beating heart of the Grateful Dead. With no effort, we merge into that which can only be described as something we've always known to be ourselves.

By the time the band pulls out Going Down The Road Feeling Bad, we are back in the direct path of the scorching sun. Billy's drumming dances like a symphony of rainbow refractions out of a crystal seascape. He appears to be coming from every possible direction. Jerry lets fly one fiery solo after another, eventually riding that familiar geyser of swirling light into the sky, illuminating the clouds from within. The show seems incapable of exhausting its source of power, and drives on through a set closing One More Saturday Night, and a decidedly tasty Casey Jones in encore. Whew!

05/25/74 AUD etree source info
05/25/74 AUD Download

05/25/74 SBD etree source info
05/25/74 SBD Stream

note: All photos were taken on 5/25/74, photographer credit unknown.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

1973 March 24 - The Spectrum

 

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, March 24, 1973
The Spectrum - Philadelphia, PA
Soundboard Recording


So we established early on that I set up the Grateful Dead Listening Guide playing the character of an old hippie guy living across the street from you. One day a couple of years ago you and he struck up a conversation, and soon you found yourself invited over to the old guy's basement where you were seated in the sweet spot between artfully spaced stereo speakers as he began pulling tapes off the wall, filling your ears with stories, enchantments and mysteries deep and vast.

Judging from your repeated return visits, everything has gone very well. You continually enjoy an endless parade of music-magic, and the old hippie finds tremendous pleasure in learning more about his own spiritual connection to the music through this sharing and the reflected joy it clearly produces in your welcoming eyes and ears.

By this point we've share a great deal of music and it sometimes becomes a slight struggle for the old hippie to pick the next tape. This time, rather than trying to outdo myself by producing a completely hidden gem, I've decided to go back to one of the very first shows I ever received from the year 1973.

March 24th 1973 is well circulated, and I wore my own tape thin way back when my grand total of 1973 shows was about 2. Perhaps because of this, the show never really struck me as something to recommend to you here. Perhaps I felt somehow that the show's magic wasn't unique enough. Maybe I thought that it was too commonplace a tape. No matter the reason, it didn't help that I hadn't listened to the show in a very, very long time. That all changed on a whim when I pulled the show back out.

Revisiting it now, I'm struck with the realization that this show I so easily let myself forget over the years possesses a heaping helping of that which I treasure most about 1973 Grateful Dead jamming – a certain nimble jazzy Ferris wheel sound that I often only find deep in the summer of this fine year. It's no wonder that this, as one of my very first tapes, cemented my lifelong connection to the Dead, and to 1973 in particular.

Set 1: Bertha, Beat It On Down The Line, Don't Ease Me In, The Race Is On, Cumberland Blues, Box Of Rain, Row Jimmy, Jack Straw, They Love Each Other, Mexicali Blues, Tennessee Jed, Looks Like Rain, Wave That Flag, El Paso, Here Comes Sunshine, Me & Bobby McGee, Loser, Playin' In The Band
Set 2: Promised Land, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Big River, Stella Blue, Me & My Uncle, He's Gone > Truckin' > Spanish Jam > Space > Dark Star > Sing Me Back Home > Sugar Magnolia E: Johnny B. Goode

The pleasures of this show are not only waiting deep in the second set. We are treated to a lovely first set and quite an extended Playin' In The Band to wrap it up. Psychedelics explode on the scene as if they've been held back to the bursting point. The music swirls. Colors bleed. Jerry casts out leads that tip toe deftly over rolling river rapids, often taking a path up over tree tops and then incredibly threading between blades of grass. Late in the jam we find Garcia taking a break while the rest of the band continues to churn with a kaleidoscoping display of yellow-orange embers dancing through burning logs. Jerry returns and adds searing white and fuchsia flames to the mix as the song returns to close the first set.

China>Riders in March 1973 are noteworthy for often delivering an unprecedented amount of energy and momentum, and the one here on March 24th wastes little time living up to the reputation. The transition jam flies. The band locks into a shuffle with Garcia streaming sunbeams, and the familiar four-chord jam, while not being as heavily pronounced as in other versions, does not disappoint as we transition into I Know You Rider. With solo sections that burst with that joyful effervescence that defines the Dead in so many ways, we can't help but smile throughout the entire song.

Of course it's the shows extended jam in the second set that places this show on a pedestal, and for good reason. Out of Truckin' the band lets the music settle into a meadow of grass where wind barely whispers. Jerry delicately lofts out the opening lines of Dark Star, yet no one takes the reins with him. Instead, the entire band slips effortlessly into a rolling jazzy 1973 jam that typifies the year completely. This jam is as reminiscent of the big '73 Watkins Jam as nearly anything else on record in this year or otherwise. The tempo flies as Garcia unleashes long staccato runs that reflect and echo upon themselves leaving trails in the air, cutting a dewy mist with ripples of energy. The purity of the Grateful Dead's musical soul is stretched into the sky, pulling us into a rapturous dance erasing all physical barriers. In this music we feel the Grateful Dead resonate far more deeply within us than words may express.

A small guitar break finds Billy and Phil bebopping out a Drum and Bass solo. The rest of the band returns and picks up right where it left off. We are lost, fuse and reflected within the invisible fabric that beats in the empty space of atoms. Soon a Spanish Jam appears and is quickly vaporized into caverns, light years deep. Great drops of sound randomly take shape and gather together with invisible gravities. Orbits shimmer. Waves rise and fall. Slowly a subtle symphony takes shape. Singing stars and slowly bowed strings rise into harmonies, and the sky fills with a thousand sunsets. An ocean-sized crescendo, as delicate as an evening breeze through trees fills the infinity all around. Dark Star appears.

While it can easily be touted as the shortest Dark Star on record (at only about four and a half minutes), all fairness points to Garcia tipping the Dark Star hand some twenty-two minutes prior as the jam first took form. But we aren't here to quibble over the length of the song. The music flutters like slow rolling redwood tree-sized velvet drapes stretched for a hundred miles around us. And we are eventually left in awe as the band transitions liquidly into Sing Me Back Home. Here the gospel overtones conjure up that familiar feeling of sitting around a campfire, as a story is told. When Garcia hits his solo, notes blossom streaming flower pedals all around. He somehow conjures every ounce of the sound system's power into delicate footsteps that leave no trace in the sand. Grace, as simply delivered as ever.

A classic Dead tape to be sure. Worth the listen even if its been sitting on a shelf for a quarter century or more.

Monday, February 15, 2010

1973 May 20 - Santa Barbara, CA

Grateful Dead 05/20/73 by Michael Parish

GRATEFUL DEAD
Sunday, May 20, 1973
Campus Stadium, U.C.S.B. – Santa Barbara, CA
Audience & Soundboard Recordings

If you've been reading these pages for a long while, here's confirmation that new riches can forever be discovered in the Grateful Dead's concert history. A personal favorite, we come to this performance after two years of reviewing other shows before it. Yet the magic within this concert could rightfully have placed its review among the first handful added to the site.

Through the luck of timing and good trading partners I was able to feature this recording as the very first round of my Audience Devotional Tree. In this day of not having to hunt down lists and strike up relationships to acquire new tapes, it is difficult to convey the excitement and power associated with being able to turn on an enormous crowd of traders to a previously un-circulating gem. But such was most certainly the case when I had the pleasure of digitally seeding out this tape back in 2000. Historically through the tape trading ages, there were always a few armfuls of dates which could cause most any trader's eyes to go wide. Bumping into a known low-gen, complete audience tape upgrade of 05/20/73 was indeed one of them.

Set 1: Bertha, Me & My Uncle, Box Of Rain, Deal, Looks Like Rain, Tennessee Jed, The Race Is On, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Beat It On Down The Line, They Love Each other, Playin' In The Band
Set 2: Promised land, Brown Eyed Women, Mexicali Blues, Row Jimmy, Jack Straw, Big Railroad Blues, Greatest Story Every Told, Here Comes Sunshine, Big River, Loser, El Paso, Casey Jones
Set 3: Truckin' > Other One > Eyes Of The World > Stella Blue, Sugar Magnolia E: Johnny B. Goode


Bob Weir 05/20/73 by Michael ParrishThe show is an enormous three set monster in an outdoor stadium, packed full of classic 1973 fare. But things go wildly off the charts as the band moves from Truckin' into Nobody's Jam and beyond. Some sort of cosmic switch gets flipped, and the band takes off, pulling every living soul deeply into the secret spaces of their private musical muse.

As the Nobody's Fault But Mine Jam falls away, a door opens into the purest of Grateful Dead improvisational exploration. The guitars begin to echo each other's little triplets and runs, like birds or coyotes conversing across miles of forest. This echoing casts the music into a slippery kaleidoscope of interweaving musical measures. In mere moments, the audience tape is defying all possibility of representing just some kid holding a microphone amidst a sea of concert-goers in an outdoor stadium. Every conceivable distraction is bleached away into a burning white backdrop leaving nothing but the steady flow of music to fill the ever expanding "now." It's as if some incomprehensibly intricate network of gears has finally slipped into sync setting free an experience that sears away all but our most inner attention. The music grows and turns, drawing this singular moment into one prolonged expression of joy.

These are psychedelic winds. Banners furling, catching sunlight, reflecting raindrops. Colors pooling, intermixing, turning infinite hues beyond count. The jam that has opened up here is fully immersed in the richness of the Grateful Dead's truest expression. The cadence and the loping lazy jazzy journeying are singularly the Dead's. It's been a long show, and they have finally made it to their own desired destination. They let this music play itself. It expands and contracts causing the ground and sky around us the breath peacefully.

Jerry Garcia 05/20/73 by Michael ParrishIt's late May 1973, and if you trace the musical undercurrents that evolved over the 30 year history of the band, you can actually pick out the binding ties between the purest improvisational moments from the Fall of '72 and what we would hear fully develop into the jazzy 1973 playing style that came in late June ‘73 and beyond. In this jamming the convergence produces an utter uniqueness which sweeps us away in an uplifting joyfulness tinged deeply with psychedelic feedom. This is one of the finest 8 minutes to come out of 1973 altogether. It's impossible for you not to close your eyes and smile as Bobby strums sunbeams, Jerry whips out licks that spiral like wisps of perfumed incense, Phil bounds down a hill like a big bear, and Keith fills all the empty spaces perfectly.

Tell tale hints of Other One precede a short drum break. The crowd around us reappears, as if coming up for air. At the end of Drums, in the split second before Other One explodes, we are treated to one of those "audience tape only" moments where someone shouts out something so nicely timed that it catapults the pleasure of the musical experience even higher. A guy calls out "Hey man!" and over him the Other One tidal wave explodes, impossibly huge. We are immediately locked directly back into the glowing furnace of musical purity. It's such a great one of those audience moments that I even made sure to set the track ID a half second early to be sure to start the Other One track with this guy's call out.

Surging along with its full force gale, Other One thunders to fill every empty cavity of time and space. Familiar rhythms sing to us, while the band stokes the fire. We burst into the first verse and it slingshots us out into a portion of music where all previous tethers to reality come undone. Jerry and Phil slowly disown the song's key signature as the count of measures is replaced by a gurgling slow motion sea. Outer space stories in languages beyond words come through the music as Billy's drumming falls completely away and the rest of the band dances as delicately as dew under starlight. The music keeps pushing further into this outer world. New passages appear bringing unknown landscapes and perspectives. Eventually, we slide into the "Tiger" meltdown and Garcia's guitar explodes into a fire hose torrent of broken glass. Physical reality is splintered infinitely in an onrush of fractaled mirroring wormholes.

Phil Lesh 05/20/73 by Michael ParrishAnd then, outdoing the jam before Other One, a passage emerges fueled by Bobby hammering out a percussive Caution-like strumming with Billy's intricate cymbal and snare work. Over this, Jerry begins hitting wide, gaping, primal bell-tone notes which stand as tall as dinosaurs. He adjusts his settings and his sound transforms into something more full of high and low end than can be imagined existing on this mono outdoor recording. Our being is elevated beyond recognition. He takes us so far away we might never find our way back. Phil is stomping broad strokes at impossible angles. Keith is ringing gorgeous bell tones of his own which he would do all too infrequently in the Summer of 73. The music pulses and pulls with unrecognizable sounds and details which defy knowing. The recording has somehow become immeasurably intimate. It seems to be born from the center of our soul more than off of some enormous scaffolding of stage in the distance in front of us. We are more music than anything else; more the Dead than the audience. This end portion jam is fleeting, yet it delivers an overflowing measure of the Grateful Dead's truest face; its heart of hearts. As is often the case, we are in a place absent of any desire to leave. The Eyes OF The World that follows is wonderful. Played at a cooled down tempo, it endlessly flows with rivers of sunshine.

The classic 1973 fare that represents the rest of this show is peppered with some outstanding moments. China>Rider and Playin' are obvious tunes worth some listening. But even more than that, there are a few real stand outs in the second set. Big Railroad Blues and Greatest Story Every Told tower beyond any preconceived notion you might have of these tunes as mid-set filler. Both Weir and Garcia deliver knockout strength blows throughout. At the risk of now having over-hyped them for you, make a point of giving these your full attention. I return to them every once in a while when I want to be reminded of the versions that made me a big fan of these songs over all.

05/20/73 AUD etree source info
05/20/73 AUD Download

05/20/73 SBD etree source info
05/20/73 SBD Stream Audio

05/20/73 photos by Michael Parrish

Saturday, August 1, 2009

1973 June 30 - Universal Amphitheatre

Jerry Garcia Sept 26, 1973

GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, June 30, 1973
Universal Amphitheatre – Universal City, CA
Audience Recording

Deadheads can stay up late into the night debating several eternal questions. One of these is often goes like this: If you had a time machine, what Grateful Dead show, or run of shows, would you go back to attend? For me, I can pretty confidently say that I’d be setting the dial for the three day run from Universal City, California at the end of June, 1973 to attend the 6/29, 6/30, and 7/1 shows.

I’d be lucky in that it wouldn’t be too crowded – nothing like the time travel pile up going on over around 05/08/77. The ’73 Universal City run is not popular. In all my years of tape trading I’ve never bumped into anyone who shares quite my enthusiasm for the whole Summer of 1973 thing, and the Universal City run is arguably the low point of the summer, given all the fireworks surrounding it. Even after years of getting up on soapboxes in online Dead forums, and clearly taking every opportunity to talk about it here on the GDLG, I doubt very highly that I could fill a room with like-minded folks. Oh, several people are glad that I’ve hipped them to the golden yummies to be found in this period, but enough for these folks to make this selection in the Way Back Machine? I doubt it. And no offense taken, I’ve learned to accept that there is clearly something firing a little differently in my brain when it comes to this stuff. So… I’d have plenty of legroom traveling in time back to these shows.

Of course, the fact that there apparently wasn’t a swarm of future dwellers packing the rafters on 05/08/77 raising their hand held mobile devices in the air, glowing with a somewhat more annoying light than say, a bic lighter (though there would also be some iPhone holders running the zippo lighter app, I’m sure), means that we either never figure out time travel, or that when we do (did), we luck out and find all the Dead shows splintered into an endless refraction of themselves related to our own personal time-space continuums allowing each of us our own “copy” to attend. Each show is actually happening all the time, and our linear experience of them is merely called into our perception at the moment we hop across the continuum and step into the parking lot an hour or two before show time. Oops… digression.

June 30th, 1973 was one of those low circulating and forever “AUD only” shows (all before the passing of Dick Latvala and the ensuing circulation of so many soundboards), and my copy was crusty. While I did luck out in 2001 to bump into a 7” reel copy from the assumed master AUD reel itself, and put it into circulation via my Audience Devotional Tree, for the longest time I had this tape copy that bordered on being of slightly too poor quality to trade. This was a real issue for me because of how deeply the music on this tape was tapping into my heart. That I was able to circulate a better copy which peeled off the layer of off-pitch hissy crust, was an absolute dream come true. After 2001, it was much easier for 06/30/73 to get its point across. And shortly after, when the soundboard started making it around, it almost didn’t matter. The SBD sounds great, yet has absolutely no life to it at all – and this propagated the bad reputation this date lives with.

This show has that familiar brand of 1973 jazzy psychedelia that I’ve been pointing out for a while. Yet where a show like 06/22/73 reaches peaks that nearly bring one to tears as the band finds its way deeply into improvisational transcendence, 06/30/73 is sort of the opposite. This show feels more like on great pulse in the heartbeat of the Grateful Dead rather than something full of peaks and valleys. The show’s highlights swell more that explode, and I think it is because of this that this tape offers another sensational full show experience. This is only enhanced by the fact that the recording quality of this audience tape is nearly unparallel throughout the rest of 1973.

Grateful Dead March 24, 1973 by John PotenzaPutting into circulation another upgraded version of this recording (linked below, as usual) allowed me to converse about and “study” the archeology of this recording a bit more thoroughly. It turns out that the band’s sound crew was making audience tapes directly at the sound board at this time, and supplying them to the band. This newest version confirms that the reel was dubbed in 1979 directly off of Garcia’s own tape stash. As heavenly a lineage as one could wish for. The recording fits in as one of the very best recordings of 1973. It succeeds in not only capturing the ’73 version of the Wall Of Sound perfectly, but also presents an enormous helping of that hard to capture audience energy and spirit. It’s a multi-dimensional experience, and all of this in unavoidable as one listens to this tape.

Set 1: Promised, The Love Each Other, Mexicali Blues, Tennessee Jed, Looks Like Rain, Bird Song, Cumberland Blues, Row Jimmy, Jack Straw, Deal, Beat It On Down The Line, Black Peter, Playin’ In The Band

Set 2: Greatest Story Ever Told, Ramble On Rose, El Paso, Dark Star > Eyes Of The World > Stella Blue, Sugar Magnolia E: Saturday Night

1973 is known for a degree of repetitiveness in its first sets. It’s not that the band wasn’t playing a large repertoire of songs. There was plenty of variety there. I think it’s more a widely held opinion among traders born out of having listened to a lot of 1973 shows. I think the first sets are better described as “predictable.” However, perhaps it comes down to distance making the heart grow fonder, but when I listen back to 06/30/73’s first set now, it thoroughly satisfies. There is a powerful sense of ease and enjoyment flowing out of the music. The extremely predictable 1973 Promised Land opener feels full of smiles. They Love Each Other swings, and I have found myself unable to shake rolling the car windows down and playing this tune at full blast on recent summer days. It sets the air alight with dancing energy, and only grows as it goes. Jerry’s solo tumbles out, bobbing and weaving as if it were shaking its hair and stomping its feet. Just as we’re sure it’s over, he takes it around the track again lifting the energy all the more. The sound quality of this recording combined with the close proximity of the audience around the taper serve to create an intoxicating representation of the Dead in 1973 here, and it’s only just getting started.

Mexicali shimmers and is followed by a strong Tennessee Jed containing another solo in which Jerry stirs the energy pot to boiling, aided by Phil’s low end standing as large as the entire amphitheatre. The song crashes out of the solo, and the crowd goes nuts. A thick and warm Looks Like Rain follows, and then we arrive at Bird Song.

It’s early in the show, yet Bird Song casts out an energy much more aligned with precious time spent deep in the heart of a Grateful Dead concert. The music twinkles, as if rising off of a crystalline waterfall bathed in sunlight. In short order, we float out over its edge and begin a weightless journey into Jerry’s solo. It’s a moment that expands in every direction around you, shedding the personal borders of skin and bone, and fusing you to the music’s core. Bird Songs in 1973 were very consistent, and without fail, this one latches on to Dark Star elements wrapped in a slightly more lyrical presentation. Eventually, just before returning for the last verse, Garcia is playing harmonics with Keith echoing and playing off of them on the Fender Rhodes. The twinkling crystal is everywhere unraveling the mysteries of the universe and veiling the answers as quickly as they appear. Out of the last verse, we are set aloft again. This is heart opening music which spreads its own arms wide enough to embrace the entire horizon as a sunset’s light gently swirls like smoke off of a candle’s flame.

After Bird Song we are fully in the zone of a Grateful Dead show. The crowd idly hoots and hollers, while the band lazily puts together the building blocks of the next song. Cumberland Blues is coming as clear as day. This minute or so between songs finds me transfixed every time I listen. Something comes off of the tape which defies my own explanation. I don’t expect you to find it with me – it seems impossible to say, “listen to this amazing space between Bird Song and Cumberland,” so I won’t go out on that limb. In trying to give it a more tangible perspective, I think it’s simply more evidence of how this particular recording breathes with the strongest representation of a Dead Show’s energy, both within and in between the music. Again, the entire tape is like one enormous heartbeat in the pulse of 1973 Dead.

When Phil kicks it in to Cumberland Blues, we are off to the races. One thing that I have no trouble mentioning is my opinion that I find this to be my absolute favorite, and possibly the best Cumberland Blues I’ve ever heard the band play. It is this very recording that sparked and cemented my theory of thematic undercurrents running through the decades of this band. In this Cumberland, Viola Lee Blues is alive and well. Jerry is clearly allowing all the exploration of that earliest of Grateful Dead “jams” to infuse and distil into his Cumberland solo work. Psychedelic Bluegrass to the highest degree. When his solo begins to cycle into a whirlpooled syncopation leading down a twisting rabbit hole, the already clear Viola Lee tendencies come bursting forth causing us to laugh out loud and shake or heads in stark amazement. It’s molten primal Grateful Dead, splashing in every direction. If you play the game with me about which five Grateful Dead songs would you take to a desert island, this Cumberland Blues would be coming with me. The fire within this version provides an anchor to this show, and it spreads out in every direction.

Row Jimmy exudes its 1973 aura beautifully, followed by thoroughly enjoyable versions of Jack Straw, Deal, and Beat It On Down The Line. Black Peter is so perfectly placed in this first set, it can’t be imagined anywhere else. After BIODTL (that’s the old cassette label abbreviation of Beat It On Down The Line, kids. Did you need me to spell that out?) has drawn everyone to their feet for a free for all dance, Black Peter sends us all into the most serene and contemplative spaces of Grateful Dead music. It’s another quite campfire story moment as Jerry weaves his tale. His solo on this song surpasses expectation, bringing a lamenting sorrow onto the wings of eagles. The solo soars and floats, sears and settles directly into your heart. This beautiful version comes to an end and we are back in the zone with the audience in no hurry for whatever comes next. A guy screams out, “Hello, Jerry!” and we laugh lightly with the rest of the people around the mics. It’s another wonderful human layer coming off of this recording – a Dead show being captured in every way.

Playin’ In The Band demonstrates every characteristic which describes the Summer 1973 sound of the Grateful Dead. As the jam opens up, Billy’s drumming spirals out into jazzy riffs and downbeat defying patterns. He is at once fully charged, yet thoroughly laid back in the pocket, forcing nothing. The band on top of him wastes no time dropping completely into a controlled psychedelic wind storm and the tendrils give way, knot, compress, and zig zag back out with a never ending fluidity. The music balances between a looseness and being a daredevil contortionist in ways not fully explored earlier in the year, nor after. Garcia is rearing back and firing off phrases which coil into the air, extending beyond vision. They round corners trailing themselves in liquid never-ending reflections until it appears that all of the notes are made of one pure yet ever-changing voice. Everything is at once fragmented yet showing us precisely how it all fits together. The jam is remarkably too short. Not that it is substantially shorter than most normal Playin’s of the day, but it is clear that this particular version had things growing which could go on for eons. And on the next night, we’d find that Playin’ would not be contained, setting the pace for the song locking into a tradition of going on longer, and exploring much further, as the summer continued.

Set two arrives with Greatest Story Ever Told, and it absolutely nails the psychedelic strut boogie counterpoint that the song was hitting so well in 1973. It’s a fantastic second set opener, and mounts an ever expanding energy climax through the solo until the sound is pressing us back like a gale force wind. The crowd takes a while to simmer down afterwards, and just as it does, Ramble On Rose begins. In every way the epitome of that Europe ’72, American Dead sound, Ramble On Rose blurs the lines between rock and country leaving us with something wholly Grateful Dead. It’s a lot like Mississippi Half Step in that way. And this version shines a polish on everything distinctive about the song. If the tune could ever come off as a bit of a throw away, it isn’t happening here at all. Maybe having a bit to do with that dominant wall of sound that is pressing upon us, and the way Phil’s bass is occupying air to such an extent that we struggle for breath, this song satisfies entirely.

El Paso delivers a cascading cowboy kaleidoscope, spinning so quickly we can’t help but be swept up into a tumbleweed rolling frenzy. The song feels like it’s riding lightning and we can only grab on as tightly as possible not to be lost to the wind. And then a different wind blows in as Dark Star descends.

Like a magician blowing a handful of glittering dust particles out over the expectant crowd, Dark Star gently scatters into the air around us, each dust speck with its own comet trail streaming out behind. They all slowly begin to take alternate paths of flight as the music slowly builds in intention and direction. We veer into that quintessentially mid ’73 jazzy jamming and the music slowly topples in on itself only to spin and return with new colors and patterns extending off of each instrument. We eventually find ourselves in a fairytale garden of chimes and breezes, as breathtakingly gentle coming out of this monstrous sound system as the roaring press had been all consuming just a few songs prior. Now, we are lost in a quiet sea of mists as the first verse forms like a prophet out of thin air. Words are just sound fragments creeping out of the blanket of music around us. They give way, and the sounds settle down to the ground like impossible leaves of electric ivy. But the ground isn’t there and we appear lost in a vast and endless expanse of towering ribbons of music. They begin to twist and coil, talking in a language we can’t hope to absorb. This musical space increases in velocity, and the band is conjuring magic of untold secrets. There comes a massive low note out of Phil which shears off all but our most intimate layer of being. Moments later these sounds whisk out of existence and Jerry is shuffling into Eyes Of The World.

This Eyes is large. But there is never the sense of aimless noodling. Quite the contrary, as the song drives into its most extreme moments there is time and time again the sense that the music is being pushed out of its own skin – beat, harmony, and structure often lose purchase and venture briefly into pockets of chaos. This all happens without the song itself losing step anywhere. It’s more that the band is forcing itself to dare the entire world to implode, unafraid of the consequences, sure that the greater whole of the band will keep things together. The rapids boil and erupt everywhere, and the path of the river is lost, but the water rolls on and on. They slam in and out of the intricate 7/8 theme sections and race over shifting terrain. Eventually the music quiets featuring a trio of mostly Billy, Phil and Keith. Things idle for just a moment and then they rocket one last time back to the 7/8 theme which then launches another deep dive to the outer edges of the song structure. The music flies free and oozes between form and chaos beautifully. Garcia and Lesh are tipping to and fro, often following nearly incomprehensible paths. Finally, we work our way to Stella Blue.

A perfect landing for a big jam, Stella Blue and China Doll seemed to share this role throughout 1973. The crowd settles in, and the quiet reflective story unfolds. Again, the recording brings the musical panorama directly to the tip of our nose, and we sink in as Jerry croons, and plays soft lullaby colors.

Rocketing in the opposite direction, Sugar Magnolia and One More Saturday Night close out the show in a rocking and rolling frenzy. We are left exhausted, but equally ready to set the dial back to the parking lot and experience the show all over again – or perhaps just hang out with new friends until the show tomorrow night.

06/30/73 AUD etree source info
06/30/73 AUD Download


Related Post: The Ones That Get Away

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

1976 June 14 - Beacon Theater

Grateful F\Dead - Oakland 1976

GRATEFUL DEAD
Monday, June 14, 1976
Beacon Theater – New York, NY
Soundboard Recording

Just as picking a show from the early 80’s can present a daunting task when it comes to knowing which way to turn first, June 1976 is like a microcosm of the same problem. The Grateful Dead played a lot of shows marking the inaugural run in the band’s return to the road as a touring act in '76. It seems that nearly the entire month of June has always circulated in good quality, and the shows can sort of bleed together. Way back when we all had to build our tape collections through trade, a large portion of June ’76 was among the easiest music to find because the band had done so many FM simulcasts. This meant that soundboard quality recordings were being seeded, potentially by the hundreds, night after night, up and down the East Coast. Interestingly, certain shows from this run (Chicago Auditorium Theater) remained lost in the fog even from an audience tape perspective while the surrounding dates were easy pickings.

I’ve mentioned before how it seems that this overabundance of easy to find music from June contributes to the bad rap 1976 gets in general – so much material from, arguably, the low point of the year. And while I’ll be the first person to tell you that the music only continued to get better and better as 1976 rolled along, there is plenty to enjoy even as the band was shaking the rust off from its near 20 month hiatus. In fact, the highpoints among this historical “snoozer portion” of the year become that much more special precisely because one generally expects very little from June ’76.

I made early mention of one of my favorite Dead shows in general which happens to come from this time frame - the long time under-circulating masterpiece from June 9, 1976 - and here now is another show that has always managed to poke its colorful petals up over the rest of the June ’76 flower garden in my mind: June 14th from the Beacon Theater.

The show packs great energy, both from the band and audience (clear even on the soundboard), and the first set plays like an archival sample of everything good going on in 1976. In typical early 1976 fashion, nothing explodes (though Might As Well – often miss-documented as “Mighty Swell” – does fly over the top), but the entire set is a worthy listen. And it all rounds out with a memorable Playin’ In The Band.

Jerry Garcia 1976This Playin’ presents a wonderful balance of every direction the song could flow in 1976. Still a staple feature of Dead shows, 1976 saw Playin’ begin to more fully explore different rotation slots in the set lists beyond its hallmark set one closing role. It also started to traverse distinctly different temperaments as if reflecting the changing mood of the band – some would flow out in silky smooth oceans of psychedelic waves, while others could find their ways into jagged and treacherous terrains that boiled with fire and hail. 06/14’s Playin sits in the traditional set one closing spot, and seems to explore and taste both extremes of expression.

With sound quality on the soundboard source that rivals nearly all other tapes, when the band slides into the Payin’ jam everything is about as close to perfection as we could wish. With a terrific balanced mix of instruments, the sense of this six piece band as a true ensemble comes shining through on this tape. Everything weaves together as the band continues to pick up steam. There’s a lovely flow oozing in and out like one’s breath as they roll along. Eventually things quiet to a whisper and we find Playin’ set at the precipice that might have easily led to a roaring Tiger Jam two years earlier, but here in 1976 it hints more at Blues For Allah. The intensity builds again as if we have just passed though the eye of a hurricane, and we are slowly swept back into the fantastic stitch work of an intricate tapestry. Not long after, the drummers tip over an edge into pure rolling thunder – the beat has been consumed and the entire band begins to tremble and fracture leaving us both on dizzying heights and staring up at more impassable mountains of dark foreboding rock. Before a completely blinding meltdown can ensue, the band reappears and another phase of the jam takes form. The drummers come back to the beat while we were lost in some phrasing by Garcia, and soon there is the sense of all the instruments fitting together like massive planet sized gears of reflecting kaleidoscope glass. It’s as if the music can’t take a wrong turn. Each member zeroes in on a simple phrase of their own and they begin to repeat them into each other like the inner workings of a watch. This is one of the most subtle explorations of the band’s pure creative musical force, made somehow more precious by its delicate and fleeting nature. Capping off the jam section of a nearly twenty minute Playin’ In The Band, we find that we’ve travelled many diverse miles all while we otherwise thought we were just listening to another Dead show.

The Wheel opens set two, to the clear shock and delight of the crowd. The song came out on Garcia’s first solo LP in 1972 yet never made it into the live show line up until 1976. Here, the band is fully enjoying themselves (there’s even a nice “Woo!” let out along the way as they become clearly locked into the slow pulsing arch of the songs melodic runs). The solo section paints a majestic picture with Garcia dancing on tiptoe from star to star. It’s short lived, but no less enjoyable for it, as the song comes to a close just as we’re ready for it to go on forever.

There follows some fun stage chatter as no one seems to know what to play next, eventually seeing the band land on Samson & Delilah, followed by a tasteful High Time, and The Music Never Stopped.

With Crazy Fingers, we head into the meat of the second set. Always good for casting a subtly gentle, yet psychedelically mysterious mood, we find ourselves casually ambling through a misty evening as our peripheral vision seems to flicker with unseen light sources. The song trails off into the end portion improvisation and the slow turning galaxy wagon wheels are back. The tides shift, and just as we feel the arrival of a Spanish Jam, Bobby provides a distinctive tease into the Dancin’ that will follow. Gently the jam subsides leaving the drummers to assemble the backbone of Dancin’ In The Streets.

Grateful Dead 1976Dancin’ was a tune that matured over the years after its return in 1976, and the ’76 breed is often one that merits little attention. Truly the versions in the following year become epic. Here, however, we are gifted with some of Garcia’s most delicious solo work of the entire evening. When they launch into the jam, Jerry’s phrasing becomes that of a 1950’s jazz saxophone player (insert your favorite’s name here). The way he holds back, and then blows out phrases flying up and down the fret board provides us with the Jerry we are all so thankful for. His tasteful note selection, filling the syncopated spaces between the beats, brings nothing but smiles to your face. All in all, it’s an understated Dancin’, as most were in 1976. But it’s worth everything to ride with Jerry through the solo section.

Cosmic Charlie, another song seeing its revival in 1976, comes next and is delivered perfectly. Vocally, the song just takes you in and works its magic. And as the pulsing backbeat that bore The Wheel at the start of the set returns to ricochet and echo its way through this song too, we’re firmly locked into the hypnotic trance of the Grateful Dead.

Then the set caps off with the wonderful highlight of Help>Slip>Franklin, containing an improvisational masterpiece during Slipknot which firmly locks this entire show into its spot as one I’m always happy to return to and explore. Here, as the 1976 tour was getting started, this song trio was well rehearsed and sounding very much like the Blues For Allah album version while allowing the band plenty of space to work each rendition into its own unique direction, and all the while finding Garcia able to forget the correct ordering of the lyrics in Franklin’s Tower.

Help On The Way overflows with heartfelt and emotional vocal delivery by Jerry, and rides ever so sweetly through the extended solo section. The tempo is locked in the pocket, and everything shimmers and gleams as they roll into the last verse, and then deftly navigate the intricate path which leads to Slipknot. This jam is representational of a new direction for the Dead. Nothing they were doing in their first ten years sounded quite like this at all. And the music finds its way into a lovely expanse of long flowing phrases atop Bobby’s wide volume swells. A deeply explorative jam finds the musicians listening to and playing off of each other. For a long while we are buoyed in a borderless ocean of the jam’s theme, lost in a timeless space of coolly dark comfort.

Soon much of the jam drops away, leaving Garcia playing off of the drummer’s light accents. Slowly Phil works back in, layering his own solo efforts while Jerry’s notes fly past like meteor showers. Eventually the rest of the band assembles again, and off of Bobby’s seemingly forced change of direction inspired by Phil’s own thumping, the band slips into the heavenly realm of absolute bliss and musical satori that forces chills to electrically snake across your face and down into your heart. We are cast into a pure musical presence which sucks all attention into its own focused midst. There is nothing else in the universe at all. This short (painfully fleeting) passage calls back to the inspirational brilliance found deep within 1970 Dark Stars – joyful expression of exquisite musical passion. Experiencing this music when you can offer it your open heart is a healing event. Our souls filled to bursting, the inspiration fades and the band returns to the coolly dark and mysterious interplay we were comfortably enjoying moments ago. We ride the twisting river toward Frankin’s Tower and arrive in the song’s own uplifting energy and simplicity.

Nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile.

06/14/76 SBD etree source

Sunday, January 25, 2009

1972 April 14 - Tivoli Theater

Grateful Dead Europe '72 LP cover
GRATEFUL DEAD
Friday, April 14, 1972
Tivoli Theater – Copenhagen, Denmark
Audience & Soundboard Recordings

I’ll admit it. The fact that I’ve allowed this blog to go on for nearly one year without having made a stop in the Europe ’72 tour is darn near reprehensible. It’s a fundamentally critical juncture in the band’s performance history, and a pivotal component required in anyone’s tape collection – criteria that the GDLG uses to guide the selection of most every post anyway. I suppose our coming to it now is some reflection into how my own personal hop scotching around my tape collection has played itself out over the last twelve months. One thing’s for sure: it’s good to be here now.

There’s so much fantastic music during this two month run, I have long sat staring at it not knowing where to go first for a review here. There is no denying that this tour marked a certain zenith in creative output by the Grateful Dead. You can hardly go wrong dipping your hand into this cookie jar. Dates from this tour are etched in my mind – shows burned in my brain for their incredible highlights, beautiful sound quality, incredible rarity (back when trading and building a tape collection over years meant something. Gosh, does anyone remember when 05/25/72 finally appeared?). Despite these memories, the entire tour comes to blend together into one enormous adventure. In certain circles there is the persistent rationale that the folks in control of the Dead’s musical archive should simply release an enormous box set containing every note of this tour from front to back. In much the same spirit that the entire Fillmore East run from 1969 was release as one box, here we have another case of sensational music supporting the logic in doing it again. Of course, th Europe ’72 box would be quite a few times larger than anything previously released. Maybe a subscription series would make more sense? Regardless, the Vault holds a vast amount of music from this tour, all deserving of official release notoriety.

Jerry Garcia May 1972I have always tended to gravitate to the April shows over the May dates for some reason. So, finally, I have decided to crack open this door and let the light pour in, starting with 04/14/72 at the Tivoli Theater in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Tivoli Theater show is sort of unique in that there is a Soundboard, FM-broadcast, *and* a respectable Audience recording in circulation. The show seemed to always circulate partially in so-so FM. Eventually the soundboard started circulating in okay quality sometime in the late 90’s, and around 2004 the AUD was put into wide circulation by Matt Vernon via a connection overseas. Matt included a note from the guy who sent him the tape in his info file:

“Here's another audience tape from the back of the closet. I believe I got it over 20 years ago from a guy in France I was traveling with. Sorry, no other info - anyway, hope you can use it.”

And just like that, we saw a gem of an AUD come into circulation from Europe ’72 – a tour from which AUD tapes are painfully few and far between. I remember getting this show in the mail from Matt, quite completely out of the blue in 2004, a while after I had dropped out of the trading scene. Fantastic. All things considered, and taken with a hefty dose of caveats, this is a darn good recording. Note that it is by no means “high quality” in the way we have come to think of great recordings out of the early 70’s. There’s a ton of room ambience, boomy (yet wonderfully low) bass, and echoing vocals. It might be hard to appreciate if you haven’t previously raked all the horrendous 1970 AUD recordings over your ears, but this tape really shines, and if there happened not to be one note of this show circulating from the master SBD reels themselves, we could very easily view this tape as a treasured glimpse into a fabulous night with the Grateful Dead. All that said, today we can pick and choose how we want to get our ears around this show, including the inclusion of the gigantic set two jam as bonus material on the Golden Road box set release of the Europe ’72 album.

Consistently, the shows from Europe ’72 were hot from start to finish. The band seemed thrilled to be on the other side of the pond, and most shows were charged right out of the gate with strong energy and excitement. 04/14/72 was no exception. Everything from this tour has a charmed quality to it, and even the first sets are beautiful case studies in this wonderful vibe and energy.

Jerry Garcia 197204/14/72 is a show well worth enjoying from the beginning. The Bertha finds Jerry in fine form. Vocally, he drives the energy of the band sky high, and everything has an extra added punch. And something worth paying extra attention to here is the Playin’ In The Band. This song saw its own special growth spurt on this tour in particular. It left the states typically topping out at around ten minutes, and ended the tour out at about seventeen, never to shrink back again. The versions in Europe seem to have an exceptionally concentrated flavor to them, and you can hear the full grown monster coming into being the whole way through. 04/14’s version is a glowing example of this. It hurtles itself out into a spiraling, cascading storm of star light and electricity. Within the first minutes of the jam, the entire band trembles near the point of explosion, a wall of pulverizing energy. It then tears across terrain like a lava flow, forever leaving its mark on the evening – this will be no simple rock and roll show. In retrospect, we know the band is stretching its legs here, delivering a wickedly potent spoonful of extreme psychedelia. It permeates the blood, and continues to alter body chemistry, headed for a full flowering in set two.

Kicking off the second set, we are treated to another song that was maturing while in Europe: Truckin’. Here, we find the Truckin’ jam picking up where Playin’ left off. Jerry’s soloing is a wonderful ride atop the song’s up tempo march. Everything blends together with that wonderful growing psychedelic energy which the band would continue to expand upon, eventually using Truckin’ as a launch pad into huge second set jams time and time again in following years. Here, the tune remains a stand alone, wrapping back into a final chorus to finish off the song nicely.

It’s impossible not to bring up Looks Like Rain when discussing this show, as Jerry actually played his Pedal Steel for this evening’s rendition. Haunting, yearning, soulful. It’s hard not to wish Garcia had managed to use his Steel more often with the Dead. But, having played in a band myself, I can fully sympathize with how much of a pain it would have been to keep an instrument like the Pedal Steel in tow, set up, tuned, and ready on a nightly basis when it clearly wouldn’t be getting an extremely consistent work out. Regardless, it is wonderful to hear it here, and it sets the stage nicely for the next song.

Dark Star begins coiled a little more tightly than one would generally expect. While the phrasing is melodic and singing with a certain gentle lilt, the music is charged with energy – moving quickly from one idea to the next. Just after four minutes, riding along Garcia’s cantering phrases, the entire musical experience gels down at a deeper level, and begins to soar upward. Hypnotic sorcery pervades everything as the music begins to slip and turn liquidly into whirlpools of prism-hued misty clouds which sink, unabated, deeply into the listener’s lungs. Within mere breaths, the music has shed its reliance on time and individuality. Pure musical satori takes over, and there is an unmistakable sense that the music is creating itself. Gentle pockets of angel-like grace appear and recede over and over again, like the soft singing of dew drops on sleeping flower petals. This mystic symphony begins to spread out into fathomless reaches of space, as Jerry gently eases his volume knob up and down. A gorgeous section of give and take between Garcia, Weir and Lesh plays out wonderfully at our feet, followed by the drums re-entering the picture (we hardly knew that had left), and the Dark Star theme returns. Verse one appears seventeen minutes into the song.

As we begin to follow a dark wooded path that leads away from the verse, our tether to the ground is loosened slightly. It opens us up to the infusion of a quick paced jam that whisks us across miles of twisted terrain, bobbing and weaving between mountains and trees, under pebbles and leaves, across vast crystal clear lakes with moonlit beds seen fathoms below the surface. The jam turns into the “Feelin’ Groovy-ish” descending four chord jam that would turn up between China Cat Sunflower and I Know You Rider in the following years. It explodes from the heart with a pure white hot joy, singing a rapturous song of love before fragmenting beautifully into a million mirrored crystal droplets of light, all turning slowly in a twisted dance of orbits that grow ever-darker, tinged with red flame reflecting against wet rock. Piercing and groaning, the music defies form, until somehow, as if from a universe we left ages ago, Sugar Magnolia appears.

Garcia rides through the song with the same wha wha effect that he was using to dismantle time only seconds ago, and this lends fantastic connective tissue back into the Dark Star we left behind. After his first solo, he turns off the wha, and we are treated to the full blown ecstasy of Sugar Mag, a year or so before it completely formed into a heavy weight show closing rocker. Here, it still flies on its somehow sunshiny, country rockin’ smile that seemed to fade as the mid-70’s took form. Paired with Dark Star like this, we get two wonderful extremes of the Dead at their best. But, it ain’t even over, as Sugar Magnolia slips itself right into Good Lovin’ with Pigpen stepping up to the microphone.

Pigpen 04-26-72In a display that reminds us of one of the most painfully lost elements of the Grateful Dead after the passing of Pigpen, we get treated to the amazingly infectious psychedelic sweaty bluesy romp that always typified Good Lovin’ back in the day. Layer onto this another awesome Pigpen rap, and we have a hallmark Dead moment on hand, made even more precious by the fact that, come the band’s return to the states, this jewel in their repertoire crown would have to be removed with Pig’s declining health and exit from the group. It also must be noted that Bobby’s playing is absolutely incredible on this Good Lovin’. He gets into some phrases and tonal explosions that are not to be missed. The heat continues to rise as the band reaches into a burning energy of music typically associated with their play of 1970. And then we enter Caution.

Garcia’s guitar growls its way into the jam, and eventually begins firing off lines like a voodoo witch doctor casting spells. This is another elemental thematic undercurrent of the band at play. This late-era Caution makes it easy to tie together the bluegrass/psychedelic underpinnings that exist within Viola Lee Blues, Cumberland Blues, and Caution itself. As the song drives on, everything dissolves and reforms before our eyes. Pigpen improvises a brief Who Do You Love verse into the fray, and we are then assaulted by hurricane force winds as the music delivers crippling blows to the time signature, while Billy never lets go of the driving beat. And then there’s Pigpen again, rapping along while the band turns the corner effortlessly back into Good Lovin’, making for an excellent finish.

And there’s still more to come. To close things out there is a fantastic Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad > Not Fade Away with a tight little China Cat Sunflower jam tuck in there for good measure. Not Fade Away stomps along in its standard rocking fashion, eventually spreading its arms wide into the light shuffle that ushers in Goin’ Down The Road. Bobby offers up his China Cat lick, and Garcia chimes in on guitar with a lovely take on his own vocal line. It gloriously slides into Goin’ Down The Road, and nothing could feel better. Here we are steeped in the very essence of that Grateful Dead Americana Folkloric Psychedelic music that so epitomizes the band across the years. As the solo sections mount, Garcia absolutely beams with light and showering energy. Not Fade Away returns and the rafters shake as the set comes to a close. Bobby, steps to the mic and tries to introduce the encore, but can only manage a mumble. The band laughs and rocks out One More Saturday Night to end the night.

Whether you choose SBD or AUD (or both), you’re sure to enjoy this visit to Europe ’72.

04/14/72 AUD etree source info
04/14-72 AUD Download

04/14/72 SBD etree source info
04/14/72 SBD Stream








Tuesday, December 16, 2008

1973 November 17 - Pauley Pavilion

Jerry Garcia 10/25/73
GRATEFUL DEAD
Saturday, November 17, 1973
Pauley Pavilion UCLA – Los Angeles, CA
Soundboard Recording


When I think back to some of the most pleasurable aspects of tape trading from back in the pre-high speed days, little compares to the anticipation of getting home to check the mailbox, coupled with finding it crammed with padded envelopes full of tapes. Opening the envelope, seeing what a trading partner may have included in the way of tape covers and extra info, setting up to taste test each tape for little 20 to 30 second listening samples to see what sound quality was going to be like – all of this stuff made up a lot of the personal joys in tape trading.

Deadbase IXAnother fond memory was the time spent pouring over my copy of Deadbase IX, reading over set lists and show reviews in an effort to figure out which shows I was going to go after in my next trade. Mostly, there are well worn, finger smudged page edges covering the 1973-1974 section of my Deadbase. I spent a lot of time there. I remember first landing upon the concept of the "Playin’ Sandwich" while reading some review, thinking about how cool it must be to hear the band slip from one song to another, and another, only to slip back in reverse order again. How cool must that be?! And the first sandwich I got my hands on was this classic from 11/17/73.

At the time, only a partial second set circulated. It was a one-tape-wonder picking up with its famous Playin’ sandwich: Playin’ > Uncle John’s Band > Morning Dew > Uncle John’s Band > Playin’. This is a classic Grateful Dead tape; another that most everyone would or will get their hands on eventually. And it lives up to all expectation, defining everything that was characteristically Dead in the closing portion of 1973.

Dropping right over the edge into the jam, Playin’ In The Band immediately finds itself in a liquid and flowing river of music. By late 1973, the Dead had mastered what we typically think of, or hear as, the 1973 sound. The loose and lazy jazz-like leanings of the Summer had given way to something more tight, and intricately driven. The band was sounding more in control, and at ease with all that 1973 brought to their playing style. Billy and Jerry personify these qualities together as we listen to the jam unfold. Things are hot, but not bristling with electricity. The impression is one of a river coursing quickly over boulders low enough in the waters not to create white caps or rapids across the surface. But the undercurrent’s speed is unavoidable. As the jam moves along, the river comes to fill not only the space below you, but all levels of perception – in nearly no time, the music fills all experience. Eyes shut tight, we corkscrew and coil through an endless landscape of swiftly breathing shapes and borders. When there is time to perceive the parts of the whole, you can’t help but be amazed at how closely the band is listening to one another. Phrases pass back and forth, volume swells and recedes, and all things demonstrate that the band is far less a five-piece, and more undeniably one single expressive force bound eternally together.

Grateful Dead 09/26/73The fluidity of how the band makes its decision to head toward Uncle John’s Band approaches the miraculous. So softly at first, then disappearing, then coming fully into view. Landing at the softly lapping riverside of Uncle John’s is heartwarming. As the song begins, you can barely believe it’s happening, coming out of the amazing segment beforehand. It makes it all the more enjoyable. UJB plays on, and is filled with that timeless presence so true of many Dead songs. There is a comfortable familiarity and joyfulness to the song. The music moves into the 7/8 time signature section, and again the fluidity returns as the river pulls you back in. Dropping slowly away, Morning Dew begins.

1973 Morning Dews are a luscious breed; so warm, and so tender at times. With this one, Jerry’s vocals are riveting. You feel like he’s singing out his tale with you sitting right at his feet – a sensation plentifully common throughout the Dead’s concert history. Again, there is a certain sense of safety and comfort playing out of the music. Garcia’s solo in the middle of the song is forcefully triumphant, matched toe to toe by Phil’s enormous thundering of notes. It is then particularly entrancing to hear them exit this section into the last verse, playing as softly as mist over mountains. The haunting beauty of Jerry’s final “I guess it doesn’t matter anyway” lines, followed by the intensely delicate build of the final solo are forever burned into my brain. There’s a single note where Jerry rides the volume knob just a bit. It penetrates to the bottom of my heart. Then the music floats and sparkles its way further and further along a path leading us higher and higher. As Morning Dew gives way, making a sharp turn back into Uncle John’s Band, the experience is breathtaking, good enough to offset the fact that we don’t reach the always appreciated climax of the song itself.

Uncle John’s returns and finishes off the vocals, cart wheeling almost immediately back into the deepest and most gooey rich sections of a Playin/Uncle John jam on the shoulders of Garcia’s wha wha pedal. The following section is pure 1973 satisfaction. Jerry’s notes cry out in expressive emotions, lifting the music into a swirling dance of inspiration. While there’s little denying that we are firmly fixed in a Playin’ jam, it is still as freeform and improvisational as you could imagine. Eventually energies being to explode and erupt around us, towering jets of musical power pushing to the edge of what we call music, hinting at complete meltdown, but never giving way. We are perfectly balanced between two phases of the Dead’s musical growth during this period. We can fully hear the lush and breezy playing style of 1973, layered over the mounting energy of crafty musicianship that would bend and turn at more mind numbing angles as 1974 took form – a great window into the band as it was ever evolving and pushing personal boundaries. Playin’ returns to cap off the sandwich perfectly, and we come away almost unable to believe it all just played out this way. Just wonderful.

Phil Lesh 10/25/73The entire show now circulates, and there is plenty to enjoy, including a great Eyes of the World with its swiftly swinging tempo and rich rolling jazzy explorations. But this date will forever be most famous for containing one of the best Playin’ sandwiches of its age. Whether you’re hearing it for the first time, or ready for a long overdue return visit, this is vintage Grateful Dead in top form.

There are a bunch of different sources floating around for this tape as well, and I’ve picked what I feel to be the most clean – not in the sense of sound quality (the SBD is A quality, and always has been), but more from the processing side. I’m not a big fan of tapes that are run through EQ and sound processing enhancements. That’s just me. So, rather than opting for a copy that has been enhanced in any way, I’m sticking old school here. Plenty of pure bliss to go around just as it is. Enjoy.

11/17/73 SBD etree source info

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

1974 July 31 - Dillon Stadium

Grateful Dead Wall of Sound 07/31/74

GRATEFUL DEAD
Wednesday July 31, 1974
Dillon Stadium - Hartford, CT
Audience Recording


Billy Degen ate some mushrooms.

Undoubtedly feeling no regret over possibly eating them a little bit earlier than might have been prudent for the task at hand, it is this that left him unable to navigate the complex diodes, plastic coatings, and vibratory electrical fields of his recording gear, each of these competing for attention as the 07/31/74 Dillon Stadium show began. That and the full-on pleasure of a Grateful Dead show getting underway while he sat in a very sweet spot indeed. While he made attempts to get the tape going and recording correctly, it wasn’t until he eventually found an opening where the slowly shifting panes of his mental kaleidoscope glass came into something of a focus, that Bill was able to pull all the elements together and get the tape going in time for Mississippi Half Step.

Grateful Dead 07/31/74What he managed to come away with was one of the most multi-dimensional AUD recordings we have from 1974. This tape runs the gamut of audience tape clichés, for good and bad. There are rowdy people chattering all over the place (including a classic where someone inches from the microphone quietly asks if it is a microphone), shifting winds saturating the mics, the sound of trucks rushing along the highway that borders the stadium (they tend to sound like prop planes flying over head), people bumping into stuff, the mics changing positions (often more than once in the same song), the odd tape cut here and there – yet on top of everything, this recoding is also one of the best documents of the Wall Of Sound captured out-of-doors in 1974. At times (especially when it really counts) this recording manages to transport the listener deeply into the pure heart of the legendary sound system. This tape does what only a few from the year pull off well – it demonstrates precisely how loud the Dead were in 1974, and really manages to grab the highest highs and lowest lows that billowed off the stage. The music roars and the energy soars in ways that most other tapes, even good ones, only wish they could emulate.

It was these latter, more positive aspects of the tape the drew me to choose it specifically to be featured on Grateful Dead Hour radio show #751 when host David Gans reached out to me with the idea of featuring a 1974 Wall Of Sound AUD tape on the program. As hard as it can be to decide just what show to review next on the GDLH, picking the right tape for the Grateful Dead Hour back in 2003 was truly painful. As much as it made sense to pick what might be one of the best AUDs ever, Jerry Moore’s 06/23/74, we decided to go for an outdoor recording since it would remove any worry over hall ambience, and thus translate a bit better to the compressed wavelengths of radio. In the end, I was very happy with the way this choice translated to the radio show.

For kicks, I have posted a MP3 version of Grateful Dead Hour 751 for those of you interested in hearing my interview as the online, banner waving, audience tape lover that I was (am).

What kept me from lofting this tape up as one of my first posts on the blog is the same thing that saw me hold off a bit on 06/24/70. The less than savory aspects of this recording could be construed as off-putting to one not somewhat ingratiated into AUD tape listening. So, by now, anyone who has found his or her ears warmed to the ups and downs of AUD tapes will have no problem panning for the gold on this tape. It is there in plentitude. Some moments shine through more than others, and without a doubt, this entire Summer ’74 show is filled with great versions of many songs (three sets worth). I will focus on some of the moments forever burned into my brain.

Jerry Garcia 07/31/74With Eyes of the World, the absolute majesty of this tape fully comes through. The crowd is almost immediately drawn into full attention, the ambient hoots, hollers, and conversations all but fading completely out of the field of Bill’s microphones. And straight off of the intro soloing, we can feel Jerry Garcia choosing his lines with great lyrical care. He seems more intent than usual in expressing distinctly voiced phrases.

After Phil’s solo, the song seems to tumble over an edge, unraveling itself into multiple shifting paths. It expands at several different angles causing our footing to give way into sweet confusion with no idea which direction comes next. The music eventually turns a corner as the band runs through the 7/8 time signature theme that adorned all Eyes in ‘73-‘74, and then glides effortlessly into China Doll. Here, the Wall Of Sound finds its way so deeply into your head as to turn it in on itself. You sense the enormity of the physical crowd and sound system, while feeling that the entire musical experience is yours, without outside ambience. This is the hallmark of a wonderful outdoor audience recording.

This show also has what might rank as my all time favorite Let It Grow. The jamming sections on this one find the band at the peak of their 1974 tightness. There is never any sense that the jam is just going along seeking for a foothold. It is endlessly locked in, constantly blossoming into new colors and textures, outdoing itself by ascending to a gorgeous peak in the final section where the Bobby and Phil begin lightly shredding their notes as Garcia soars higher and higher. It’s a beautiful crescendo, not repeated in any other version of the song anywhere.

Grateful Dead audience Dillon Stadium - Hartford CT July 31, 1974Then, of course, there is the mammoth Truckin’ jam from this show. Filled with a Mind Left Body Jam, into Spanish Jam, back into Mind Left Body Jam *after* the Truckin’ itself goes for 18 minutes, this set three jam is one for the ages. Two things always spring to mind for me with his tape. First, there’s the guy who shouts “Yeah, do it!” during the second or third verse of the song. For some reason, this is my favorite on-tape audience member moment of them all. It’s perfectly timed, and brimming with energy. Second is the mid jam Truckin’ rev up. You know, it’s that part of the song where Jerry starts circling on a triplet that climbs up the guitar neck, as the rest of the band joins him. This one from 07/31/74 has nary any equal, finding Jerry taking things up even higher on the neck that you can imagine, all while Phil is zigzagging notes at rough hewn angles in chaotic tempo. As it boils over you, it’s one of those moments of audience tape rapture – all this going on around you as a sea of people lock into the music in a vast outdoor stadium, in the Summer of 1974, while our intrepid young taper, Bill Degen, manages to reap the rewards of overcoming all the challenges that tapers faced – navigating deck, batteries, tape flips, levels, and paying attention to all of it during a Dead show.

The jam goes on and on from there, and despite the odd tape cut or two, the musical experience is well worth it. It’s great to hear how this overly rowdy audience can settle into near silence and attention as the band deeply explores the jam. And late in the improvisation, Phil reflects back to the gentle shredding done in the Let It Grow. It’s a wonderful tie in, bringing these tendrils back together late in the show.

Phil Lesh 07/31/74At the time that I circulated Bill’s tape, the only SBD of this show was very subpar, and not in heavy circulation. So much so, that this date got no attention what-so-ever. And even now that the full SBD circulates, Bill’s AUD brings something far more special to the listener. First put into digital circulation via the Audience Devotional Tree in January of 2002, it is a true pleasure to share this tape again with you now.

And a special thank you needs to go out to Bill Degen. Bill, you were largely responsible for my coming to appreciate AUD tapes from the start, having sent me copies of 07/01/73, 08/06/74, set two of 06/23/74, this 07/31/74 tape, and so many more. In a true example of the good side of the Internet trading community, we met in an AOL chat room of all places, and became fast friends and trading partners from there. As the years moved along, you even trusted me with your precious 7” reel copies of your master tapes that fell victim to your house fire many years ago, so I could transfer them and set them into digital circulation. I wouldn’t be here without you.

07/31/74 AUD etree source info
07/31/74 AUD Download

Audience Devotional Tree Round 9 – January, 2002

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