9/1/69: new orleans pop festival, baton rouge international speedway.

more than just the summer of love, 1969 was the summer of outdoor rock festivals and the dead played a number of them, including woodstock, oregon, british columbia, and finally louisiana. the two-day event was held at a tiny racetrack, with a broad range of heavy acts playing to a crowd of 50,000, which apparently included over 100 undercover cops combing the grounds for drugs.

the dead open their set with casey jones, playing it for just the tenth time. the song rips from the beginning, but it takes the boys a few moments to find the theme, rolling along on a parallel track of sorts for a bit. following a tasty, up-tempo morning dew, a tentative mama tried, and a sweet take on the workingman’s dead cut, high time, the audience is gifted with hands down, one of the best versions of easy wind ever recorded. after the loose, pig-led gem (and another dispensable weir’s telling of the yellow dog story), the band navigates through 60 minutes of extended improvisations beginning with a fine dark star suite. the dark star segues into a raging st. stephen that is followed, without hesitation, by an eleven that’s full of tortuous twists and turns, including a damn fine william tell bridge. the jamming gets cranked up to such a level that it can only be resolved in a hot lovelight, which of course is exactly what’s delivered to close out the set. bookmark this one for future listening, it’s a dandy.

https://archive.org/details/gd69-09-01.sbd.vernon.19963.sbeok.shnf

2/22/69: dream bowl, vallejo, CA.

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 this vallejo gig could certainly be shelved at the top of the glorious heap. every tune on this evening has something really special going on. beginning with the gorgeously sweet 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'll shake your cerebral cortex into happy submission. the second set continues the trend, opening with a barrelhouse doin’ that rag—a perfect combination of garcia’s sparse, but punchy licks swirling around tom constanten’s amusement park organ. after this, the boys launch into a masterful st. stephen > the eleven that very much rivals the version on live dead that they would play a few weeks later at the fillmore west. the night ends with a downright epic lovelight that, I’m sure sent the crowd home more than satisfied with the $3 admission they had shelled out. recorded by bear, digitized by david gans, and meticulously transferred by charlie miller, this show is an absolute corker.

https://archive.org/details/gd1969-02-22.sbd.miller.112691.flac16

4-23-69: the ark, boston, MA.

spring, 1969. the dead roll into the northeast like a house on fire. after an exceptional gig at clark university with roland kirk, they head to boston for a 3-night run at the city's newest rock venue, the ark. the band had not graced beantown since december 1967, and all three shows at the new lansdowne street club are superb. the third night of the stand is the highlight performance; the energy is high, and you can tell that the band is really onto something and knows it. for starters, the opening cut-he was a friend of mine-is achingly beautiful, played and sung with a grace and styling that made listening to ’69 circa jerry garcia such a god damn pleasure. from here, the boys launch into 60 minutes of music that features a gorgeous dark star suite, a first rate cryptical > other one, an extremely super charged sittin’ on top of the world, and a hot set ending lovelight, with a vintage pigpen rap.

the second set, beginning with morning dew, is really mind blowing. just listen to jerry's guitar licks on hard to handle, or the way the entire sequence starting with the mckernan-led alligator flows so effortlessly, as if it couldn't be played any other way. the boston globe’s bud collins, later an award-winning sportswriter, wrote in his review that the band “was loud enough to melt the ears.” another funny tidbit i came across when researching this run, aside from how good the shows themselves were, involves the guy who introduced the band each night (included here, on the linked charlie miller transfer). apparently, the first night he had no idea: "these are some guys from the west coast..." by the last night, they were "the best fucking rock and roll band in the whole world." listening to this bear recorded gem, i couldn’t agree more.

https://archive.org/details/gd1969-04-23.sbd.miller.88501.sbeok.flac16

and the scott clugston transfer of the second night is also very much worth your attention. the mountains of the moon > dark star pairing is very much worth checking out.

https://archive.org/details/gd69-04-22.sbd.clugston.68.sbeok.shnf

5/18/72: kongressaal-deutsches museum, munich, west germany.

a little over a month removed from the band’s relatively brief beat-club TV performance, comes this monster of a show from the rhineland. the previous site of rallies hosted by der Fuhrer, the munich venue was a high-ceilinged, acoustically challenging space with reflective wood walls and narrow, vertical windows; it was a room built for performances of beethoven’s ninth, not for rock concerts fueled by 15,000 watts of audio power delivered through ron wickersham designed alembic sound systems. the dead had no concerns with these limitations on this night, executing a masterful, three-hour performance that found them playing the crap out of every song in their path.

the first set—in typical 1972 fashion—is a fifteen tune affair with just the right mix of moods and tempos, with garcia, weir, and pigpen alternating on lead vocals. the second set opens with the tour’s first performance of sitting on top of the world, and it doesn’t disappoint. it's great to hear jerry circa 1972 belt this one out with authority, driving the walter vinson penned tune forward at a breathless rockabilly clip. the relatively short (by europe ’72 standards) second set really heats up with the dark star, one of the most adventurous of the year. the boys take the tune’s theme and bend it into an ever-building cacophony of rhythms and harmonic feedback, with billy battering his toms and cymbals like a man possessed. eventually, the jam winds down and musingly drifts into a delicate and melodious version of morning dew. after a very short, transitory drum solo and a first-rate sugar magnolia, the patrons are treated to one of just two double encores of the european tour, with a bittersweet sing me back home, followed by a rockin’ one more saturday night. danke schön.

https://archive.org/details/gd1972-05-18.sbd.miller.79057.sbeok.flac16

4/20/69: atwood hall, clark university, worcester, MA.

the dead and roland kirk share the bill and play for a tiny crowd at clark’s on-campus theatre (capacity 658). the dead flew in from indiana (where they played a fine gig at purdue university), but their equipment came by truck. this explains why the stephen prung poster lists the clark performance as 4/19. anyway, 1969 wasn’t the first time the dead graced atwood hall. they performed there in the fall of ’67 and, the word is, they blew the power twice. afterwards, they simply excused themselves and promised to come back.

on april 20, 1969 they did just that, and the tape survives where jerry admits right before the morning dew opener: “last time we were here, it was a colossal disaster.” the circuits did hold up this time, and the band delivered 90 minutes of music, including a really sweet dark star and a damn nice dupree’s diamond blues > mountains of the moon encore. mr. kirk, on the other hand, seemed unhappy with the billing and waved a gun around at the dead prior to the show.

https://archive.org/details/gd69-04-20.sbd.lutch.4992.sbeok.shnf