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