The Grateful Dead and the New Riders play two nights at the old 2500 seat once-venerable Eastown Theater on Detroit’s East Side. A notable addition to this tour was Keith Godchaux on keyboards who, on this weekend, was all over it on B3 and the shittiest, most out-of-tune piano in Michigan. Garcia joined the NRPS both evenings on pedal steel. This would be the last tour he would perform with the band he co-founded in 1969 with John Dawson and David Nelson.

The opening Saturday night gig is a fun but surprisingly jam-free affair, featuring a slew of tunes from the new live double album, Skullfuck. The first set begins with a burner of a Bertha with a fiery vocal delivery from Garcia. A succinct take on the Hunter/Weir/Hart tune Playing In The Band is next. Although it clocks in at a mere 7 minutes, the middle jam is coyly hinting at where the song will be headed the following year. “This here’s a song about more than one card game,” says Lesh before they transition to Loser. Godchaux hops back on B3, adding a nice flavor to Hunter’s lyrics. Garcia and Weir continue trading numbers as the band rolls out solid versions of Sugaree, Ramble on Rose, Cumberland Blues, Brokedown Palace, and the first One More Saturday Night played on an actual Saturday.

The energy from Weir’s soon-to-be hit single spills over into the Set 2 Casey Jones opener, which is delivered with verve. Other keepers from the show’s back half include boss takes on Tennessee Jed and Comes A Time, a full-tilt boogie standalone Truckin,’ and a burly 19-minute Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad > Not Fade Away finale, that features lots of ensemble interplay and a cool Garcia/Lesh conversation during the last segue. Unfortunately, there’s not an encore in sight. But just wait for Sunday, it’ll burn off your little ears.

Although the 10/23 show gets a WABX-fm broadcast as part of Warner Brothers promotion of the band’s new LP, the Sunday night show is where I put my money. After another fine opening set from the NRPS, the new and improved Good Old Grateful Dead play one of their most memorable gigs of the autumn run. The first frame is straight ahead ‘71 fare, beginning with four workman-like performances of Sugar Magnolia, Deal, Tennessee Jed, and Jack Straw. The China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider that follows is a shear delight, with active Lesh bass, a lovely Garcia bridge jam, and beautiful full group harmonies on the back end. Next in the queue, is Playing In The Band; Godchaux’s presence is immediately felt as he switches from B3 to piano, and the song is given a new dimension with his added conversational touches during the Main Ten breaks. The set concludes with a double shot of Garcia—a sweetly played and sung Black Peter/ Candyman combo—followed by another helping of Weir’s One More Saturday Night and a rocked out Casey Jones to take us into the intermission.

The second frame kicks off with an energized Truckin,’ followed by one of my favorite early versions of Ramble on Rose, even with the nasty tape cut. Jerry goes at this one full on, big licks and impassioned vocals. A quick tuning break and Weir’s understated comments about doing another song in the key of D, leads to Mexicali Blues, an apt choice for the 3-slot. The new Ace track paves the way for the big jam sequence of the evening, punctuated by a magnificent Dark Star suite. In a year where the Dead were concentrating more on being a straightforward rock and roll band, detours into Dark Star were a bit rare. The versions they did perform were less predictable than those in 1970, and the jams become more expansive through the year after Godchaux joined the fray.

Tonight’s take on the Hunter/Garcia song is a voyage—extremely loose, open, and moving in unexpected directions before transitioning to Me & Bobby McGee. The music starts out at a slower tempo, with Keith elegantly filling in the spaces between the guitars. It’s only his second time playing the tune live and he dives right in, assuming a dual lead with Garcia and following him down various melodic paths. Kreutzmann begins on the shaker, landing on his kit after Lesh breaks open the pulse jam. Godchaux’s piano colors unify the jam before the ensemble transitions to the main theme and Garcia’s singing of the first verse. Following the first stanza, the group forgoes the usual drop into space and, instead, simply continues the pre-verse theme they were mining. Keith and Phil create a gorgeous tension, pushing the sextet to a new thematic center, and Garcia improvises over a high-speed Feelin’ Groovy jam while the other musicians sustain a groove, that eventually dissolves elegantly into the second verse. The outro segues nicely—under Weir’s guidance—to the Kristofferson/Foster country chartbuster Me & Bobby McGee. The band ain’t done yet, hanging around for three more tunes—a cool late set Cumberland Blues that sounds fresh with Keith’s piano and Phil’s new quadriphonic bass, and a rocking St. Stephen > Johnny B. Goode combo to close things out.

A few months before these Detroit shows, Garcia sat down with Charles Reich and Jan Wenner at his and MG’s house in Sans Souci. They spoke of many topics and the interview was published in the excellent book Signpost to New Space (DaCapo Press, 1972). At one point in the conversation Garcia spoke a bit about Dark Star. Responding to Reich’s inquiry about whether Dark Star manifested differently every time the band played it, Garcia concurred and embellished a bit: “Yeah, pretty much. There are certain structural poles which we have kind of set up in it, and those periodically we do away with. That's why we came up with such a thing; there are a few things that we do which are vehicles for that openness....”

The Eastown Dark Star flight is surely one of those instances where the structure is established and then discarded for that “openness” the song lends itself to. In a year when Dark Star was essentially stripped down and rebuilt, the 10/24 outing stands as a high water performance. Garcia is playing with more bite than the other takes from the fall and, rather than having one big climax, it’s steadily inventive all the way through. Of note, it’s the last ‘71 Star to include both verses.

Bob Mathews 11/23 tape

Bob Mathews 11/24 tape

11/24 (Partial Set 2 mp3)

The Grateful Dead share a double bill with the venue co-operators Jefferson Airplane. Unfortunately, Fleetwood Mac missed the run (their would-be U.S. debut) due to visa issues. Beginning in March of ‘68, the Dead and the Airplane played the Carousel Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights for dancing. San Francisco Chronicle music critic Ralph Gleason described the ‘dance-concert’ scene at the Carousel at that time as more concert than dance. “...they are still much better than the night club atmosphere, freer, more informal, and with much better vibrations,” he wrote. As for the June 9th show, Gleason noted, “The house was jammed but people stood, rooted by the physical proximity of others, and danced from the ankles up.”

The 6/8 tape opens with the earliest full St. Stephen. It’s raw, accelerated, and not settled into its groove yet. Only Jerry seems to have the words down, but the music flows reaching an impressive drive before Garcia and Lesh use the old Dark Star intro as a signal to end. From here, they roll out an ace That’s It for the Other One > Turn On Your Lovelight combination. The Cryptical Envelopment outro into Lovelight is played in a different key than usual, which throws off Pigpen. Weir awkwardly takes the first verse before the band drops into a drum break and recovers. The recording concludes with a fantastic early reading of Morning Dew and a flavorful take on It Hurts Me Too.

The 6/9 fragment begins with commentary from Weir: “Whoever stole our scratcher, please bring it back. You can just unobtrusively start passing it forward and no one will ever know. Reward offered. We need it for the next number.” And with that, the set kicks off with the first extended Dark Star, 16 minutes, and the only one recorded between March-August of 1968. It takes five minutes before the first verse. The middle section is played well with Garcia liberating the sextet around the 11-minute mark; the music begins to soar before a tape flip and a soft landing in some hand percussion that subtly shifts to the drum kit. St. Stephen is next up, and the transition is flawless. The band is starting to hedge closer to the classic St. Stephen bounce, still working on the phrasing and dynamic flow. The set concludes with another spin through Turn On Your Lovelight. McKernan is very much in his element on this version.

In March of 2022, the Owsley Stanley Foundation broke the news that they had unearthed some lost reels from Bear’s archive. The announcement read: “Grateful Dead, Carousel Ballroom, June 1 or June 8, 1968: This very special set of three mystery reels was preserved thanks to the generous contributions of adopt-a-reel patrons: Dean Budnick, Aaron Barksdale, and the Minnesota White Lightning Alliance.” The tape boxes indicate only that it’s a Dead show recorded on a Saturday night. One of the tape boxes, labeled by Bear after-the-fact, indicates that it might be “’68?” and “possibly the Carousel.”

I don’t know about you, but I’m very ready for more Grateful Dead music from these final Carousel Ballroom shows. Hearing these tracks in their early stages of development is such a gift. Let’s hope there’s an official Bear’s Sonic Journals release of the June closing run in the not-too-distant future.

Owsley tape

The Grateful Dead play a benefit gig along with a very mysterious cast, which featured a Sufi choir, a few whirling dervish dancers, and Yogi Bhajan (the Sikh teacher who introduced Kundalini Yoga to the West). If this wasn’t weird enough, local members of Kailas Shugendō, a Buddhist sect dressed in oriental-style hiking attire, presented a ritual firewalk on stage.

Of course, this wasn’t the first time the Dead played for free at a psychospiritual gathering replete with freaks, music, dancing and celebrating. The February 19, 1969 Celestial Synapse at Bill Graham’s Fillmore West—organized by the Frontiers in Science—included The Golden Toad, Don Hamrick, Don McCoy, and the writer- activist Stephen Gaskin. In addition to an opulent Grateful Dead soundtrack, the event featured three simultaneous light shows, plenty of Owsley’s latest tabs, and an abundance of nakedness. The Dead played a flowing improvisatory set of new material that, in spite of the weird, anarchic recording, is really worth checking out.

The late March midweek show at Winterland wasn’t as well attended as the Frontiers of Science happening, but equally weird and charged nevertheless. John Coate, who had just gotten back to the Bay Area after going on a cross-country bus caravan with Stephen Gaskin and the family that would soon found The Farm in Tennessee, was in attendance. In a 2013 interview, Coate recalled the Sufi benefit as “…a gig oriented toward all the spiritual hippies. It started out with this guy—he was a white guy, but he was like a Tibetan Buddhist guy named Dr. Ajari. And the first thing they did on the stage was have this kind of fire ceremony. Things were so loose back then—they literally lit these fires on the stage, and this guy walks on these coals and stuff. It’s a pan on the stage.”

Following the ember trodding Buddhists, the Sufi choir kicked off the musical portion of the night. They played a few of their devotional pieces, and then were joined by Grateful Dead members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Bill Kreutzmann, for their final two numbers. Michael Parrish, keeper of the excellent Cryptical Developments blog, said of the Dead’s exchange with the Sufi ensemble to be “…very much like what happened at the Egypt shows, when they were accompanying Hamza El-Din and his troupe of musicians. And it was beautiful. It was really just transcendent music.” For anyone interested, I’ll link the The Dead and the Sufi Choir, 3/71 episode of the Deadcast below so you can learn more about the event and hear a bit of the long-lost tape that documents the unusual collaboration.

Jerome and the boys finally plug in at 11 pm for their regular set. Some new Alembic mics are getting a test run and Weir heartily approves. They open with a burner of a Greatest Story Ever Told > Johnny B. Goode combination. For all you GD historians, the latter is included on Skullfuck and is the only non-NYC recording on the album. The band sounds tight on their new songs, including ace takes on Bertha and Loser. The Mathews mix is warm, with balanced instrumentation and vocals. In the middle of the frame, we get the first big jam sequence via a 24-minute Truckin’ > Drums > The Other One medley. It doesn’t go too deep, but rolls hard just the same.

The back half keeps the energy flowing, beginning with a solid Casey Jones. “We’ve got Pigpen here but we forgot to bring an organ,” Garcia announces before they dish out the next one, a smoking Hard To Handle with plenty of mojo from the Pigger and a fiery Weir/Lesh jam. After an early compact version of Playing in the Band, the lads lean into what would become the standard closer for the next few years—a Not Fade Away sandwich, with Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad. It’s adventurous and features a truckload of Garcia magic and plenty of bouncy bass from Phil. The night ends with a sweet Uncle John’s Band encore which feels just right to me.

Winterland always brought out the best in the Dead, and this Wednesday night with 4000 miscellaneous fans, freaks, mystics, religionists, and spiritualists, surely fits the bill. Dig in and see for yourself.

Bob Mathews tape

Sufi Choir Deadcast

If you want to hear what the Grateful Dead sounded like six months before the release of Live/Dead and the lauded 1969 line-up, this Jorma Kaukonen field tape is a telling record of the band’s hard-driving, opulently psychedelic 1968 soundscape. With two-thirds of the ’68 shows lost and many of the surviving documents being incomplete, this one is a real find. A caveat regarding the sound quality: the onstage microphone set-up swims quite a bit, has a number of drop-outs, and contains almost no upfront vocals in the mix. Despite these obvious liabilities, the music is breathtaking from start to finish. In fact, if pressed to produce a recording that perfectly documents the raging power of the Grateful Dead’s nineteen sixty-eight feverish, improvisatory gestalt, I strongly believe that the May 18th Santa Clara performance should always be in the conversation.

The American music journalist Greil Marcus was in attendance for the Dead’s matinee outing. He remembers Tom “Big Daddy” Donahue introducing the band, announcing that their new album would be out that week, and suggesting that the Dead might play some numbers from it during their set. Marcus wrote: “Jerry Garcia smiled benignly to himself. He said they’d do ‘Alligator’ and they did, for about forty minutes. That was their set and it blew the place wide open.”

Listening to the swelling, monstrous groove of this performance, I’d have to agree.

Jorma Kaukonen tape

A week into leg two of the European vacation, the Dead play a free outdoor concert in Lille, the northern capital of the Hauts-de-France region near the Belgium border. It’s a make-up performance for the gig they were to give a few weeks prior—necessitated by a sabotaged, broken down equipment truck and no gear—following two historic nights at the Olympia Theatre in Paris. Though the crowd was mostly made up of local residents who happened to be passing by the Lille Fairgrounds that Saturday afternoon, there were also a number of Dead Freaks who’d tried to see them a week earlier at the Rotunda in Faches-Thumesnil, including Philippe Andrieu who snapped the great photos included here.

When the Dead pulled into town that Mother’s Day afternoon, none of residents suspected anything. Before the ever-present force of social media it was, as Bill Kreutzmann would share in a later interview, “…catch us if you can.” The Lille weather was cold and overcast and the stage was exposed, with the exception of scaffolding tarps draped over the left and right speaker arrays. “There were some rain showers but it was certainly psychedelic,” Kreutzmann said. Phil Lesh would later recall that for those few hours on stage after the rain in the north of France, he lived in a Seurat or a Cézanne painting.

Before any music went down, there were the customary equipment hassles, tuning, and stage banter, which included Phil recounting a story for the unassuming French crowd about a guy who asked the Dead to take part in a movie where they gigged at a drive-in to an audience of cars. “Instead of clapping they wagged their windshield wipers,” quipped the ever-witty Bobby Ace.

With the gear issue resolved, the band goes with Bertha as the opener. The Hunter tune starts out with some feedback, but is extremely well played and the perfect number to greet the Les Nordistes. The 15-song first frame is loaded with highlights, including the newly penned Black Throated Wind, a sweetly sung Loser, a bad-ass Mr. Charlie, a swinging China Cat Sunflower > I Know you Rider pairing, and a damn lovely Sugaree. The big jam portion of the set is another extended Playing in the Band. Weir introduces Donna Jean and Donna Jean introduces the song. The take is remarkable, including an absolutely intense Tiger-styled meltdown.

The back half begins with an eventful 50-minute Truckin’ > Drums > The Other One > He’s Gone sequence. Truckin’ is played fairly straight ahead without a big outro portion. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a beautiful version from a tour with so many great performances of the song. A quick drum break serves as a bridge to an absolutely gorgeous Other One. The band locks in early and the music flows from mildly outside to more orbital. The song begins in the usual mode before falling off into a wandering, spacey section. Billy reestablishes an uptempo groove, Phil signals the Other One theme, and Weir sings the first verse. They follow this with more jamming on the 01 groove, before dropping into more spaceiness that they mine for a while. In time, Jerry’s kicks in the wah pedal and they’re off into the void, with lots of trademark slashing from Weir, eerie organ fills from Pigpen, Phil bombs, Billy’s free jazz moves and, of course plenty of arpeggios from Mr. Garcia. Late in the piece, Phil is clearly thinking about The Other One again, but the group isn’t quite there and are content to explore another theme before Bob finally sings the second verse and the ending crashes nicely into He's Gone.

A bluesy Hurts Me Too and upbeat Sugar Magnolia rise out of the ashes of the opening sequence, setting the table for the rocking finale—a ripcord Not Fade Away > Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad > Not Fade Away medley. And if that weren’t enough, they still have something left in the tank for their newest hit single to close out the afternoon. It’s undoubtedly one of the craziest versions of One More Saturday Night of the year, punctuated by Jerry’s unrelenting leads and his seeming unwillingness to let the song end.

With all the acclaimed performances from the Grateful Dead’s landmark Europe tour, the Lille gig often goes unmentioned. Even though it’s less well known than the Copenhagen, Frankfurt, Bickershaw, and London concerts, doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth a deep investigation. For me, the Lille tape is as good as any from tour—a phenomenal show with a high level of energy, creativity, and focused musicianship. Take Betty’s soundboard mix out for a spin, I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Betty tape (Partial Set 2 upgrade)

Full show

Philippe Andrieu’s Blog

Of note, the Lille show was the first—albeit brief— post on my original Sitting in Mangrove Valley Chasing Light Beams blog, composed eight years ago on Mother’s Day, March 2016.

Vive la Europe ’72.

In September of 1973, the Grateful Dead undertook a brief 11-date East Coast tour. Sometimes referred to as the “Horn Tour,” the unique feature of this run was that eight of the dates featured a brass section for much of the second set. Horn players had shared the stage with the Dead before, including a number of well known gigs in the 1960s. Charles Lloyd played flute and tenor sax with them at both the Human Be-In and the Rock Garden in 1967, and Sanpaku’s Gary Larkey sat in a few dates in 1969, including a memorable show at the Aqua Theatre in Seattle. Of course, Garcia was happy to play jazz pieces in his shows with Saunders and Fierro and in later years as well. That's not even mentioning the '90s Grateful Dead shows where famed jazz horn players such as Ornette Coleman, Branford Marsalis, and David Murray would join the band onstage.

Collaborating with the Dead on their Fall ’73 tour were tenor saxophonist Martin Fierro and trumpeter Joe Ellis, both members of Doug Sahm's touring band, who also opened all eight shows. In the early 1970s fans had few sources of information, and almost no tapes circulated, so seeing a horn section with the Grateful Dead would have been a big surprise. The only real clue to seasoned Heads would have been the Jerry Garcia/Howard Wales Hooteroll? album, where Martin Fierro and trumpet player Ken Balzall had been part of the mix. Additionally, Garcia, Weir, and Lesh were all big jazz buffs, and I think each of them must have liked the idea of bringing a horn section on the road.

Along with the wind instrument experiment, the band’s ever-growing PA was creating a lot of buzz as well. The Dead's sound system "will be placed on 30 foot towers," read a show advertisement in the Buffalo Spectrum. "It is the newest and most modern sound equipment ever used by a group indoors." Sahm and his outfit used the Dead's soundsystem for their set. Press reports noted that their music wasn’t an ideal fit for such a big system. “Bad notes prevailed.” But, by the time the Dead went on, "it was fantastic. The sound mix was excellent with their new custom built Alembic JBL soundsystem including over 300 speakers," the Press noted.

Fourteen thousand Dead fans filled the auditorium that Wednesday night. The stage was laden with about 24 tons of equipment, the same soundsystem the band had used at Watkins Glen. In addition to the ever-growing rig, the stage lighting operated by Candice Brightman and Ben Haller was also attracting attention. A Buffalo Evening News reporter who sat in the high seats at the far end of the hall was blown away by Brightman's work and the wonderful intricacies of the Dead's lighting. “The stage was bathed in all the fascinating hues of a mistuned color TV, red musicians and purple stage, orange stage and green musicians, iridescents glowing on silhouettes in the darkness."

After a serviceable set by Doug Sahm, the Dead take the bandstand at around 9:30 pm. Here Comes Sunshine kicks off the set; it’s the first time the Hunter/Garcia tune serves as an opener and the version is ace, appropriately setting the mood for the night. Other first frame highlights include a rollicking Beat it on Down the Line with a snappy 19-beat intro from Kreutzmann, a punchy Tennessee Jed, more Wake of the Flood fare in a sweetly played and sung Row Jimmy, a highly-conversational China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider pairing, and an engaging reading of Brown Eyed Women.

Set two opens with a fat, jazzy Playing in the Band. The take is well-weirded, with lots of cloud scraping swells. Tonight’s performance is quite hypnotic, as usual for '73 versions, careening for nineteen minutes down the 7/4 road into the Great Unknown. Next up, we get the last Dead sung version of Merle Haggard’s 1969 ballad, Sing Me Back Home. It’s a sweet adieu to a song that would only return acoustically in some Garcia shows in the ‘80s. The last mini-set with horns starts midway through a satisfying 62-minute He’s Gone > Truckin’ > Eyes of the World > Weather Report Suite medley. Fierro and Ellis enter the soundscape and augment the music beautifully, infusing their own solos into the mix. It’s a sweeping take on Eyes, especially after the horns arrive and squonk away, driving the band further into the song. Fierro and Ellis even bring some unexpected quiet to Let It Grow, which is nice before Weir sends the crowd home with a few rockers—Sugar Magnolia and Johnny B. Goode.

The Grateful Dead’s September tour with horns wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Opinions vary on the experiment. Some people, myself among them, thought the horn section was well worth trying, even if the musical results were not entirely satisfactory every night. However you slice it, you can’t deny how remarkable it was that in the midst of all the Grateful Dead and Garcia were working on in mid-1973, they took the time to consider reconfiguring their live show in such a radical way.

Betty Cantor tape

The 1970 soundboard tape archive is full of holes, mostly stemming from Bear’s unfortunate February New Orleans arrest and court-imposed travel restrictions. As such, more shows survive on audience-only recordings from this year than any other. That made the unexpected discovery of a pristine quality mostly acoustic soundboard performance by the Grateful Dead from April 18, 1970, a real find. Unearthed by Mountain Girl from an old box of Jerry’s personal effects, the tape soon made its way onto an official Rhino 2-LP release in 2013. A notice on the album cover reads, “This rare recording was made on a non-professional machine at low level and contains some tape hiss and other undesirable stuff. Several procedures were employed to clarify the sound, but artifacts may still be heard. However, the music shines through, and the performance is too good not to bring to you. Enjoy.”

What made this tape all the more unique and equally peculiar in the Grateful Dead historical record was the billing of the band. The moniker Mickey Hart & the Hartbeats had only been used a few times previously for a few electric jam sessions at the Matrix in 1969. Bobby Ace and the Cards Off the Bottom of the Deck was a new name that had not been used before and was probably included as more of a joke. The NRPS, who had opened a scant number of Dead shows in the Bay Area, would have been largely unknown to the Family Dog audience. As to why the blues harmonica player and singer Charlie Musselwhite was added to the weekend performances, we can surmise that his presence—with future LA Express guitarist Robben Ford—was more of a guarantee that there would be something upbeat and danceable, no matter what the Dead rolled out.

Lineups and aliases aside, the purpose of these billed acoustic shows on the weekend of April 17-19 seems to be a tune-up for the series of performances known as An Evening with the Grateful Dead, that would commence on 5/1/70 at Alfred College. To meet their goal of a four-hour Grateful Dead concert with three different configurations, the band had to whip the pieces into shape. The electric Dead was all set, battle-tested, and road-ready; the acoustic arrangement and the New Riders set were a different story. The wooden portion of the show was unfledged with very little precedent (save for a few shows in December ‘69 and January/February of 1970 when Garcia and Weir had played some acoustic duets and, once or twice, Pigpen was even induced into playing a song or two). This Owsley tape paints a clear picture of what was planned and what would go down in the subsequent months on the road.

The recording opens with the first taped acoustic version of I Know You Rider, a tune that would be a staple the rest of the year. Lesh gets increasingly annoyed at Bear and the monitor situation amidst much classic stage banter and laughter from Garcia and Weir, though they both get pissed, too. Jerry: “[the guitars] are as though invisible, unheard, unstruck!” “This is an electric guitar,” he announces, “something new,” before they roll out an acoustic/electric Cumberland Blues and New Speedway Boogie. Both sound great with dampened drums, the latter sounding much like the recently recorded Workingman’s Dead version, with sweet Garcia blues riffs. While someone fetches Pigpen from backstage, we get a mini-set from Bobby Ace—Me & My Uncle and Mama Tried, with vocals by Marmaduke and some funky guitar work from David Nelson.

The remainder of the tape is all Pig, sounding much like he might have saddled up to his kitchen table late at night with a guitar. It begins with Katie Mae before moving on to a bunch of debuts, some never heard again. Ain’t It Crazy (aka The Rub) is a Lightnin’ Hopkins standard from the old jug band days. Bring Me My Shotgun, also by Hopkins, is unflashy and low-key. Roberta appears to be assembled from several sources. The set closes with McKernan’s versions of a pair of John Lee Hooker tunes, Black Snake and Tupelo Blues, both among the quietest songs ever performed on a Dead stage.

In the relatively short acoustic history of the Grateful Dead, this Owsley soundboard at The Family Dog is a remarkable discovery. It finds the band—a week after headlining the Fillmore West—test driving a brand new configuration that would format many performances in 1970, concluding with the remarkable Capitol Theatre run in early November. After the three April shows, the Dead would never play again at the Dog, as they simply got too big for the venue. It’s a fortunate break indeed that Jerry inadvertently hung on to a final relic from that weekend. Sound issues, episodic feedback, and monitor problems aside, it’s a tape that deserves your full aural attention.

Owsley tape

Midway through their European vacation, the Dead venture to the tiny college town of Stakladen and play one of the most unusual shows of the fabled tour. Reviewers often point to the London, Frankfurt, or Paris dates when highlighting the notable outings of the Europe run, and rightly so. For some reason, the Aarhus gig often goes unmentioned. Looking at the setlist one might assume that this is just another typical Grateful Dead show from 1972. Upon close listening though, it reveals itself as one of the most unique performances of this era.

The first set is standard ’72 fare with a beautiful Sugaree, a few robust cowboy tunes, a solid early take on Black Throated Wind, and a Playing in the Band that is just starting to take off. The meat of this show is found in the back half jams. The late set begins with a smoking Good Lovin’ with all the necessary Pigpen raps. A few tunes later, the weirdness kicks in. Truckin’ is arguably the best of the tour, plump full of brilliant Garcia solos and content to rock out on that E7 shuffle for a long while. The reprise jam is goddamn remarkable and the train soon becomes completely unhitched before the ensemble somehow finds it within themselves to latch onto the Other One theme.

This version of the Other One contains an atypical structure, with a number of quiet passages, and is played largely without drums. Me and My Uncle provides an excellent bridge before the lads dive back into the Other One proper, though lacking the second verse. The end result is nearly forty minutes of unexpected twists and turns, intriguing dead ends, and a satiable helping of inspired improvisation. A rocking Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad > Not Fade Away closes out the set in Good Old Grateful Dead fashion, with the crowd in a frenzy and no room for an encore.

Recorded by Betty Cantor-Jackson, this one is aces from top to bottom. Unfortunately, the first set on all the archived recordings is a bit muddy and suffers from numerous cuts. I’ve linked the best-sounding cassette source here, via Uli Teute and Hanno Bunjes. The second set transfer from Mr. Charlie Miller is of much better quality. Of course, like most of you, I’ve been listening to the exceptional Jeffery Norman remastered version culled from the original 16-track recording. I suggest that you take it out for a spin and see for yourself. I’m guessing you’ll b-line it to the mp3 store and download this Nordic beauty posthaste.

Uli Teute set I transfer

Charlie Miller set II transfer

Not a hell of a lot was going down musically in Boulder in the sixties. The one band that did originate in Boulder—the bluesy hard rock group Zephyr, featuring Tommy Bolin and Candy Givens—often claimed that they were the only band in town. Denver had a more interesting live music history. Beginning in the late 1950s, there was a modest jazz scene in the Five Points neighborhood, which hosted international acts such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. By the mid-’60s, smaller clubs like the Exodus, Catacombs, and The Cave featured up-and-coming bands playing psychedelic folk and rock on the weekends.

In 1967, Chet Helms opened a branch of the Family Dog on 1601 West Evans Avenue in an effort to compete effectively with Bill Graham. It was a very clever idea, providing touring bands with a paying show partway to San Francisco. Locals were greeted to many national acts including Jimi Hendrix, Blue Cheer, Cream, Buffalo Springfield, and Big Brother & the Holding Company. Unfortunately, the Denver sheriff, with the support of the political establishment, harassed Helms incessantly and the Dog closed its doors in July of 1968.

The Grateful Dead, always the pioneers, did venture to Boulder in the spring of 1969. The event was billed as “The Third Ball for Peace,” a combination light show and dance. The unique Boulder gig seems to have been a throw-in following shows at the University of Arizona and Utah before the boys headed to Omaha (The Music Box), St. Louis (The Quadrangle at Washington University), and Purdue’s Memorial Union Ballroom the following week. Playing the tiny University of Colorado Boulder’s student union ballroom was probably just gigging for food and gas money. Lord knows the Dead were used to this practice—a necessity of the road, and something they had done time and again since their early Acid Test days.

The tape opens with a 25-minute (and incomplete) Turn On Your Lovelight. The band takes its sweet time warming up, building to some solid Pigpen crowdwork to get the vibe on for the evening. After an abbreviated Doin’ That Rag courtesy of a tape cut, Weir asks “Hey, do you want it now or later?” The now is another dose of McKernan, and a palatial Good Morning Little Schoolgirl with some fat harp work from the Pigger. The final 54 minutes of set one is very compelling. Dark Star kicks it off. The playing is stunning, and the small post-verse tape gap—as the ensemble is accelerating toward oblivion—is barely noticeable. One of 13 stellar Dark Star outings during April, it’s exciting to hear the evolving group conversations and new spaces opening. Drums are becoming a more fixed part of the song with both Kreutzman and Hart adding significantly to the mix. On tonight’s take, the drummers ride their cymbals for a bit, before bringing in their kits for some swinging jams with Garcia, Lesh, and Weir. The segue into St. Stephen is efficient and is met with animated applause. The version is lively, with ample Garcia fills, fuzz-toned Weir flourishes, and curious ornamental rants from Constanten’s Vox. The Eleven that emerges has a relaxed, almost laidback feel. It picks up considerably with an extremely tight post-verse jam before landing sweetly onto Death Don’t Have No Mercy. The dynamic on this last tune is close to perfect—an electric, blues-drenched doxology, both ruminative and deeply psychedelic.

After almost two hours, the band takes a set break. When they return to the stage, we get 14 minutes of Alligator with a short Garcia/drummers jam, some chanting, more jamming, and a We Bid You Goodnight theme before the tape cuts off.

The next time the Dead played in Colorado was three months later at a joint called Reed’s Ranch in Colorado Springs. It would be their last small venue gig in the Centennial State. Two spring of ‘70 shows at the newly opened 3500 capacity Mammoth Gardens in Denver set the bar for future performances, which included the renowned 1972 Folsom Field concert, two smoking Denver Coliseum shows in ‘73, and a host of performances from 1977-1994 at McNichols Sports Arena and Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

But, we can’t forget that before the big stadium cash cows started to roll in, the Grateful Dead were living hand to mouth and scrambling to find paying gigs. Even by 1969, most paying performances were on Friday and Saturday nights. That being so, this Sunday night in Boulder was a bonus payday for the band. And, thanks to Bear, we’ll always have this one in our ‘69 playlist. Try it out, it’s tastier than a Denver omelet.

Owsley tape

1978 was full of messy and brilliant Grateful Dead performances. On some nights you got both, on others the pendulum swung to either extreme. The April 16th Huntington show was one of those evenings where the stars aligned in a bright, notable configuration. In astronomy, they call this syzygy. In the world of the Grateful Dead, the Weirism would be to get things “just exactly perfect.” However you slice it, this Betty-recorded gem is solid fun from end to end. In addition to the luminosity of the playing, the show is bursting with super-charged energy, especially in the first set. Everything’s a little edgy, just the way I like my ‘78 Dead.

The first frame features a gorgeous Jack Straw opener, a completely locked-in Cassidy, a sweet, bouncy Peggy-O, and a rare first set Scarlet Begonias > Fire on the Mountain pairing. The set closer is 19 minutes and feels compact. Garcia is very present, and the vocals are strong. It’s clear that the band is inspired in their own interplay, while Jerry decorates the soundscape with beautiful flourishes and expressive runs. The Hart/Hunter tune—with its catchy rhythmic figure—is a perfect foil for Garcia’s playful guitar work, as it winds in and out of the andante beats. Tonight’s opening set take, the first since 5/77, is up there with my favorite Fire vocal performances by Garcia—extremely present, with equally friendly guitar.

Set two opens with a muscular Samson & Delilah, with the customary dual drumming lead-in. The Ship of Fools that follows is rousing and keeps the first set energy rolling. From here, we get to the meat of the backside of the show—a 55-minute sequence of Estimated Prophet > Eyes of the World > Drums > Space > Iko Iko, the latter being a rare second set without-a-late-show Garcia ballad. Billy and Mickey’s Rhythm Devils dance is satisfying but not particularly deep; there’s a nice backbeat behind the steel drums, although the chaos never fully develops. The set ends with an animated Sugar Magnolia, full of spirited jamming and Weir yelps. After a quick break, the band returns for a serviceable U.S. Blues encore.

Some folks claim 1978 is a lost year for the Grateful Dead. Opiates were surreptitiously creeping into the mix and the playing could be sloppy and inconsistent. Some will even go so far as to say the year ain’t got no heart. I beg to differ, you just gotta poke around.

Betty Cantor tape

In March of ‘69, the Grateful Dead were primarily focused on finishing the Aoxomoxoa album at Pacific Recording in San Mateo. That being so, their performances were confined to easy weekend trips, which allowed them to make a little cash while still hanging around town to work on the record. This Rose Palace gig represents one of the few Owsley-recorded soundboards from March. Jethro Tull, on their first American tour, serves as the opener. They were a tremendous live band and must have given the crowd something tasty to chew on. The Dead played second, which accounts for the shorter set. Paul Butterfield was a bigger name outside the Bay Area, so he headlined the show.

Although it’s incomplete, this Bear tape is essential listening for fans of this period. The sound quality—despite being tracked in the concrete cavernous space of the now defunct Pasadena club—is pretty sweet, with nice instrument separation. According to an observant attendee at the show, Owsley was in experimental high gear on this night. He had three portable Tektronix scopes far stage left, beyond Garcia’s double stack of Fender twins, and was mixing live stereo.

The tape begins a few bars into Good Morning Little School Girl. Tonight’s take on the Sonny Boy Williamson tune is dynamic, uptempo, and loaded with unrestrained discord. “That was da blues in A,” Weir declares, followed by a request to turn up one of the stage mics “…on account I’m gonna be using it pretty soon, you know how it is.” And with that, the lads launch into Dark Star. Despite clocking in at a mere 15 minutes, it is fully played, packed with thematic jams, peaks, and provisional weirdness. The drop into St. Stephen is near perfect, and it’s clear the septet is really plugged into a groove. Unfortunately, as is often times the case with older Bear recordings, the tape cuts and we’re plummeted into the final 4 ½ minutes of The Eleven. The jamming is fierce and layered, 11 beats to the bar. The odd meter persists before an edgy, B-flat drop signals a transition and Turn On Your Lovelight roars in like a five-alarm fire. All drums and Jerry’s guitar. Pig marshals the vocal acrobatics, and the band is let loose to roam. Then poof, it fades out at 12 minutes.

The Dead played over 140 shows in 1969, and one hundred of these were committed to soundboard tape. This Pasadena gig isn’t the crown jewel of the year’s boards, but it is worth a visit. The Dark Star keeps me coming back, just for the sheer brilliance of the nuanced performance. Magical? Uh-huh. And isn’t that what makes us want to listen and relisten to live recordings of this band? Sure as shit, it is.

Bear tape

Nestled in between the renowned February Port Chester shows (that bade adieu to Mickey Hart) and the historic Fillmore East run in late April, March of ’71 had everything going against it. Barely any tapes of the March gigs circulate, with the exception of a pair of college dates and a fine Sufi benefit show at Winterland, the latter of which, featured music from the New Riders, whirling dervish dancers, and a some members of the Kailas Shugendo commune performing a ritual fire-walk on stage.

A few years back, I stumbled onto a second set soundboard from 3/18 at the Fox Theatre in St. Louis that redefined a lot of what I thought I knew about 1971. On both the old and new songs, the band seemed to take Mickey’s departure and the roster adjustment in complete stride and come out on the other side all the better for it. The recording sounds fantastic, and the energy beaming out of the band on this night leaps off the tape. Jerry’s playing is crisp and stirring, and the tone of his custom-built Alembic guitar is really special.

The opening sequence of Truckin’ > Drums > The Other One > Wharf Rat is ace, and must have sounded astounding piped through the McIntosh tube amps of the Ron Wickersham-designed sound system. The rest of the set features some of the most enjoyable music of the year. For starters, the boys absolutely nail Sugar Magnolia. Jerry’s Color Sound wah pedal is switched on throughout, providing an ample amount of psychedelic charm to the Hunter-Weir song. They follow this with a punchy Greatest Story > Johnny B. Goode combo that, again, is awash with stellar wah action from Mr. Garcia. Love those early takes on the Pump Song.

The final 35 minutes of the show is classic Good Ol’ Grateful Dead. Buddy Holly’s Not Fade Away kicks it off, and man are the lads fired up. They transition into the oft-paired Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad, a tune they had been working out since the fall of the previous year. Things get really interesting after this when, instead of returning to the NFA opener, the band slides into a vintage Warlocks/Anthem of the Sun cut—Caution (Do Not Stop on Tracks). Tonight’s take is played with a bluesy swagger, and Pig’s harp gets a damn good workout. Caution eventually is subverted into a sea of feedback à la primal Dead; it’s one of the last shows where feedback shows up in a set list like this, and it’s a real gas. After the loop of glorious noise concludes, the band tunes up and leaves the crowd with a first-rate Uncle John’s Band finale.

Culled from a Bob Mathews 7-inch half track reel master recording, this set is meant to be consumed liberally.

Bob Mathews tape (partial)

For all you completists, the Dead did play the Fox the previous night. Unfortunately, no tapes of the show have surfaced. The 3/17 recording is purportedly in the Vault, but does not circulate, perhaps due to bad cuts. Dave Lemieux did share two songs from the performance, which I’ll link below.

The following day Thomas Newsom penned a short piece for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch about the gig:

The Grateful Dead is alive and well - despite all the years it has been putting electric shocks into rock. The six-man San Francisco band takes its name from an Elizabethan folk song about persons consigned to roaming the earth because they cannot die. When death finally comes, they are grateful for it. Last night, the Dead, one drummer short, performed in the Babylonian splendor of the creakingly-old Fox Theater. It was the first night of a two-night engagement in St. Louis.The Dead trailed on to the stage almost an hour late. There had been some minor quarrels back stage over arrangements for the concert. But the approximately 4000 rock music freaks didn't seem to mind the Dead's delay. The gaudy Fox is a good place for the Dead. Jon McIntire, born in the St. Louis area and manager of the rock group, called the Fox "a boss place." Translated, that means McIntire and The Dead liked the place.

The crowd last night included many hair freaks in Salvation Army clothes, who could not have been long into chewing bubble gum when The Dead first exploded on the psychedelic music scene. That was in San Francisco in the Acid Test days of the middle-1960s. Then it used frenetic rhythms, blasting decibels, light shows, and mind-blowing music. Last night, The Dead's music was more economical. The musicians opened their set with their traveling song, then went into several country- and blues-flavored songs, including "Me and Bobbie McGee," a current big single from the late rock diva Janis Joplin's album "Pearl." Bob Weir, the rhythm guitarist, handled that vocal nicely, but a more vibrant vocal was Ron (Pigpen) McKernan's "Turn on Your Lovelight." Many in the crowd screamed and danced. Pigpen, cowboy hat pulled low over his face and moustache, danced around on stage handling several instruments. Particularly noteworthy was Jerry Garcia's electrifying flights in his lead guitar sequences. He is a flashy, good guitar player, with an on-stage image of a bearded, elder statesman of rock. Phil Lesh, bass, and Bill Kreutzmann, drummer, (second drummer Mickey Hart was not in the concert) provided able support as The Dead got into more electronic musical flights. The concert ended just before midnight with many in the crowd dancing and shouting, "Play all night." The Dead were preceded by the New Riders of the Purple Sage, who are members of The Dead's musical family in Marin County, Calif. The Riders rode the range between rock music and country. The closer they got to country, the better they sounded.

Maybe someday we’ll get a tape of the first night. Until then we’ll have to settle for the two tasty morsels Mr. Lemieux dropped into the Taper’s Section queue.

Me & Bobby McGee mp3

Next Time You See Me mp3

The Grateful Dead had a productive 1970 in the studio, recording two albums—Workingman's Dead in February/March at Pacific High Recording, and American Beauty in August/September at Wally Heider's. It was also the year they regularly introduced acoustic sets into their live performances. After a couple of experiments in late '69 (the first at the old Fillmore Auditorium on 12/19), the Dead started playing short acoustic portions in the middle of their gigs, before transitioning—at the 5/1/70 Alfred, NY concert—to a longer separate acoustic set to start the show as part of the "An Evening with the Grateful Dead" format.

The month of May began with seven East Coast dates, including a classic 5-hour show in a low-ceilinged student center at Harpur College (which got the Dick's Picks v8 treatment in 1997), an abbreviated show at Wesleyan University in the midst of a campus-wide anti-war action, and a beloved free outdoor concert on the student union steps of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor a national day of student protests against the Vietnam War. A few more college gyms and a Mother’s Day concert with The Hampton Grease Band (and members of the Allman Brothers) later, the Dead played an evening gig at Meramec Community College in the school’s new 2200 seat on-campus sports facility. The concert adhered to the An Evening with the GD show concept—an acoustic set by the Dead, followed by the NRPS (with Jerry sitting in on pedal steel), and an electric Dead finale.

Weir watch: “How’s about turning the lights off, all of them, including the spots and the light show and we’ll just go by the light of this one candle right here and everybody will have a good old time… not going for it, huh?” The lights go off to big cheers and lots of amused crowd noises. Garcia asks for a little more light and Weir makes the wonderfully-phrased, self-conscious admission that “I ain’t exactly the 50,000-watt clear-channel voice of rationality speaking to you.”

The night begins with a relaxed and confident acoustic set, that includes a rollicking Don’t Ease Me In, a lovely early offering of Friend of the Devil, a stirring Deep Elm Blues with a punchy Garcia lead and an alluringly thick groove, and a lovely version of the newly penned Candyman. The entire electric segment of the evening is inspired and contains standout versions of High Time, the first-ever live performance of Attics of My Life, and a very intense New Speedway Boogie, made possible by the absolutely blazing solo from Jerome during the mid-song Nobody’s Fault jam. The set concludes with an eventful 30 minutes of St. Stephen > Not Fade Away > Turn on Your Lovelight, followed by and a nifty take on the Fred Rich gospel tune Cold Jordan for an encore.

Recorded by Bob Mathews, this one is a real top-notch 1970 recording. That said, an official release of this evening would put me (and more than a few others) in hog heaven. According to the former keeper of the vault Dick Latvala, only reels 3, 4, and 5 of this concert made it into storage. When he was asked about the many missing/incomplete 1970 Grateful Dead shows, Latvala replied with a sigh “That’s how loose things were in the past. I’m sure there were plenty of times when someone says, ‘put these in the truck,’ and the guy puts them in the back...the truck takes off, and the tapes flew off into the highway. Someone picks them up, puts them in storage, dies, and the tapes resurface....”

Let’s hope the first two reels of this evening make themselves known so this fine show gets the remastering it justly deserves.

Acoustic set

Electric set

NRPS set

The period from October through December of 1971 was, for many years, the best-documented run in the Grateful Dead’s history. The fall tour produced 15 live broadcasts of complete concerts across the country. The shows, airing on local radio stations, provided burgeoning tapers with a rich supply of high-quality tapes that featured the addition of pianist Keith Godchaux and a rollicking new sound and direction for the band. If you’re looking for a singular recording from late ‘71 that is telling of the new direction the Dead were heading, the second performance of the two-night stand at the 4100-seat U of Michigan’s Hill Auditorium is a worthy candidate. Pigpen is back in the fold nestled behind his trusty B3 organ, and his faithful rendering of old roots songs (and newly penned numbers like Mr. Charlie) fit right in with the Dead’s new lineup. Pig’s two-month hiatus has allowed Keith some time to meld with the band, and his playing on this evening in Ann Arbor sounds as though he’s fully settled into his role.

Before venturing into this performance though, there’s a backstory about the FM radio aspect of the tour that needs to get unpacked a bit. By 1971, the Grateful Dead had accumulated a fair amount of leverage with their label, Warner Brothers Records. They had back-to-back hit albums, steadily rising concert receipts, and had also garnered a good deal of press since the release of Live/Dead. Just before the fall run of shows, the band told Warners that they wanted to release another double live album. The band had been considering the idea of another live LP since late 1970. In preparation, they taped shows during the spring tour—which included two performances at the Manhattan Center, the April run at the Fillmore East, and a benefit gig for Yogi Bhajan at Winterland in March. By September, they had 9 shows worth of live material for the album, a cover (a version of a Stanley Mouse skeleton-and-roses poster from 1966), and a proposal for a nifty name: “Skullfuck.”

Not surprisingly, Joe Smith and Warner Brothers were completely against such a title gracing the record, claiming that stores—including one of their biggest distributors Sears & Roebuck—would never stock an album bearing that heading. Warners said they were happy to release the live double set with one caveat: the album was to be renamed “Grateful Dead.” The band said they would meet Warner’s request, provided they give them something in return. The tradeoff was perfect, and came in the form of Smith doling out $100,000 for live radio broadcasts as part of the promotional budget. As for the album, it was released that October to very positive reviews. It would go on to become the Dead’s first gold record, but that’s a tale for another time.

The Hill Auditorium soundboard tape cuts in at the end of Sam Cutler’s band introductions. After some cursory tuning and a small helping of amusing stage chatter, the show kicks off with Bertha. The boys are completely on fire from the first note, with Jerry and Keith both prominent in the mix. Me & Bobby McGee is next and features a faultless coupling of Weir’s vocals and Garcia’s resonant guitar licks. The remainder of the first set is as compelling and all the tunes are performed tightly, even though many are still in their developing form. Of note are the China Cat > I Know You Rider pairing which includes an excellent layered jam during the bridge, a goddamn gorgeous Brokedown Palace, and an early 6 ½-minute take on Playing in the Band that foreshadows the exploratory directions the song will take on in the months ahead when the Main Ten thematic undercurrent will no longer be left unrestrained.

The second frame opens with a brilliant Dark Star that exceeds the relative obscurity of its character and reputation. The music starts quietly with a ten-minute intro jam that flows intuitively. Lesh soon finds a groove and the others closely follow him, seizing on the slightest hint to change direction and explore a new theme. In time, Jerry leads the ensemble into a quiet space and then pushes them into a jam that builds to a loud, penetrating climax. The momentum gradually unwinds and drops into a rhythm that appears like it’s heading for The Other One. Garcia has different ideas though and, in an instant, returns to the Dark Star theme. After the opening verse, a quiet, unadorned space opens up. Phil soon begins to assault the auditorium crowd with some booming riffs that pave the way for two atonal jams, before devolving into a deep abyss. Jerry emerges from the void and begins to play with a new idea, while Kreutzmann, Weir, Lesh, and Godchaux piece together an odd, lounge-style instrumental. Once the band has eased into this new thematic fold, they play it at length, until it slowly dissipates and transforms into a more vigorous, driving jam. And, just like that, Garcia dives headlong into a honky-tonk version of Deal, which is both insistent and a textbook vehicle for the boys to strut their rock n’ roll chops. The show charges along bringing Pigpen into the spotlight with a romp through Turn On Your Lovelight. Tonight’s take on the Bobby Bland R&B number includes a unique embedded King Bee/Mannish Boy section, before transitioning back to Lovelight proper. And if a rare late ‘71 Turn On Your Lovelight wasn’t enough for the UMich crowd, the lads still have enough gas for a One More Saturday Night > Uncle John’s Band encore to put an exclamation mark on this fine performance.

The cross-country FM extravaganza of 1971 was, like many things Grateful Dead, a hip idea that was way ahead of its time. There were nights when the Dead and the New Riders dominated the airwaves for 4-5 hours. If live radio broadcasts had become the norm before the release of every Grateful Dead album, fans and tapers would have eaten that up. Unfortunately, this was not to be and by the time of their next release—the much-celebrated Europe 72—hit the shelves, the band was moving on from Warners. The experiment was over. Even so, it was a unique idea that surely reaped benefits for the Dead for many years.

Bob Mathews tape

The Dream Bowl would be an entirely forgotten venue except for the fact that a few Grateful Dead tapes from February 21 and 22, 1969 remain in the vaults. The small, crossroads club boasted a rich history, which included performances of greats like Duke Ellington and Bill Monroe during its heyday in the 1940’s and 50's. The joint continued to attract a local crowd for Saturday night dances through the 1960’s. A San Francisco examiner columnist described the Dream Bowl as “…an oversized quonset hut roadhouse-dancehall-brawl arena,” which seems like a perfect resting place for the kind of raw psychedelia the Dead was generating at this time. There are few bad 1969 Grateful Dead shows, and these two Vallejo gigs could certainly be shelved at the top of the glorious heap. Every tune from this run has something really special going on.

At the beginning of the year, the Dream Bowl came under new ownership and re-opened as a rock club. A Napa Valley Register article on January 29 announced the new venue:

DREAM BOWL TO OPEN FOR TEEN-AGERS

The old Dream Bowl will become the New Dream Bowl on Feb. 7, as the format of the club is completely changed. The former country and western specialty club will now feature strong, loud rock, fresh from big name clubs in San Francisco. The ownership of the club has changed hands, and with it has changed the nature of the club. The performance venue will now aim its appeal at teen-agers. When the group obtained the lease of the club two weeks ago, liquor went out. There will be only soft drinks and other refreshments at the New Dream Bowl. There will also be private guards on duty. The Bowl will feature modern bands [including the Dead & It's A Beautiful Day]...There is no age limit, one way or the other at the New Bowl. However, old timers ought to know that a new Altec-Lansing public address system has been installed, and this means window-shattering volume. Enthusiasts will be glad to know that the "Holy-Cee" will be in charge of the light-show...

The “Modern” Grateful Dead did their thing and it was downright superb. Soft drinks and Owsley’s finest flowed freely. Word is that Weir goofed off during set breaks behind the snack bar serving Cokes. The Friday night tape opens with a boss Good Morning Little Schoolgirl with the Pigger in consummate form. Doin’ That Rag, a funky little tune from the soon-to-be-released Aoxomoxoa, is next up. The boys sound loose and ready to play. And play they do, rolling out a highly conversational 73-minute Dark Star > St. Stephen > The Eleven > Turn On Your Lovelight medley. Tonight’s Dark Star is thrilling with fevered ensemble movement throughout, including an early Sputnik Jam that spirals into a robust Garcia peak while the drummers shift to their kits. This gem is followed by one of the longest takes on The Eleven committed to tape. The septet surfs the big strange groove for over 20 minutes, before transitioning to a deep-pocketed Lovelight with two drum breaks and lots of McKernan magic. The night ends appropriately, with a blazing Morning Dew encore.

The Saturday performance begins with two acoustic Aoxomoxoa numbers. Dupree’s Diamond Blues flows effortlessly into a gorgeous Mountains Of The Moon that, unbeknownst, suddenly arrives at a 50 minute assemblage of Dark Star > That’s It for the Other One > Death Don’t Have No Mercy that will shake your cerebral cortex into blissful submission. The second set continues the trend, opening with another reading of the newly penned Doin’ That Rag—a perfect combination of Garcia’s sparse, but punchy licks swirling around Tom Constanten’s Vox. From here, the boys launch into a masterful St. Stephen > The Eleven that very much rivals the performance a few weeks later at the Fillmore West. Similar to the versions they played all month leading up to the recording of Live/Dead, The Eleven is extra long, action-packed, and even includes a choice dug-in bass solo. And if the aforementioned jam sequences weren’t enough to whet your appetite, don’t worry ‘cause the lads still have enough left in the tank for a downright epic Turn on Your Lovelight. It’s a barrelhouse version that, I’d imagine, sent the crowd home more than satisfied with the $3 admission they shelled out.

Both these Owsley master reel recordings sound incredible. David Gans and Dick Latvala provide the DATs, Bob Menke adds the patch sources, and Charlie Miller does his usual impeccable job with the transfers. What are you waiting for, dig in.

Bear tape (2/21)

Bear tape (2/22)

Another superb Ken and Judy Lee field recording produced when the pair were working at the Port Chester venue. The original audience master cassettes (4 Ampex C361-90) were recorded on a Sony TC124 with unknown dynamic mics, spread approximately 25-30 feet across the balcony. No noise reduction was applied.

From February 1970, to near the end of 1971, the rock promoter Howie Stein did his best to make the Capitol Theater into the Westchester version of the Fillmore East. Like the Fillmore, the Capitol was a converted movie theater. It was really a better place to hear music than to see a film. It was much smaller than the Fillmore, so it was hard to get a bad seat. In addition, the staff was a little less uptight about dancing and milling around so concertgoers could usually get up and dance. The sound system was excellent, and rarely did technical difficulties impair the music. And the stage crew, like the Fillmore’s, knew what they were doing.

Of the two performances on this evening, it’s the late affair that most heads point to and rave about. I’d like to direct your attention to the early set, which is equally as satisfying, albeit a tad shorter. The tape opens with the first recorded version of Rufus Thomas’s Walkin’ the Dog since ’66. It’s a playful extended take with alternating vocals between Weir, Pigpen, and Garcia. A rousing Me & My Uncle follows and afterward it’s clear that the crowd is animated to the point that they won’t shut up. Garcia: “Calm down, you unruly freaks.” The cacophony of audience noise continues, and the boys roll out the last taped version of Death Don’t Have No Mercy until 1989. The tune completely quiets the crowd as the band draws all attention into the music.

The quiet awe is short-lived before more shouting and obligatory calls for St. Stephen ensue. Phil breaks the ice by asking for an E-flat for tuning purposes. Jeering and laughter follow, then more song requests. Weir stokes the fire by remarking that they don’t know the names of their own songs and that everything the audience is shouting towards the stage is completely meaningless to the band. The motley sextet’s riposte to the mutinous crowd is a solid and compact Good Lovin,’ followed by a peppy Dire Wolf (with tasty intro guitar licks, most likely added during the Workingman’s Dead sessions), and a sultry Big Boss Man that allows the Pigger to stretch his legs nicely. Next up, we get the last known version of Mark Spoelstra’s He Was a Friend of Mine and it’s a beautiful send-off at that. Garcia’s outro solo is long and articulate. Goddamn lovely, really.

The early show ends with a unique 19-minute sequence of Viola Lee Blues > The Seven > Cumberland Blues. Viola Lee gets quiet and lyrical before exploding and melting into fiery immolation mode. The soundscape shifts, threatening to redetonate, before Garcia coyly transitions the outfit into the second and final taped version of the Seven, which serves as a perfectly weird bridge to the cosmic Bakersfield of Cumberland.

Ken Lee Tape

And for all you completists out there, I’m including Ken and Judy’s tape of the late set. It’s just shy of two hours with a 30-minute acoustic portion sandwiched between slices of good ol’ Grateful Dead boogie.

Lots of rowdy East Coast crowd entertainment as the band sets up for the wooden music. Song requests and appeals for Pigpen are rampant.

Weir: “You’re really too kind, too kind. Now let’s hear some insults. Everybody turn to your neighbor and insult them as much as you can…”

Garcia: “Take it easy out there, you unruly freaks.”

Tuning complete, we get an early reading of Friend of the Devil with a bit of an overpowering intro. A shuffling Deep Elem Blues is next, followed neatly by an ace Don’t Ease Me In > Black Peter combo. The unruly audience continues to assault the bandstand with requests, and the boys surprisingly reciprocate with a tight Uncle John’s Band. The middle acoustic set concludes with a rare Pigpen take on the Lightnin’ Hopkins’ Texas blues number, Katie Mae.

The electric Dead portion of the evening is red hot and features some tasty extended jams and a big choogle finale. We get a succinct Casey Jones opener, a conversational 17+ minute Dancing in the Streets, a searing Easy Wind, a standalone Cosmic Charlie, a boss St. Stephen > China Cat Jam > Not Fade Away sequence, and an unusual Midnight Hour > Turn On Your Lovelight pairing. And there’s still a little left in the tank to encore with a subtle And We Bid You Goodnight encore.

Ken Lee tape (late)

Early 1972 was a relatively quiet time for the Grateful Dead. Over the first few months they only played two gigs—Winterland on January 2nd, and an American Indian benefit at Winterland again on March 5th. During this period Bob Weir and John Barlow wrote a bunch of new songs that were recorded over a few weeks in January/February for Bobby’s first long player, Ace. Jerry’s solo record was also released at this time (along with Merl Saunder’s first studio effort) and he took the opportunity to play several local shows with Saunders, as well as a short East Coast tour with Howard Wales in support of the newly released Garcia/Wales LP, Hooteroll.

Big plans were brewing, though.

At the end of March, the band served up seven nights at the Academy of Music, a dilapidated 3,400-capacity double-balconied movie house in New York’s East Village. The Academy run—the last stopover before the historic European tour—provided a nice tune-up for the 24 dates the band would navigate in April and May. The Academy of Music shows have been widely traded and, beginning with Dick’s Picks 30, have seen a number of official releases from the Dead’s vault. Most recently, Dave Lemieux featured the March 26 show as his 14th pick.

I’ve listened to all of the Academy of Music performances—both crappy audience recordings and master reel tapes—and my preference lies in the third night’s offering, based on the song selection, quality of playing, and the blistering second set. After a 2-hour opening frame that even included some pedal steel work by Garcia on the new Weir-penned number, Looks Like Rain, we move to the big jam portion of the show, highlighted by a full-speed-ahead Truckin,’ the maiden voyage of Pig’s The Stranger (Two Souls In Communion), the first Dark Star of ‘72, and a screamingly joyous 16-minute Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad > Not Fade Away to close things out. Of note, the Dark Star is staggering, packed full of thematic jams, bass detours, and colorful mutations, including a Feelin’ Groovy segment, and a country-picking Sugar Magnolia-type finish before returning to the Dark Star theme at the 20-minute mark. It’s not to be missed.

A few years back, Rob Eaton got his mitts on Betty Cantor-Jackson’s master of the 3/23 show and cleaned the entire reel by hand, before making a digitized version available on the Archive. The resulting tape sounds terrific and has excellent instrument separation. Listening closely to this gig and the other dates that make up the New York run, one can’t fail to appreciate the new expansive direction that has taken hold of the band. On a bittersweet note, the Academy shows and the upcoming European tour will become Pigpen’s swan song, as he was dead within a year of the tour’s end. Somehow, though, the combination of the old giving its final heave and the new looking ahead to fresh musical frontiers would come to give many of the 1972 shows an added spark. This night in New York is surely one of those performances.

Betty Cantor tape

The Dead headline an early and late Friday night show on top of an interesting triple bill. The VU kicked off both gigs and, according to a report, blasted the crowd with high-volume music that was “loud enough to reach the inner core of being without shattering the transcendence of community.” Sounds appealing. The Fugs, led by poet-activists Ed Sanders, Tuli Kupferberg, and Ken Weaver, brought their usual schtick—a perfect combination of irreverence, political satire, and psychedelic grooves—to the Stanley crowd.

The Dead’s 48-minute early set is solid with the classic ‘69 sequence of Dark Star > St. Stephen > The Eleven > Turn on Your Lovelight. The late performance is where they really get things going. Like the Velvets, the Grateful Dead were innovators in using feedback as a meaningful musical statement. The late set on this evening is a goddamned sonic tour de force. The opening Cryptical Suite is stunning. The Death Don’t Have No Mercy that follows is pure blues. And just when you thought they couldn’t dial it up any further, the boys get down to business with 40 more minutes of emboldened music—Alligator > Caution > Feedback > And We Bid You Goodnight—adroitly filled with inspired jamming, ample intentional screech, and verve.

Recorded by Bear on a portable Concord F-400 cassette deck, and lovingly restored/transferred by Rob Eaton, this show is one of the finest examples of 1969 Dead you’ll ever get your ears on.

Owsley tape

This is a remarkable and strange little show. Just a couple months after their acoustic residencies at the Warfield Theatre and Radio City Music Hall, the Grateful Dead played a holiday party for the local Muscular Dystrophy Association, at the behest of Justin Kreutzmann.

“Thank you to the clowns for the nice entertainment, you were very good,” says the woman emcee before introducing the band. She doesn’t quite know everyone’s names (“Weir? Wire?”), so Jerry takes over, which is charming. With Brent on the rec center piano, the boys casually play the same tunes about sex and death (and the one about the train-driving monkey) that they did during the October sets, but to an audience that likely (mostly) doesn’t know them, though at least one wheelchair has a Stealie sticker.

The short set begins with a rousing rendition of Dire Wolf, and the perky little Workingman’s murder ballad never sounded so good. Weir takes the lead on the next number. A jug band fave, On the Road Again, has made its return to the Dead’s repertoire. It’s essentially a new song compared to the electric versions in ‘66. It’s got a bouncy feel that seems genetically connected to the ‘72 Bakersfield era. As they did for the Reckoning LP, Been All Around This World and Monkey & the Engineer go back-to-back with Cowboy Bobby’s classic banter in between, “This next one’s a song about disaster narrowly averted…” Jack a Roe—played on/off since ’77 (once acoustic in 1978)—is next, now finding virtually perfect form with naturally weaving acoustic bounce. Next up, an excellent off-mic moment when a kid approaches Garcia. Kid: “I want rock & roll.” Garcia: “You do? This is sort of like rock & roll, this next tune.” They deliver Cassidy, which is sort of like rock & roll, and includes a deft little jam with Jerry building to a big peak.

Ice cream is served up before Birdsong, which does feel ideal for a holiday celebration. Garcia really brings it on this version, and it’s about as stormy as the acoustic Birdsongs get. A slow, sweet rendition of Elizabeth Cotton’s Oh Babe it Ain’t No Lie is next in the queue. The song would only be performed two more times by Garcia and company (in the Netherlands for an acoustic set, and finally at Marin Vets, on 3/28/84, in a performance that kicked off the second set, without Weir and Mydland onstage). Ripple ends the show, which seems like the perfect finishing touches on another offbeat story in Grateful Dead history. And then, it’s time for Santa! The ambient amusements linger as the band scatters after the set, including a crowd-supported search for Brent who apparently left without his gift.

Recorded by Betty Cantor-Jackson with a swell new transfer by Jason Chastain in 2020, this tape is jolly good. And it’s a Betty field recording, so you can go ahead and download the sucker.

Audience tape

The Grateful Dead loved gigging in Oregon and regularly played in Portland and Eugene. On two occasions they strayed over to the Engineering School at Corvallis to perform at the 10,400 capacity Gill Coliseum.

The first time the Dead graced the Gill was for a dance concert co-sponsored by Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Student Union. Tickets to the psychedelic sock-hop were $2.50 in advance, $3 at the door. Sharing the bill were Big City Blue and the LA trio Mint Tattoo. The lights were provided by Gretz and Company. Dress for the dance was costume or grubby. No tapes of the performance have been unearthed.

The return trip was recorded. Less than four weeks from when the band would deliver three quintessential February performances at the Fillmore East (documented on both Bear’s Choice and Dick’s Picks Vol. 4), this Corvallis tape shows us a creative relationship in a state of accelerated evolution. The country tunes are starting to jell, and the extended thematic jam sequences are really beginning to mature. The new Good Old Grateful Dead are here, and they’re finding a way to pivot toward the tradition and craft of American folk music without abandoning the celebrated, imperious electric-ensemble explosions that have long been their trademark.

Joining the Dead this time are two well-seasoned acts: Steve Miller Band and Country Joe & The Fish. Miller and his ever-morphing blues-rock lineup play hits from Brave New World (Capitol 1969), while also working out new material that will comprise the excellent Number 5 release, slated to hit the shelves in July. Joe McDonald does his usual schtick, playing songs from his extensive catalog and the soon-to-be-released CJ Fish. Despite the Fish’s popularity, respectable album charting, and recent appearance in the George Englund Acid Western, Zachariah, the group would disband the following year.

The Weekend Preview in the University of Oregon’s Daily Emerald read: “Saturday night’s Grateful Dead performance in Corvallis deserves priority above all. Those wishing to tune in on some of the heaviest music of the rock movement—be they Super Straight, Well Wired, or Reasonably Ripped—shouldn’t mind riding their thumbs up to Gill Coliseum for the 8 p.m. gig, and if you have access to a more conventional means of transportation, so much the better. Tickets for the performance may be purchased for $3 at the Chrystal Ship in Eugene. Although some may also be available at the door Saturday, the supply is limited, so the utmost expedience is warranted, right?”

You bet, and the Owsley soundboard fully vindicates the Emerald’s pitch. The Dead don’t disappoint, and treat the Corvallis faithful to a full-service single set of new cosmic Americana, Pigpen R&B, and plenty of psychedelia. The recording opens a few bars into Dire Wolf, one of the new, as yet released Workingman’s Dead tracks. AFrom here, a compact China Cat Sunflower > I Know Rider paves the way for a feisty Hard To Handle. And with the Pigger warmed up, they roll out a few more Workingman’s songs, including a brisk, Lesh-driven Cumberland Blues and a stunning Black Peter that’s played with feeling and nerve. Pigpen returns to the bandstand for a red-hot Good Lovin’ that features a short drum break and a start/stop-style jam before the big reprise.

Bear’s tape confirms the show was indeed a sock hop when, after Good Lovin,’ an announcement comes over the PA: “I hope everybody has their shoes off. Put your feet up in the air and check your neighbor and make sure everybody has their shoes off! ...Because if you have any shoes on you’re going to wreck the floor, and we’ll have to pay for it.” Weir, as he is often inclined to do, gets in his two-cents: “Okay, everybody on your back and stick your feet straight up in the air...” And, without a moment’s hesitation, the lads plunge into a Mason’s Children > High Time combo. The Mason’s, one of only fifteen that we know of, stands tall aside the others by virtue of an unusual and particularly inspired jam at its climax, before landing neatly onto the plaintive, opening bars of High Time. The latter would be in the running for my favorite reading of the Hunter/Garcia tune, if not for the tape cut—just shy of the five minute mark—one line into the third stanza.

The band pauses ever so slightly and then launches into Dark Star. The take is striking and undoubtedly should be placed alongside many of the beloved versions from 1970. The opening jam is ace—absolutely elegant, balanced, a divine model of what an opening Dark Star jam ought to be. Garcia sings the beginning verse and the septet drops into a deep space that resolves into the Sputnik jam. From here there’s a trove of elegant side trips, a nod to the Feelin’ Groovy motif, and more ambient weirdness, before a joyful return to the Dark Star theme, the second verse, and a subtle, close-to- perfect transition to St. Stephen. Tonight’s version is played with abandon before the William Tell Bridge nudges the music—à la Live/Dead—into a full speed ahead take on The Eleven. The Hunter/Lesh composition stretches out just shy of 10 minutes, powering forward in A major, perfectly unsettling, relentless and weird, before landing on the set-ending Turn On Your Lovelight. This Lovelight, although cut, is a real barnburner, highlighted by a deep early jam, Pig’s soulful chops, a tasty drum/guitar-driven middle portion, and a late Cumberland Bluesy jam just before the tape fades out at around the 13-minute mark. Too bad it had to end, ‘cause the group was really getting going.

The Gil Coliseum Grateful Dead Dance wouldn’t be the last time the band would play in Oregon. There would be many gigs, including a renowned benefit for a certain creamery a few years later. In total, the Dead would play 35 more shows after the January ‘70 date, the last of which occurred in 1995 at Portland Meadows on a double bill with Chuck Berry. As for the Corvallis performance, I’m not sure if it was that well attended. The band never played Corvallis again, so that might be a hint.

Bear tape