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