3/23/72: academy of music, new york, NY.

early 1972 was a relatively quiet time for the grateful dead. over the first few months they only played two gigs—winterland on january 2, and a short american indian benefit at winterland again on march 5. 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 LP), and he took the opportunity to play a number of 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 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 with the third night’s offering, based on the song selection, quality of playing, and the absolutely blistering second set. a few years back, rob eaton got his mitts on betty cantor-jackson’s master reel of the 3/23 show and cleaned the entire reel by hand, before making a digitized version available on the archive. the result is a performance that very much captures a band at the height of their artistic powers. 1972 dead is truly a special thing to behold, especially when listening in such close detail to such a spotless recording as this.

https://archive.org/details/gd1972-03-23.sbd.miller.100000.sbeok.flac16