10/9/72: winterland arena, san franciso, CA. road crew benefit w/nrps.

nineteen seventy-two is chocked full of so many stellar performances that one can literally queue up any show on the archive and find something to really chew on. i’ve highlighted a good number of dates over the past three years in this blog, including two march academy of music gigs, some personal favorites from the europe run, a handful of unheralded december dates, and the smoldering new year’s closer from the winterland ballroom.

sandwiched in between a 12-show east coast hitch and a 10-night run in the northern midwest, the band made time for a single hometown performance in the form of an october road crew benefit at winterland. the dead were no strangers to benefits of course. beginning with the mid sixties san francisco mime troupe benefit shows, the band subtly pursued opportunities to aid various groups and causes. some of the more famous of these fundraisers were performances for the hell’s angels, the black panthers, yogi bhajan’s sufi choir, the american indians, and the springfield creamery field trip in veneta, OR. this evening’s concert raised in the neighborhood of $10,000 to reportedly help the dead’s roadies buy a house. what other band comes to mind for playing benefits so that their road crew might buy a home?

as was the case on the first and last california shows of the year, the new riders opened the festivities, followed by a more typically generous two sets from jerome and company. the first set is notable for the live debut of box of rain, which featured phil lesh in his first lead vocal for the band. other highlights of the set include nice renditions of black throated wind and friend of the devil, a well-jammed china > rider, an exquisite sugaree, and a fiery, 20-minute version of playing in the band, reminiscent of some of the more interesting takes on the tune performed during the european tour.

the second frame begins with an oddity: a brief blues jam featuring a clearly inebriated grace slick, messily adlibbing in front of the bemused band. fortunately for us, her appearance is short. the music recommences with a warm he’s gone, complete with the recently introduced vocal coda. a blistering run through johnny cash’s big river follows with some lightning picking from garcia alongside keith’s remarkable piano work. a few songs later-including a fledgling mississippi half step-we arrive at the real meat of the set via a superb truckin’ > other one > wharf rat combination. the phil and billy duet at the end of truckin’ is terrific, highlighting both musician’s extraordinary fluidity and their uncanny ability to switch tempos and styles. tonight’s take on the other one is jazzy and succinct, clocking in at a mere 10 minutes; it doesn’t pack the untethered punch that many of the ’72 versions exemplify, but is quite satisfying none the less. the wharf rat is pure early seventies august west, with that brilliant garcia bridge that moves the time signature into waltz time and back to the A-major march which perfectly translates the pathos of the narrator’s experience.

the night closes out with a strong sugar magnolia and an energized fragment of casey jones. overall, this is an exceptionally well-played show, clearly reflecting the many miles the band had logged on the road over the previous months. recorded by bear, mastered and retracked by bill guarneri, this night at winterland is worthy of a few listens. you be the judge. https://archive.org/details/gd1972-10-09.sbd.130494.MrBill.flac16

3-28-69: student center, modesto junior college, modesto, CA.

this often overlooked show from the spring of ‘69 is an absolute barn burner. taped during the period when the dead were holed up in pacific recording for the aoxomoxoa sessions, this performance is everything i love about 1969 grateful dead: weird, loud, messy, and packed with dynamic instrumental jams.

the night opens with a bad-ass good morning little schoolgirl; the band is already playing when the tape starts rolling, but that doesn't kill the vibe at all. following some turn up the monitors requests for old bear, the septet launches into dark star. one month removed from the first full-blown dark star at the filmore west (that would be mixed for live/dead), this evening’s version is a sonic adventure of radical proportions. after the first verse, things fall apart and dissolve, only to be recombined into something-and nothing-else. form is completely abandoned and, as was the case for many dark star jams of this era, the music comes to serve as a psychedelic litmus test for the audience—at once holy, disturbing, and utterly mesmeric. and then, with the greatest of ease, the lads depart the transitive nightfall of diamonds and drop into an absolutely raunchy saint stephen > eleven combination that keeps the whole freak show moving along at a searing pace. next, a haunting, perfectly rendered death don’t have no mercy comes forth. the band’s take on the reverend jesse davis tune is sublime, including two extremely fiery instrumental breaks. in due course, pig asserts control again to lead the boys through a balling lovelight.

after 22 uncut minutes of mckernan magic, jerry chimes out “we’re gonna knock off for a little while and drink some coke and stuff like that and then we’ll be back to play a while, shortly…” a minute later he retorts “as long as everybody’s up you might as well stay up…there’s only 15 minutes more so we’re gonna play instead of taking a break.” and then, as the dead so often do, 15 minutes turns into a half hour of music in the form of a titanic cryptical suite. it’s a powerhouse version that doesn’t break new ground but, who cares, it’s good ol’ 1969 fucking grateful dead.
https://archive.org/details/gd1969-03-28.140994.sbd.bear.lubar.dalton.miller.clugston.flac1644/Gd69-03-28T08Tuning_banter.flac