4/16/72: aarhus university, denmark.

midway through their european vacation, the dead venture to the tiny college town of stakladen and play one of the most unusual shows of the fabled tour. reviewers often point to the london, frankfurt, or paris dates when highlighting the notable outings of the europe run, and rightly so. for some reason, the aarhus gig often goes unmentioned. looking at the setlist one might assume that this is just another typical grateful dead show from 1972. upon close listening though, it reveals itself as one of the most unique performances of this era.

the first set is standard ’72 fare with a solid sugaree, a few robust cowboy tunes, an extremely beautiful early take on black throated wind, and a playing in the band that is just starting to take off. the meat of this show, is found in the set 2 jams. the second frame begins with a smoking good lovin’ with all the necessary pigpen raps. a few tunes later, the weirdness really kicks in. truckin’ is arguably the best of the tour, plump full of brilliant garcia solos. the reprise jam is goddamn remarkable and the train soon becomes completely unhitched before the ensemble somehow finds it within themselves to latch onto the other one theme. this version of the other one contains an atypical structure, with a number of quiet passages and is played largely without drums. me and my uncle provides an excellent bridge before the lads dive back into the other one proper, though lacking the second verse. the end result is nearly forty minutes of unexpected twists and turns, intriguing dead ends, and a satiable helping of inspired improvisation. a rocking not fade away > goin’ down the road feeling bad > not fade away closes out the set in good ol' grateful dead fashion, with the crowd in a frenzy and no room for an encore.

recorded by betty cantor-jackson, this one is a winner from top to bottom. unfortunately, the first set on all the archived recordings is a bit muddy and suffers from numerous cuts. i’ve linked the best sounding cassette source here, via uli teute and hanno bunjes. the second set transfer from mr. charlie miller is of much better quality. of course, i’ve been listening to the exceptional jeffery norman remastered version culled from the original 16 track recording. i suggest that you take it out for a spin and see for yourself. i’m guessing you’ll b-line it to the itunes store and download this nordic beauty posthaste.

https://archive.org/details/gd72-04-16.sbd.pset1.hanno.19861.sbeok.shnf/gd72-04-16t05.shn

https://archive.org/details/gd72-04-16.sbd.miller.18103.sbeok.shnf/gd72-04-16d2t04.shn