11-12-71: san antonio civic auditorium w/nrps

in the fall of 1971 the dead and long time touring partners the new riders of the purple sage hit the road again for a few months. gone were the 6 hour shows the two bands collaborated on the year before. jerry no longer played pedal steel with the opening act, replaced by session man and former great speckled bird member, buddy cage. the dead also had a lineup change of their own in keith godchaux. an accomplished keyboardist who recorded with the likes of dave mason and james & the good brothers, keith brought his honed skills to the band playing both piano and hammond organ. on a somber note, the dead were performing without pigpen who was home sick with doctor's orders to stop touring indefinitely because of a rare case of biliary cirrhosis.

the basic set structure of 1970 (less nrps) would become the general concert structure for the grateful dead forevermore, with first sets built around shorter, more basic tunes, and second sets being more exploratory in nature. beginning in the spring '71 tour, the other one became a regular second frame piece for extended jamming and mining the otherwordly. in an interview with charles reich from the book signpost to a new space (da capo press, 1972), garcia shared that nineteen seventy-one found the band more excited about exploring the other one than they were about dark star. jerry was really jazzed about the directions the song could go in as it opened up and became spacier. keith's addition to the ensemble is palpable during these extended voyages; he brings new elements to the mix and it's obvious that his style of playing is an inspiration to the others, resulting in a richer, fuller sound and expanding the ideas they could collectively pursue.

a prime example of an other one from the fall tour was played during a late november concert in san antonio. the boys always seemed to bring a little extra to their texas gigs, and this set II fragment--culled from dick latvala's dat of the master reel vault source--is no exception. the recording captures the band during a period of great energy, change, and maturation; the mix on the tape has a wide dynamic range and shows the beginnings of the monumental europe '72 sound in developement.

the cryptical suite from this evening is quite remarkable and contains an array of complex, thematic jams. after the customary vocal intro and a 2 1/2 minute drum interlude from kreutzmann, the quintet launches headlong into the other one. garcia's playing is at once fierce with a tangible immediacy. lesh's bass oscillates across the wavelengths of jerry's guitar and the percussive cadence of keith's staccato piano runs coupled with bill's wily timekeeping create a rhythmic balance teetering on the edge of instability. weir keeps things ever interesting inverting chords and subtly filling the soundscape with rich, melodic shades, moving with seamless transition between the current jam and other spatial motifs. garcia soon heads in a different direction and the band veers into a spacey exploration that drifts into emptiness. out of this minimalist space comes a new, beautifully layered jam that builds to an absolutely feral pitch before cowboy bob belts out the first verse. from here, things evolve into another jam that ebbs and flows with psychedelic abandon, before winding down and drifting into a delicate and soulful cryptical reprise. and, as the dead often do, they keep things surprising by promptly diving full-speed ahead into a blistering big railroad blues. it's as unexpected a combo as i've ever heard the group roll out.

transfered by the esteemed c. miller and edited/mastered by sirmick, this soundboard source fragment is about as good as it gets for '71 dead.
https://archive.org/details/gd1971-11-12.142439.partial.sbd.easton.miller.sirmick.flac1644/gd1971-11-12t01.flac

the spirit of '76

6/29/76: auditorium theatre, chicago, IL.

mangrove valley has been up and running for over 4 years now and not once have i ventured to write about a grateful dead show played later than 1975. the reasoning behind this choice is not based solely on the huge stockpile of incredible pre-retirement tapes to explore and deconstruct on the archive, it’s also largely informed by a simple personal fact: i’m a full-on early years dead freak. despite my adoration of the noisy, unhinged experimental stuff of old, i’ve certainly hedged towards the later seventies by including three of the four 1975 dates, with detailed posts/links to the largely instrumental SNACK benefit concert, the bob fried memorial boogie at winterland featuring jerry garcia & friends, and the excellent bob menke field-recording from lindley meadows. my only omission is the great american music hall performance, which has been more than well-documented and digitized for posterity in the one from the vault release. as an aside, i even included a brief post about the alan bershaw transfer of bob gurman’s studio reel that documents the first of the blues for allah practice sessions at bob weir’s mill valley home.

so, what made me want to stray from my longstanding focus on gigs played prior to the 1 ½ year hiatus from touring? the answer arrived via the united states postal service in late march in the form of the new june 1976 box set. listening to the five shows and fifteen discs that make up this fine compilation has given me a whole new appreciation for the comeback year with its small concert halls and revamped sound system. my curiosity was fired after communing with the boston, new york city, and passaic dates contained within the neatly packaged set, and i promptly dove into the archive for a more discerning listen to the 1976 canon. a few shows into my foraging, i landed on the final performance of the 4-night run at the old auditorium theatre in chicago. but before i gush about the 6/29 performance, let me set the table with a few details about the dead's reentry into the touring fold.

much has been written about what promoted the philosophical shift that transitioned the dead from the big stadium wall of sound touring machine to a band that opted for smaller venues and a compact dual PA system. garcia summed it up nicely when he told local san francisco tv host, father john riley, in an interview the same month the band announced its return: “we felt that [we] reached the end of a certain level, that cul-de-sac, in terms of a rock ‘n roll group. what we call the mega-gig, the huge stadium, we played in those…[and] we felt that it was a dead end. it got to be totally controlled, airplane to motel, motel to gig, heavy security, nobody near the stage. what’s worse, it’s reflected in [how] those very large places deal with people, that cattle prod methodology. lots of cops, lots of frisk lines, lots of tightness. what we wanted to do was definitely not that. so it became a question of what we wanted to do?” 

what they did was unprecedented for a rock band at that time. in a radical new attempt at direct marketing, the dead announced it's first 18 shows of the bicentennial via Dead Heads with instructions about how to mail order tickets. the notice included the following language: "we don't want to pack around the equipment necessary to do ultralarge productions. in plain fact, we don't want to play giant gigs at all-so we're going back into smaller places, keep promotion way down and give you first crack at tickets." and that's how it went down. the shows were announced and the fans rabidly ate up the tickets and prepared for the revamped grateful dead, that featured the return of second drummer mickey hart after a half-decade absence. to make things-as bobby ace often liked to espouse-"exactly right," the group situated themselves at san francisco's orpheum theatre for a final round of technical rehearsals at the end of may. and to spice things up a tad more before embarking on their east coast run, they added a july 2nd tour closing show at jersey city's roosevelt stadium. the stage was set.

the culminating concert of the brief june tour finds the band in extremely solid form and demonstrates in spades the stripped-down, retooled, reinvented version of the good old grateful dead. the first set kicks of with a rare tennessee jed opener that sets the tone for the evening. jerome belts out the lyrics and rips through a few very satisfying solos. two weir-sung numbers and a sweet, lilting take on peggy-o later, the band rolls out their last live performance of the JGB staple, mission in the rain. tonight's take is downright stirring. of note, donna godchaux's backing vocals on the hunter-garcia tune are gorgeous; she has fully integrated into the band by now and her time performing with jerry's side projects has really helped her smooth out her delivery and work with the monitors during live shows. a bit further into the first frame, the band delivers a barrelhouse version of the weir-barlow combo lazy lightning > supplication. the first two cuts from the recently released kingfish LP get an extended treatment, with some nice ensemble jamming on the backend. a long and tasty row jimmy is next, with just the right amount of slide work from jerome, followed by a music never stopped > might as well 1-2 punch that must have had a good number of folks feverishly spinning in the aisles. 

the second set opens with the weir-led arrangement of reverend gary davis's sampson and delilah. this is a new tune for the band and will be a regular part of their repertoire and be played countless times over the next 20 years. this early take is a bit rough, but satisfying all the same. candyman is next. written in 1970, the song has been in obscurity for most of the years since, but now it comes into new focus and character. garcia's fill passages are delicate and transportive and, much like his ethereal pedal steel solo on american beauty, communicates the blues. after a rather lengthy bit of tuning up, the band beyond description plunges headlong into the centerpiece of set two. playing in the band has certainly been a vehicle for exploration and inventive jams since the europe '72 tour, and tonight's take is no exception. this version starts out rather innocently and quickly drops into a rich, jazzy improvisation. this initial jam soon digresses into a more dissonant soundscape; a few different grooves ensue with various members trading melody figures under jerry's extended leads. soon a new jam emerges, the drummers shift their rhythmic pattern, and the band slides effortlessly into the wheel. released on jerry's solo record in 1972, this tune doesn't get its live debut until this tour. this is their fourth performance and it's already beginning to take shape. about five minutes into the song the dead, as they often do, take a detour. garcia starts hinting at the other one, and this soon turns into a fast-paced jam with a driving piano riff by keith. the dance continues for a few more minutes before dropping into an open, free-form space that the band seems happy to mine for a while. in time, the incohesive becomes a connected, familiar groove and the group finds their way back to playing in the band. the retooled st. stephen is next, complete with a rocked out not fade away in place of the william tell bridge. and if that wasn't enough, there's still room for an upbeat one more saturday night and a funky u.s. blues encore.

recorded by betty cantor-jackson and mastered by scott clugston, this performance is aces from top to bottom. plug in some headphones and see for yourself. i'm guessing you'll dig it as much as i have.

https://archive.org/details/gd1976-06-29.139633.sbd.betty.gastwirt.miller.clugston.flac16/Gd76-06-29T01Tuning.flac

    

2/1/70: the warehouse, new orleans, LA. w/fleetwood mac

heralded as “bread for the dead,” this show was essentially the dead’s bust fund benefit for themselves. after some wacky tape-opening chatter, the stage announcer says: “and here’s the group that made this afternoon all possible…” (lesh: “the new orleans police department!”), and they launch into a torrid version of beat it on down the line. china cat sunflower > i know you rider is next up; the mix is guitar-heavy and messy, but it levels out just before the customary three-part a capella vocal harmony. a few new ones from the soon-to-be-released workingman’s dead follow—black peter and cumberland blues. both songs are well played and sound remarkably tight despite the fact that they’d just been folded into the band’s repertoire. the middle portion of the show is pretty standard without any real standouts. good lovin’ cuts just as the jam is heading back into pig’s vocals and dire wolf is still in its catchy folk tune phase.

the boys really dig in for back half of the performance. the cryptical suite is superb and typical of the era. the opening verse segues into an extremely long (11 minute) drum break, followed by a seething take on the other one. a reel flip neatly cuts the vocals, resulting in a mostly instrumental version. the ensemble playing is absolutely fierce, and garcia sounds like he’s about to blow up. fleetwood mac’s peter green joins the band on guitar as they drop into 39-minutes of turn on your lovelight to close out the show. green’s presence is felt immediately as he bends and blends notes on his ’59 honey-burst les paul, deftly navigating the tempo changes that make the song such a delight. his contribution clearly inspires the band and the evening’s take is a very long, jammed out version that surely stands out as one of the most colorful lovelights of the year. https://archive.org/details/gd1970-02-01.126275.sbd.lee-smith.flac16

12-19-69: fillmore auditorium, san francisco, CA. w/osceola, rhythm dukes, jef jaisun, and lightyear.

this performance is highly significant in grateful dead history in that it is the first to feature an acoustic set. by all accounts, it appears that this evening’s wooden music was necessitated because of some significant technical problems. it was enough of a hit though that they rolled it out the next week in dallas, and then again numerous times in 1970 (with and without the new riders).

the tape opens with a few comments by jerry on the topic of a missing bass player. he shares that phil “...is stuck somewhere, but he is on his way and will be here in some short time and we’ll be able to play loud and all that…in the meantime, me and bobby ace are going to regale you with some old favorites.” these early acoustic takes on monkey & the engineer, little sadie, and been all around this world come off quite nicely, similar to how they’d sound on bear’s choice. the one wild card is the vern stovall/bobby george song, long black limousine. weir, in fine voice, gets a chance to step it up on the tune, and garcia’s backing vocals are a perfect compliment. although the band played the song beautifully, they shelved it before realizing its full potential. the final performance–at the fillmore east–came just five months after this evening’s debut.

in due time, the full band is assembled and gets down to business with the electric portion of the show. it kicks off with an absolutely smoking mason’s children. from here, the lads settle into the usual late ’69 song selection with a solid black peter, a vibrant hard to handle, a rocking cumberland blues, and a funky take on good lovin’. the show concludes with a stirring other one suite that segues nicely into uncle john's band, followed by a well-jammed lovelight that spirals into a bold climax, which certainly must have left the crowd exhausted and satisfied. without question, this owsley tape is worthy of your full attention.
https://archive.org/details/gd1969-12-19.sbd.clugston.5584.sbeok.shnf/gd69-12-19d1t01.shn

5-18-68: santa clara county fairgrounds.

if you want to hear what the grateful dead sounded like six months prior to the release of live dead and the lauded 1969 line-up, this jorma kaukonen field tape is a telling record of the band’s hard-driving, opulently psychedelic 1968 soundscape. with two-thirds of the ’68 shows lost and many of the surviving documents being incomplete, this one is a real find. a caveat regarding the sound quality: the onstage microphone set-up swims quite a bit, has a number of drop-outs, and contains almost no up front vocals in the mix. despite these obvious liabilities, the music is breathtaking from start to finish. in fact, if pressed to produce a recording that perfectly documents the raging power of the grateful dead’s nineteen sixty-eight feverish, improvisatory gestalt, i strongly believe that the santa clara performance should always be in the conversation.

the american music journalist greil marcus was in attendance for the dead’s matinee outing. he remembers tom “big daddy” donahue introducing the band, announcing that their new album would be out that week, and suggesting that the dead might play some numbers from it during their set. marcus wrote: “jerry garcia smiled benignly to himself. he said they'd do 'alligator' and they did, for about forty minutes. that was their set and it blew the place wide open.”

listening to the swelling, monstrous, and brutal groove of this performance, i’d have to agree.
https://archive.org/details/gd1968-05-18.aud.jorma.gmb.sbeok.94591.flac16

8-6-71: hollywood palladium, los angeles, CA. w/ the new riders of the purple sage.

one of the best-known audience tapes from the early seventies, this rob bertrando field recording is really something. the tape, produced with a sony 770 portable 7-inch reel deck and two battery-powered ECM-22 condenser mikes, is close to perfect with soundboard quality instrument separation and a good balance of crowd noise. bertrando was one of the original grateful dead tapers who, along with relix-founders les kippel and jerry moore, worked their cunning magic in the days when recording shows demanded coming up with wily methods for getting one’s gear into concert venues. this is long before tapers’ sections were the norm at dead shows, and stories abound about the band’s sound and road crews putting the stops to every recording operation they witnessed. cords were cut, tape decks smashed, and tapes were often confiscated. it’s amazing that bootlegs like this palladium gig ever got made in the first place.

the show roars out of the gate with a fiery bertha, and the high-octane atmosphere continues throughout the performance. stellar takes on new and old tunes litter the first set, including a tight mr. charlie, a blistering cumberland blues, a fine brokedown palace with competent harmonies, and a damn pretty run through loser. the highlight of the opening frame is the tremendous hard to handle. a featured track on the fallout from the phil zone compilation, this hard to handle has long been considered in grateful dead circles as one of the best they ever played. the solo section on this evening is absolutely ablaze with power; the raw energy of this rendition is palpable, and the reflection back from the frenzied palladium audience perfectly captures the symbiotic relationship between the band and the crowd in a way that is elemental to the grateful dead’s live affect.

the second set opens with one of the last pre-vacation period takes on saint stephen. the stand alone version is full of swagger and doesn’t disappoint. a respectable truckin’ is next, replete with some downright acrobatic guitar work from garcia. from here, a quick drum solo bridges the way to the jewel of set 2—a fabulous, opulently textured other one. it’s a classic '71 version, filled with dark, ruminating jams and crackling verve—exactly what we’ve come to expect when listening to performances during this peak transitional period. me & my uncle appears midway through the song, a combination that would occur a number of times during the fall and winter tours. tonight’s take has a little something extra in the chamber and the segue is nearly perfect. after the cowboy weir interval, a free-form jam ensues and advances-with great instrumental fervor-to the final verse. the show concludes with a few rockers, a superb morning dew, and a 24-minute lovelight finale, packed with some beautiful blues-soaked riffs from jerry and plenty of righteous mckernan rap.

many early field recordings suffered greatly from being made too close to the stage. that certainly wasn’t the case with this tape. almost every note from each instrument is audible and the inflection of the band’s voices are evenly modulated. the quality of the sound recording and the sheer intensity of the performance makes this a show for the ages. warning: repeated listenings are conducive to a condition of heightened jubilance.
https://archive.org/details/gd71-08-06.aud.bertrando.yerys.129.sbeok.shnf

as an added bonus, here's a link to bertrando tape of the previous evening's performance, which ain't no slouch either. the sound quality on this recording is almost as good and well worth checking out. https://archive.org/details/gd71-08-05.aud.cotsman.9768.sbeok.shnf/gd71-08-05d1t02.shn

and i'd be remiss if i didn't include a link to the opening set by nrps, featuring jerry on pedal steel. it is the perfect compliment to the dead's performance and gives you a nice window into what a night with the grateful dead felt like in 1971. https://archive.org/details/nrps1971-08-06aud.shnf/nrps1971-08-06d2t01.shn

8/21/72: berkeley community theatre, berkeley, CA.

in the summer of 1972 the grateful dead embarked on a small west coast tour, including a four night engagement at the berkeley community theater. the entire series of berkeley performances—14,000 tickets—was sold out by the end of the second day the seats went on sale. there was no special advertising campaign, just the usual announcements in the standard bill graham adverts.

what could have been dismissed as a pedestrian monday night opener, cannot largely due to the remarkable second set dark star. this is not to say that the initial set isn’t also loaded with riches...a few high points include a bold take on the newly-penned he’s gone, a rousing china > rider, a playing in the band dripping with psychedelic adornment, and an absolutely gorgeous stand-alone stella blue. listening to the first frame it’s evident that the band is loose and happy to be playing a run of shows on their home turf. there’s plenty of space between songs, noodling about, and even a few words from phil on the topic of vegetables.

bobby ace and the cards from the bottom of the deck kick off the second set with rocking versions of greatest story ever told and ramble on rose. after a bit of cursory tuning, we arrive at the highlight of the night. this dark star begins with 9 minutes of improvisatory motoring before garcia sings the only verse. off into the deep unknown we go. the ensemble gathers steam, drops into a dissonant fold, and then enters into some full-on jazz chaos. the jamming is fierce and the group mills and spits, weaving back and forth between rapture and the dark abyss. in time, keith takes a piano solo and jerry valiantly attempts to usher the boys towards morning dew. they won’t have it and fall back into a jazzy improvisation piloted by godchaux’s keyboard scat. this interlude soon begins to resemble the beginning of any number of weir’s cowboy numbers, finally slowing down to segue into el paso. subsequently, garcia and lesh nudge the dark star theme again before jerome nods at deal. the version is slow, honey-drenched and unconfined.

as the dust clears, the boys tune up a bit while bobby, the consummate joker, throws his hat into the ring for nomination as mayor (with jerry prompting, “of freemont!”). they’re far from finished though, and jump headlong into a roaring sugar magnolia followed by stirring takes on mississippi half-step and uncle john’s band. the boys send the crowd home with a fiery one more saturday night. they did this three more evenings before heading to oregon to play a benefit for a local dairy farm, but that’s another story for another time.

culled from betty cantor-jackson’s 10-inch ½ track master reels, this recording will burn off your little ears. https://archive.org/details/gd1972-08-21.139581.sbd.miller.sirmick.flac16