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