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
