6/21/71: chateau d'herouville, herouville, france.

in the summer of 1971, the dead traveled to france to play a free outdoor festival at the rodeo ranch at auvers-sur-oise. when that gig was rained out, they gave an impromptu performance at the château d'hérouville (the former country residence of frédéric chopin). i've returned to this set over and over and it really is one of those gigs that is more than the sum of its parts.

there’s two full sets of fun, packed with unabridged broken french banter. pigpen, unfortunately, is a bit out of sorts & doesn’t do either of his big closers, although we do get another hard to handle with a devastating jam. other highlights include a sublime morning dew, a succinct and well-jammed china > rider, a load of garcia-weir rockers, and a new-fashioned 25-minute cryptical envelopment > drums > the other one > wharf rat. pig even gets a little jazzy on the latter. the show is also the debut of courtenay pollack’s tie-dye speaker system, for anyone who cares about recondite grateful dead history.

jerry was interviewed in rolling stone that year, and he shared this about the scene in hérouville: "we were there with nothing to do: france, a 16-track recording studio upstairs, all our gear, ready to play, and nothing to do. so, we decided to play at the chateau itself, out in the back, in the grass, with a swimming pool, just play into the hills. we didn’t even play to hippies, we played to a handful of townspeople in auvers. we played and the people came — the chief of police, the fire department, just everybody. it was an event and everybody just had a hell of a time — got drunk, fell in the pool. it was great."

here's the soundboard recording from that evening, courtesy of another fine c. miller transfer: https://archive.org/details/gd1971-06-21.sbd.miller.94356.flac16

the gig was recorded and videotaped by ORTF (french radio and telivision broadcasting). here are a few of the highlights: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbzmRBU6Lg