9/20/68: berkeley community theater. ali akbar college of music benefit w/ace of cups, steve miller band, tabla master shankar ghosh, and vince delgado.

in 1968 mickey hart was studying at ali akbar college with the hindustani classical musician, pandit shankar ghosh. mickey would work on a number of compositions with shankar which included rhythmic cycles of 4, 6, 16, 5 & 7, teachings he would take to bill kreutzmann and add to the pair's repertoire. the influence of classical indian drumming on the dead's percussion breaks-including the improvisational rhythm devils segment folded into many second sets-can be traced to their early exposure to ali akbar khan, and to indian tabla players like alla rakha and zakir hussain. mickey would inlist rakha and hussain on his first solo album, rolling thunder. hart's second long player would join zakir, vince delgado, jordan amarantha, aushim chaudhuri, and a handful of other accomplished drummers as the diga rhythm band. in fact, one could easily speculate that the origins of diga are directly yoked to this fall of '68 berkeley performance.

the partial owsley soundboard tape cuts into a rough and tumble good morning little schoolgirl, which has an unusually raw feel—more akin to alligator. the revved-up number ends in a wash of feedback and some amusing mckernan howls. the banter that follows is hilarious. issues with the onstage mics prompt weir to inquire "what's happening?" there's no immediate reply. more microphone chatter ensues. "it's coming to life," rails garcia. "the first shock is free," he continues. in time, bear clears up the audio delivery matter and the band goes with st. stephen. the song has matured since its spring debut in st. louis, and tonight's version is compact and highly spirited. by the midpoint of the song it appears that the owsley kool-aid is starting to kick in as evidenced in jerry cracking up, and weir starting the wrong verse and singing over a laughing garcia—classic grateful dead shenanigans. consistent with the general practice, st. stephen jams into the eleven. tonight's take is short and layered with dense instrumentation.

as the eleven winds down the dead's amps are partitioned and two risers are rolled on stage between hart and kreutzmann. perched atop are shankar gosh and vince delgado. over the next 26 minutes, the four men perform a number of fixed compositions, taking a rhythmic journey through many talas cylces. composed by ali akbar khan for this occasion, the playing is hypnotic and riveting. there is nothing plodding or sloppy about it; this is a perceptive interplay between four astute percussionists who are listening and collaborating with each other. the energy is high and there is an alternating push of rhythmic patterns that contradict the tala and melodic structures that continually circle back to the fundamental scheme. at the end of the piece, the drumming becomes very quiet and the players begin to chant 'taketa, taketa,' before exploding into a final, powerful theka.

of all the 1968 grateful dead performances committed to tape, this owsley recorded fragment is one of the most unconventional sets you'll find. i know that a half hour of drums isn't everybody's thing, but where else in the dead's history can one find a percussive break with such distinguished guests in tow? the berkeley crowd's vibrant applause seems to readily acknowledge the exceptionalness of the event. and one can only imagine that the vedic sage-musician narada might have been smiling down in reverence and admiration, as well.

https://archive.org/details/gd1968-09-20.sbd.miller.115682.flac16

12-7-68: bellarmine college, louisville, KY.

1968 soundboards are few and far between, with over two-thirds of the shows unaccounted for. the first few months of the year are pretty well represented as the band was taping shows for anthem of the sun. after this, the spring and early summer is essentially a black hole for dead tapes until owsley re-upped as their soundman in june. the remainder of the year, though, is rather spotty, and it seems that many of bear’s tapes have disappeared. a couple of nice audience tapes fill the gaps but, unfortunately, there were very few people making field recordings in 1968. aside from the renowned mickey & the hartbeats matrix shows and some interesting garcia jam sessions, there's only a handful of tapes from the fall, and even less from the winter dates.

december 7 is notable in that it is the first archived performance with tom constanten. it's also the dead's first outing to kentucky (and the only time the band would ever play a gig at bellarmine college). you might ask what were the grateful dead doing at a small catholic college in louisville? well, the most reasonable motivation is they needed a stopover at the end of their fall midwest tour, and the 2600 seat knight's hall venue neatly fit the bill. either that, or the boys were dying to visit the repository for all of thomas merton's manuscripts.

the owsley tape opens with an abbreviated take on the dark star > st. stephen > the eleven sequence. the music flows with hints of free percussion & harmonics. TC's organ gyrates in the mix before the second dark star verse, st stephen is concise and energized, but the eleven derails due to a bad onstage echo. as the crew works out the technical issues, weir expounds: “nobody knows where present time is,” directly followed by a sedated promoter who provides stoned crowd control: “the curfew’s been cancelled, the kids are all in bed.” the tape cuts back in for the final four minutes of death don't have no mercy, which is fierce and can only make us wonder what the front end of the tune sounded like. jerry follows with a few words for the audience: "thanks, alot. we're gonna play a bunch more, we're not finished at all...and also you know you don't have to pay strict attention to us, we don't do very much that's funny. and if you want, you can dance. it feels good to dance. after a while you'll be pretty used to us." and with that, we're greeted with an adventurous 29 minutes of that's it for the other one > new potato caboose. the other one middle jam is really starting to catch and the energy is palpable. the cryptical reprise winds down delicately and the segue into new potato is seamless; tonight's take on the bobby peterson/phil lesh-composed tune is a bit more sloppy than in august, but it still evinces all of the anthem of the sun qualities with its intricate harmonies, rapid changes in tempo and meter, and instrumental weirdness.

billy kreutzmann is absent for the second frame. “one of our drummers, uh, broke down,” jerry explains. mickey adeptly covers his portion of the battery. the set begins with the only version of rosemary the dead would ever play to a live audience. it is an extremely quiet recording and you'll have to crank up the volume to really hear it. despite the levels, it's completely worth your full aural presence—a delicate, sensitive performance. he was a friend of mine is next and, unfortunately, is cut off right in the chorus. pig gets in the mix after this with a fine rendition of it hurts me too. his harp work is subtle and blends flawlessly with the rich tone of jerry's guitar. the set closes with an audience-requested morning dew, followed by a short, but sweet we bid you goodnight. “you’ve just been victimized by the grateful dead,” barbs garcia.

this one-off performance at bellarmine U captures the band in one of their most pivotal years for stage improvisation. both sets are loaded with boundary pushing compositions and the septet is in full experimental mode, ready to push many of their showcase songs to their fullest extent. despite the drops, cuts, gouges, and warts, i'm more than happy to be a victim of this late '68 recording.

https://archive.org/details/gd1968-12-07.sbd.miller.88674.sbeok.flac16

2/19/73: international amphitheatre, chicago, IL.

a few short weeks after the unveiling of the wall of sound at stanford’s maples pavilion and a revelatory performance at madison's dane county coliseum, the dead headed east to play 3 chicago shows with the new riders of the purple sage. the first of these was held at the long-standing indoor arena on the city’s west side, home to a burgeoning wrestling scene, classic car shows, and the world hockey association’s chicago cougars. prior to this, the amphitheatre was noted for being the site of the 1957 elvis presley concerts where the king donned his now legendary gold lamé suit for the first time.

we only have 80-minutes from the single set performance, but it’s hot, hot, hot. in fact, the quality and energy is so damn conspicuous that dick latvala wrote "i have only found a cassette of bear's that had a very stunning, if not shocking, jam...that simply has to be heard to understand how good things can get!" latvala was shamelessly partial to february of ’73, often espousing that the shows that month contained possibly the best music the dead played the whole year. that’s debatable, but this chicago fragment is surely a solid contender.

what becomes immediately obvious to discerning listeners is how present phil is in the mix. the tape begins with a jaunty he’s gone, and the harmonic tone of big brown is ever present. lesh is eager to push the band further in and, he eventually does, propelling them to dive full-on into truckin.' tonight's take is spirited with classic grateful dead rhythms and instrumentation, including a lush outro jam. but it’s during the other one where the bassist fully takes charge, driving the ensemble into parts unknown. the first jam flows smoothly, and then explosively, before trickling into silence. jerry, bob, and keith step back a bit to let phil and billy take a fast paced duet; phil's bass work is completely unkempt and kreutzmann deftly colors in the spaces with subtle, sinuous kit work. a short drum solo and some garcia noodling later, lesh sounds the big intro to the other one. the verse comes quickly and then another heated exploratory jam ensues. a subtle passage follows before a tape flip drops us into the opening notes of eyes of the world. jerry finds the pulse that is the perfect tempo for transitioning from the other one. after the funky vamp over Emaj7 introduction, garcia and company spend the next 20 minutes exploring variations on the theme and the underlying rhythms within the E- and A-major tonality. the third version of eyes is exquisite and the 7/8 section is already fully formed. lesh continues to play across the bar lines, building tension with polyrhythmic combinations and conflicting metres. and, as he has all evening, he finds a way to seize the jam and lead the musicians into what will become the classic end of eyes riff (although it’s clear that they are still trying to figure out what to do with the outro bit). tonight, they simply pass into another transitional phase, and then quiet down for a slow segue into a stirring reading of china doll.

a raucous sugar magnolia and an even more raucous casey jones rounds off the performance. it is a fitting end to an extremely well-played set. based on the power and inventiveness of this performance, i’m guessing there were more than a few contented hoosiers pouring out of the old international amphitheater on this winter night in chi-town.

https://archive.org/details/gd1973-02-19.set2.sbd.miller.83023.flac16

8-21-71: mickey's barn, novato, CA, featuring members of the grateful dead, nrps, quicksilver messenger service, and a few other lithe collaborators including: david crosby, barry melton, robbie stokes, and ned lagin.

in august of '71, the new riders of the purple sage were putting the final touches on their first recording for columbia records. that same month, the band-with jerry garcia on pedal steel-performed a live outdoor set at mickey hart's ranch. the performance was recorded for a KQED-tv public television program, and promoted as "a day in the country." hart's novato ranch was certainly not a concert venue, so the performance wasn't made available to the general public. more appropriately, lawn chairs and blankets were spread about in front of the barn and the grateful dead family & friends served as the audience. it remains a mystery as to what became of the channel 9 footage of the event, except for a very brief snippet of louisiana lady on the riders offical archive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtQmsKK6Ptk

following the nrps tv outing, a number of musicians on site gathered for a spontaneous jam session. nedbase-the definitive list of ned lagin's performances with the dead-includes a short entry about the novato jam, including ned's take on who was in attendance, the instrumentation, and the general vibe, which he referred to as a "...very high day for everyone." also noted is that phil lesh made a soundboard recording of the improvised set, afterwhich he and ned listened to all the recordings together. lesh made reel-to-reel and cassette copies for himself and for ned. phil's writing on the tape box lists: stokes, garcia, lagin, hart, lesh, crosby, cippolina, and freiberg, as well as some recording information.

the partial soundboard tape we have runs a little more than 100 minutes, and contains four tracks. the music begins with the last 2 minutes of the other one jam. it's moody and ned's piano is prominant with a staccato feel. this jam-albeit much too brief-neatly segues into a fairly unadorned version of the wall song. the cut is over a half hour long and is primarily a jam on the main theme with occasional drops into the verses, which are mostly instrumental. crosby and garcia scat through the beginning of the tune, and eventually sing parts of the third verse. at the 20-minute mark, the tempo kicks up a bit and they abandon the theme for a different groove for about 8 minutes, then return to the tune for the final 5 minutes of the jam. as soon as the playing ends, jerry announces "i gotta go play" (20 miles away at the inn of the beginning where nrps was performing later that night) and that's all we have of garcia.

the second jam starts off with an organ in the mix, and piano is added a bit later. it's a mid-tempo jam that builds to a more robust tempo as the piece progresses. john cipollina's guitar and bigsby tailpiece vibrato bar is prominent in the mix, with his unique finger-picking style and trademark quiver. the jam eventually dwindles out, stopping just short of 18 minutes. from here, the rotating ensemble dives into the third cut on the tape, a jam lagin affectionately dubbed "blooz." it's a real beauty, and there's not a moment's respite from an abundance of solid, straight-a-head jamming. we hear ned's organ, phil's bass, and what appears to be 3 guitars adroitly weaving in and out of each other; they all attack the jam and cippolina provides plenty of bite & distorted tone courtesy of his maestro fuzzbox.

the last jam is a bouncy mid-tempo affair with three or four (or more) guitarists, two basses, a piano, and an organ (apparently labeled "R&R Jam" on lagin's tape). the nedbase post indicates that by this time in the session most of the other instruments were out of tune with the piano and organ. i'd have to concur, although we don't have to endure much as the tape cuts after 5 minutes.

the novato day in the country is another recording in a long list of collaborative sets with jerry garcia. much like the hartbeats shows in 1968-69 that included the likes of jack casady, elvin bishop, spencer dryden, and howard wales, this backstage barn jam at hart's ranch brings together a rich aggregate of players and styles. listening to the musical experimentation and virtuosity of the all-star cast in this loose, aleatory format and setting is a real gas. it makes me wonder how many other spontaneous jams from this era were committed to soundboard reels. that said, here's to hoping there's some pro video and bob matthews audio of jerry garcia and the nrps, playing outdoors on the sunny saturday of august 21, 1971, waiting patiently in tape boxes for us. until then, we'll have to live with what's on the archive.

http://spiritcats.com/nl_aditc_ok.mp3

5-24-70: hollywood festival, ted askey’s lower pig farm, staffordshire, england.

the two-day outdoor event was packed with a variety of local and national talent, which included the likes of traffic, ginger baker’s airforce, mungo jerry, the flaming groovies, tony joe white, a very young black sabbath, and jose feliciano. the dead performed a fine electric set despite the tiny stage, crowded press arena, and a PA and monitoring system that they weren't able to hear. no problem, the boys played full-tilt for three hours straight to the delight of the newcastle-under-lyme freaks and adventurous locals. the british press were unanimous in their positive appraisal of the dead’s showing at the festival: mac garry (in zigzag 13) said that they were "totally magnificent.” his description of jerry’s performance was compelling: “…the solid red gibson looked so flimsy in garcia's hands that it looked like it would break like balsa if he squeezed it—but it seemed like every time he touched it, beautiful, clear ringing notes poured out—and on me and my uncle he was just fucking fabulous.” dick lawson (‘what would be the answer to the answer then?,’ friends 12) completely gushed over the show, describing their set as "the most ecstatic exploratory music ever witnessed in england."

speaking to lawson prior to the festival, garcia said: "we're going through some transitions. our music is not what it was: it's continually changing. what we've been doing in the states lately is having 'an evening with the grateful dead.' we start off with acoustic music with bobby and me playing guitars, light drums, and very quiet electric bass. pigpen plays the organ. then we have a band we've been traveling with, the new riders of the purple sage, where i play pedal steel, not guitar, mickey plays drums, and three of our friends from the coast, musicians that we've known for a long time, are fronting the band. so we start off with acoustic music and then the new riders--it's like very snappy electric country-rock; it's kinda hard to describe--and then we come on with the electric dead, so it keeps us all really interesting, and it's six hours of this whole development thing. by the end of the night it's very high" (p. 11).

for a band in transition, the dead sure don’t disappoint the UK crowd. playing at fearsome volume they work their way through a number of extended jams, some new tunes from workingman’s, and a generous helping of pig pen tunes. some highlights include an outstanding china cat sunflower > i know you rider pairing, a powerful, attacking version of the other one that neatly segues into a rare live offering of attics of my life, a highly charged good lovin’ with plenty of mckernan trimmings, and a dark star rife with rhythmic exploration and noise that likely transported the crowd to the edge of a blissful perfection.

the dead’s first european jaunt was mostly successful and certainly gained them some new fans. although they weren’t at the top of the bill at the hollywood festival, many folks had come to hear them out of curiosity to see if they were all they were cracked up to be. ramrod and the crew worked tirelessly to improve the sound, and the set was recorded by the band’s resident sound man & chemist, stanley owsley. regrettably, the BBC tv crew who were set to film the show were unable to fully perform their duties due to a dose of bear’s finest. the footage they shot was completely unusable. a few privately shot standard 8 films do exist though, and they are brief and recorded without sound. the best available celluloid documentation of the may of '70 mini-tour are outtakes shot on 16mm, which were discovered in the preparation for the dvd release of the grateful dead movie. the footage from the hollywood fest is of exceptional quality and made the cut as bonus content on scorsese’s long strange trip documentary. there’s also footage of the band, robert hunter, and sam cutler arriving at heathrow airport which is a total gas, not to mention a wonderful historical document.

in 1971 garcia gave a rolling stone interview and commented about his disappointment regarding the dead’s showing at the festival: “i enjoyed going to england. i liked the english people, they seemed to enjoy us, but we didn't play for shit. we only got to play once, at a thing called the hollywood festival while we were there. so it was a drag; but i'd like to go and really spend some time playing and get to know some people. but it was really nice." well, we all know that jerry got to follow-up on his agenda in the autumn of ’72, but that’s a different story that’s had more than enough press. as for this concert in staffordshire, i must say that i disagree with jerome’s assessment of the gig being a poorly played affair. yes, it’s a bit ragged and out of tune at times, but it makes up for its shortcomings with sheer grit, flagrant noise, and unrestrained abandon. that said, may 24, 1970 is a tape that i’m happy to revisit for just the force and character of the performance alone. it represents a band playing at the edge of new possibilities and ideas, ideas that would mature over the course of the year where the group would grind out well over 100 live dates, record two rootsy studio masterpieces, and integrate acoustic music into most major-venue shows. pretty impressive.

digitized by michael getz with an update by simon philips, this recording is a bit of 1970s gold. give it a listen and make your own appraisal. you may even find yourself taking it out for a second spin.
https://archive.org/details/gd1970-05-24.135716.sbd.phillips.flac16

and please do yourself a favor and also check out these rare black & white and color outtakes from the 1970 europe excursion. you'll most likely dig 'em as much as me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpJUZn_G6og

2-19-69: celestial synapse at the fillmore west w/golden toad, don hamrick, don mccoy, and the writer activist stephen gaskin.

two weeks before the live/dead run, the band played one of their most unusual shows of 1969. billed as a "frontiers of science celestial synapse," the by invitation only event was undoubtedly one of the most colorful musical gatherings the fillmore ever saw. invites went out to people in the rock music field and a broad range of psychedelic tribes, including rancho olompali, a number of other communes, and the hells angels. the organizing body of the event was frontiers in science, an intentional community located at harbinger, a former hotsprings resort 100 miles north of san franciso. founded by donald james hamrick in 1967, the self-reliant community sought to be a center for learning, research/development, and exploration, in addition to carrying out hamrick's vision to establish order and unity on earth and to connect the physical and metaphysical aspects of science. a rolling stone article from april of that year began: "fifteen hundred invitations were sent out for the february 19 event, and although there was no other announcement, probably double that number attended. after a stirring oboe and bagpipe introduction by the golden toad, don hamrick of frontiers in science spoke for a few minutes in a gentle rural accent, addressing the crowd as the 'goodly company.''it is our hope,' he said, 'that this evening there will be an opening and a free interchange, so that something new may emerge. let the barriers fall, let there be a merging.'"

so what were the grateful dead doing offering their services for free at an event with pamphlets printed in a medieval irish script that referred to itself as a celestial synapse? to begin with, jerry garcia was always ready for a chance to jam. he also really dug science, existential philosophy, and the transformative nature of psychedelics, which made a scene like this right up his alley. garcia and hamrick were also both associated with a hip economist friend of jerry's, don mccoy. mccoy established the rancho olompali commune on a 700 acre parcel of land in novato, a location that, coincidentally, had served as the grateful dead's first north coast home for 6 weeks in 1966. after mccoy leased the estate and founded olampali, the dead returned frequently for spontaneous all-night jams.

and that is loosely what helped these forces coalesce on this evening at the fillmore. bob thomas, the piper for the golden toad summed up the happening "it's like one of the old ken kesey acid tests...only less hectic and confused." in addition to the grateful dead soundtrack, there were 3 simultaneous light shows, plenty of owsley magic, people happily shedding their clothes, and an abundance of flowers and incense--the epitome of a cosmic late sixties gathering. as for their performance, the dead played a flowing improvisatory set of new material that is said to have lasted 4 hours. unfortunately, we only have about one and a half hours of music here. it's a weird, anarchic recording, that starts off in poor quality with a sloppy lovelight > not fade away > lovelight; a muddy mix with some annoying buzzing from a bad electrical connection persists until midway through the first set. the tape continues to roll during the break and we're treated to some odd rapping from don mccoy, audience chanting led by stephen gaskin who gallantly blows on a conch shell in between OMs, and various heads babbling on the stage mics and/or jamming on the dead's percussion--a very strange and equally fascinating field recording.

the second set is a fantastic and ranging jam very much like one of the mickey & the heartbeats gigs. the music begins with a heavy, mournful vibe between weir and garcia, and the rest of the band joins one by one. pigpen's organ is finally audible and the mix has improved greatly from the start of the tape. lesh then ushers the jam into a dark, bluesy take on the main ten. their first run through the theme of what will soon become the playing in the band intro is very satisfying. this flows into a series of garcia-led jams that ebb and flow, with jerry eventially taking over. in time, garcia starts an other one jam which the band performs without lyrics, exploring different variations and rhythms. this, for me, is the highlight of the show and is stylistically much like versions of the other one you might hear from early '69--thunderous and brimming with intensity. the jam keeps getting more fervent until they pound out the mighty other one chords and then, in seeming exhaustion, quietly trickle to a stop.

to add a bit more intrigue to this already historically noteworthy gathering, is the fact that the tape has been mislabeled as the 6/19/68 carousel ballroom performance. before now, it was thought to have been a glimpse into what a mid-'68 dead show sounded like when free jams could go in any direction. the fudged date on the vault tape was apparently dick latvala's doing. as for the real june 19, 1968? it was the grateful dead's last show at the original carousel, a benefit gig for the black people's free store. no recording of that date is known to survive. fortunately for us the mystery has been solved, and the famous lost celestial synapse show has been unearthed in all it's chimerical glory.

recorded by bear, with a digital transfer from j. cotsman, this obscure relic is not to be missed. try it on for size. https://archive.org/details/gd68-06-19.sbd.cotsman.4511.sbeok.shnf

2-15-69: electric factory, philadelphia, PA w/paul pena

the dead's repertoire went through an immense change in 1969. at the beginning of the year the band was intent on playing the live/dead suite and anthem material at every show, with just a smattering of new tunes on the side. by june, they had introduced a bunch of new covers and had begun to turn more and more towards country music, with garcia inserting the pedal steel and weir assuming the role of western crooner. by the fall, the dead were covering a wide range of material in increasingly song-heavy, relaxed shows, with the live/dead set becoming rare even as the album was being released.

like many fans of this era, i've spent a good deal of time plumbing the early months of '69 on the archive. i really love this period with its mix of the psychedelic vestiges of 1968 and the magic and theatricality of the aoxomoxoa material. if you're also an admirer of this phase of the band's development, the second show of a two-night hitch at the old electric factory in downtown philly should be on your radar. the venue, a former tire warehouse, opened in 1968 and became a critical stop on 60's concert tours. originally called the electric factory and flea market, the 2500-capacity club was an integral part of the rock music circuit that included both fillmores, the boston tea party, and chicago's kinetic playground.

the opening act for the dead's two february gigs was paul pena who also opened for the mothers of invention at the factory earlier that week. pena was a soulful singer-songwriter who had an electric blues band he toured with at that time. he was losing his eyesight due to a genetic condition when he met the dead this weekend. in 1971, when he was completely blind, he moved to the bay area where he regularly opened shows for jerry and merl saunders at the keystone berkeley. garcia helped pena get a recording contract with fantasy records, played on a few tracks in the studio, and made sure that the berkeley provided him with regular paying gigs. pena's song jet airliner ended up being a huge hit for steve miller in 1977; he later was the subject of the documentary genghis blues, that recounts his journey to the russian republic of tuva to pursue his interest in the throat singing technique of the tuvan monks.

this evening's performance is nearly 3-hours long and the tape is a rare example of the relatively few recordings that exist from the electric factory in the 1960s. the show begins with a fine take on the newly penned doin' that rag. like many grateful dead songs, this tune is an homage to ragtime. jerry sings it in a way that reveals the ragtime that seemed to be inherent to his nature, much like the way his banjo playing and peidmont blues finger picking approach brought a syncopated rhythmic pattern to the way he played melody lines and solos on his electric guitar. the boys next roll out a potent, freewheeling cryptical suite followed by an absolutely remarkable take on morning dew. the set closing turn on your lovelight-although cut-is assertive and lavishly infused with archetypal explosive garcia blues.

from the second set comes some of the most affecting music of the year, a bold statement given the power of the february '69 run. after a fine acoustic dupree's diamond blues, mountains of the moon continues the wooden music and is played to perfection. garcia solos confidently on the acoustic before nimbly switching to his gibson, and the transition to dark star flows exquisitely. tonight's version is immense, and is the first dark star to crack 20 minutes. the band really digs in and the jamming is at once sonically brazen, while equallly lush, jazzy, and spacious. next up in the live/dead sequence is st. stephen; it's a solid performance and moves like clockwork into the eleven. and, just as the song is getting transcendent, the tape cuts into the second verse of death don't have no mercy. this is unfortunate, but it's a 1969 soundboard that captures the dead at the height of their pure psychedelic improvisational powers and i can live with the flaws. as luck would have it, we're promptly greeted with a down and dirty cosmic charlie that features a surprisingly assertive and worked out harmonic part by pigpen throughout.

the show could have easily ended here but in true grateful dead fashion, they still have a 47-minute alligator > caution > we bid you goodnight left in them. this last sequence is by no means a letdown. the alligator is raw and all mckernan; the post drums portion is wild with garcia and weir ripping out chords as fast as they can, before it ends in a kreutzmann/hart-led east indian style percussive vocal jam. the drummer's chant seques into an instrumental we bid you goodnight jam, that serves as a bridge into caution/feedback and a prelude to the beautiful set-closing acapella version.

recorded by bear with a transfer by d. winters, this is a tape that you'll want to return to for repeated listenings. the energy is high, and you can tell that the band is really on to something and knows it.

https://archive.org/details/gd69-02-15.sbd.winters.16664.sbeok.shnf