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