#deadfreaksunite 1970
#deadfreaksunite 1970
tape-by-tape notes
An extended listening project tracking the Grateful Dead’s evolution, recording by recording. Originally posted on Twitter on each show’s 40th/50th anniversary and edited here for readability and occasional revision/correction and minor expansion. Many shows streamable via archive.org. Expanded notes for many shows (with press, scene reports, and images) can be found on Twitter by searching for my username (bourgwick) and the show date. Please consult JerryBase for the latest data, Dead Sources for original articles (1965-1975), and LostLiveDead/Hootrollin for deep dives.
1/2/70 fillmore east: the grateful dead truck into the ‘70s at the fillmore east, an early & late show with lighthouse & cold blood, released as “dave’s picks 30.” band takes stage to ALSO SPRACH ZARATHUSTRA over PA & hit nyc dead freaks with brand new MASON’S CHILDREN & BLACK PETER. request for ST. STEPHEN. jerry: “you can get that song on *2* records, man. 2 different records.” (weir: “two different versions!”) early show follows 1st set structure they’d adopt later, short songs & closing with jam, here THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > COSMIC CHARLIE. during tight OTHER ONE, someone is playing ambient glockenspiel & maybe it’s actually be pigpen, since everyone else seems occupied. garcia pops string, so somebody plays ALLIGATOR on kazoo. weir does solo electric version of MONKEY & THE ENGINEER, soon joined by garcia & drummer. maybe he made a new year’s resolution to lay off bad jokes? more requests. “white rabbit!” jerry shouts, off-mic. full & satisfying 75-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > THE ELEVEN > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. gorgeous weir-shaped DARK STAR build & suspended bliss via the FEELIN’ GROOVY & TIGHTEN UP themes & connective jams including, for the 1st time, an early hint of SUGAR MAGNOLIA. long engaged TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT with garcia more present than usual on the backing vocals, & band responding tightly to pig’s various “now waitaminute” commands. multiple accounts say late show ended after sunrise.
1/3/70 fillmore east: mickey’s gongs are an underrated part of ’69-’70 dead, here making their usual glorious universe-shredding backwards-masking-like sounds throughout the MORNING DEW early show opener. “go ahead start it,” jerry says before COLD RAIN & SNOW & an off-mic voice grunts a ramones-like parody of a rock count-off. is it uncle bill, reprising his role as dosed cowbellist? early show ends with 24-minute ALLIGATOR with featuring interlude, CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER tease, blissed-out jerry jams, & feedback landing. very rare night where they play the same song twice — UNCLE JOHN’S BAND as early show encore & mid-set in the late. last straight pairing of ALLIGATOR/CAUTION.
oblique intro to MASON’S CHILDREN:
phil: this here song we wrote for a movie that was going to be shot in a parking lot, no it was a drive-in restaurant, no a drive-in movie in downtown albuquerque with parked cars for an audience.
jer: we decided not to do it, finally.
i can only assume this is some kind of deeply nested reference to altamont. big happy garcia guitar flows during DANCING IN THE STREET set closer. during the encore, ST. STEPHEN jarringly/dramatically shifts to MIDNIGHT HOUR, getting played sometime just after dawn according to reports.
1/10/70 san diego: with aum & (according to reports) sons of champlin replacing savoy brown. good fun, nothin’ heavy. 90-minute set with charming banter about clearing the fuckin’ aisles, a totally fierce compact 5-minute HARD TO HANDLE, & mostly fierce not-compact TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT that pulls back when crowd gets too raucous.
1/16/70 portland, OR: all ages hippie ballroom on a friday night in portlandia. 2 sets of high times, winter sunshine, & ultra-compact jams. local band river opened. during 1st set-closing GOOD LOVIN’, lesh keeps jamming over DRUMZ break & garcia jumps right back in, unfolding into a cool pocket & slashing start/stop jam with the drummers. before 2nd set, someone (jon mcintire?) plugs semi-recent “live/dead” release (“it’s like them playing here”) & announces that “we’re gonna be back here on sunday night & nobody knows that because nobody said anything about it ’til just this moment.” audience member shouts for ALLIGATOR & a half-beat later band kicks into fun 25-minute ALLIGATOR > DRUMZ > THE ELEVEN JAM > DEATH DON’T HAVE NO MERCY. garcia downshifts just as ELEVEN vocals would start, DEATH DON’T vocals sounding cooled-out & laid-back. way tight EASY WIND. 23-minute show-closing THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > COSMIC CHARLIE features unusual DRUMZ break that begins with gong & goes mellow/ambient before a long build to THE OTHER ONE drop. gnarly garcia high-dives & digressions.
1/17/70 corvallis: a full-service set distributed nicely between the new cosmic americana, some (but not too much) pigpen R&B, & plenty of psychedelia. another hot GOOD LOVIN’ with short drum break & a start/stop-style jam before reprise. 51-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > THE ELEVEN > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, cut at end. ace DARK STAR with big pre-verse theme, ambient glockenspiel as deep space resolves into the sputnik jam, elegant improv with only a hint of FEELIN’ GROOVY, cool bass diversion before end. deep jam early in LOVELIGHT. “mother mcgee’s clam chowder!” pig declares for no reason i can discern. (not “mccree’s,” i double-checked.) jam starts to go deeper, almost CUMBERLAND BLUES-like, just before it cuts around 13 minutes. for once i’m bummed.
1/18/70 portland, OR: last minute sunday gig at springer’s, the hippie ballroom, apparently fairly empty. weir: “you’re probably wondering why we asked so few of you here tonight.” (off-mic, maybe kreutzmann? “it’s a hippie death cult.”) questing mini-jam in 5-minute MASON’S CHILDREN gets lost in transition back to chorus. just-slightly-longer-than-usual & especially electrified versions of DANCING IN THE STREET & GOOD LOVIN’, both hyper-detailed & melodic. short but exceptional & ecstatic CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER. crackling moments throughout 18-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT closer. sweet throwback cue from pig: “okay, mother mccree’s, now waitaminute…”
1/23/70 honolulu: jerry gets lei’d! the grateful dead’s hawaiian debut, with 2 local bands & batshit folksinging oleomargarine heir michael j. brody. owsley tape released as “dave’s picks 19.” 2-hour set, amping up as 2nd reel begins & garcia responds to an unheard heckler. “this is 1970 jack, not ’56! get with it!” pig sings the chorus of SEARCHIN’ over the DIRE WOLF intro. band gradually shifts into deep jam mode. 84-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. TC’s last DARK STAR is gorgeous, ambient glockenspiel appearing deeper in jam & sounding even brighter. not quite magic, though, garcia almost audibly stepping on gas before last peak. eeeeeeeeeeeek this 38-minute LOVELIGHT is tedious. an unidentified person (“george”?) joins pig on vocals & doesn’t do much. long slide solo that sounds like garcia maybe passed his guitar to somebody else? tag me if you figure it out!
1/24/70 honolulu: with pilfredge sump, september morn, & the sun & the moon, with light show by noah’s arc. only the beginning & end of show survive, via “dave’s picks 19.” nice owsley tape with charged CUMBERLAND BLUES opener, but missing bulk of show, including jam segment (guessing ALLIGATOR/CAUTION), presumably bonkers ‘cuz they earned an encore (a quick DANCING IN THE STREET), not a given in those days.
1/30/70 new orleans: with fleetwood mac & the flock, plus an ungroovy surprise at the hotel afterwards. TC’s last show as a member of the dead is unremarkable, though. before the gig, band & organist tom constanten agree to part ways. he plays 1 last night, a barely audible ghost on the tape. unless there’s a reel missing, only real jammin’ is 27-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE, cut as it segues to COSMIC CHARLIE. and after the show 50 years ago today, the grateful dead are busted down on bourbon street, at @royalsonestanoh, when cops unlock the door to bob weir & jon mcintire’s room as the party is going. @alisonfensterstock did a great dive recently, scoring the complete bust report. jerry garcia is out with locals & misses the bust. when he gets back to his room, he sees plainclothes cops going through his bag & tries to stroll nonchalantly down the hall (which is sort of an amazingly hilarious image) & gets nabbed in the lobby. TC & pigpen are out looking at antique swords & their room is clean anyway, so TC is spared the indignity of getting arrested on the same day that he leaves the band. mickey hart apparently has some form of ID that identifies him as “summer wind, spiritual advisor.” his air force peacoat has his name sewn in the collar, however, so he sheds it & is booked as summer wind. back at the station, according to dennis mcnally’s “long strange trip,” somehow, bob weir manages to handcuff a cop to a chair. late warner bros. president joe smith pays off new orleans district attorney jim “back-and-to-the-left” garrison with a $50,000 donation to garrison’s reelection campaign & the promise that the dead won’t return to new orleans anytime soon. (they don’t ’til 1980.) the biggest bummer is that owsley stanley is arrested, too, violating parole in his LSD manufacturing case. that summer, he will finally go to jail & his road tapes cease. d’oh. i hope somebody rents room 2186 at the royal sonesta in new orleans tonight & hot boxes the fuck out of it.
1/31/70 new orleans: fresh from a night in jail, playing with fleetwood mac & the flock. a fantastic & charged show, staying charged during another long unplanned acoustic set. 1st show since 11/68 without TC on organ. mostly hard to remember what his were, but the band does sound one layer thinner without his not-always-audible B3. “i’m gonna sing an all-too-appropriate song” weir says, introducing the post-bust MAMA TRIED.
weir: this [is] a blatant attempt on the part of the establishment…
garcia: tell it like it ’tis, weir!
weir: …to keep rock groups from coming here & save this fair city for the straight people, well, i think that…
garcia: the revolution’s over. everybody go home.
i didn’t realize until yesterday that the band’s gigs were the opening shows of the warehouse, new orleans’s new hippie venue. weir’s conspiracy makes a little sense. after that, band seems to up the ante. garcia delivers bonkers mid-set playing-for-his-life MORNING DEW. urgency carries into MASON’S CHILDREN with quick, tight jam & even a smooth landing. so much urgency that the bass amp blows out during HARD TO HANDLE. undaunted by amp failure, a 48-minute “acoustic” set. garcia accompanies weir on electric, a great sound, & takes a sad, sweet verse of LONG BLACK LIMOUSINE. last version of george jones’s OLD, OLD HOUSE for either the dead or new riders. think pig is quietly playing organ? garcia is MC during acoustic mini-revue & inadvertently describes the grateful dead’s tuning process: “we’re gonna take a break within the break, then we’re gonna take a break in the break.” after 3 acoustic sets in a month, they finally call out pig. “i ain’t never done this before,” he says before intimate solo debut of lightnin’ hopkins’s KATIE MAE. bass amp isn’t fixed, but lesh returns to sing on 1st acoustic version of CUMBERLAND BLUES.
2/1/70 new orleans: a sunday afternoon post-bust benefit for themselves, including a super-jam with peter green & fleetwood mac. goofy tape-opening chatter. sounds like they found a stash. MC: “and now here’s the group that made this afternoon all possible…” (phil: “the new orleans police department!”) before topical BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE. blown-out mix has garcia & weir’s guitars at warts-&-all levels. 1st CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER where weir hints at joyous FEELIN’ GROOVY changes during transition jam, only briefly here. delightful over-the-top mini-jams in GOOD LOVIN’ & CUMBERLAND BLUES.
weir (slightly sarcastically): the police are outside towing away illegal parked cars.
mickey: hey, that’s one of our station wagons, it’s parked in the driveway…
weir: anybody got a ride home?
39-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT with fleetwood mac’s peter green, unidentified macs, & others, including mystery organist. of all the blues-rawkin’ guitarists to join for LOVELIGHT so far, green seems to have the most to contribute. much fun.
2/2/70 st. louis: a one-nighter with chicago band aorta, band’s debut at their fast-favorite fox theatre. arriving late, but lots of fun. released as “dave’s picks 6.” with TC gone, pigpen is slowly making his way back to organ, faintly audible in a few unexpected places, during a break in MASON’S CHILDREN & deep in the DARK STAR jam. clearly not playing all the time, though, like whenever this picture was taken.
quiet & almost unbearably sweet off-mic moment before HARD TO HANDLE.
garcia: i want you to sing it *good*, pig.
pig: you do, do ya? [in mock southern voice] i’ll try, jer.
(he sings it good, everybody else is a little loose.)
33-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > MASON’S CHILDREN. pig makes high B3 drones in the post-verse DARK STAR dusk & seems to stick around, poking out occasionally during subtle FEELIN’ GROOVY themes. thoughtful spaces en route home. delicious bass. segue into MASON’S comes by way of a lumpy & awkward drum break & quick almost-smooth guitar action. 2nd consecutive DARK STAR/ST. STEPHEN without THE ELEVEN & the end is a-callin’. another short & hot MASON’S CHILDREN, with compact 90-second jam that goes far quickly. UNCLE JOHN’S BAND returns, absent this tour. goofy action-packed 19-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT > NOT FADE AWAY > LOVELIGHT. crowd-work, off-mic in-jokes about “loose women,” & charming pig-isms, addressing “the mens & the womens.” crowd loves it.
2/4/70 family dog on the great highway: an invite-only multi-band public TV special produced by jefferson airplane, with santana big jam. earliest great footage of the dead in their natural habitat. 2 short mini-sets for the cameras, only 1st circulates as video, anchored by crisp CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER, the 2nd by a 20-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > ST. STEPHEN > IN THE MIDNIGHT HOUR. the 1st of many versions of ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > ST. STEPHEN. 9 minutes of a power jam with garcia, jack casady, jorma kaukonen, carlos santana (& most of band), shirtless paul kantner (despite the fact that’s the february), & maybe others. wish there were more shots of the crowd & light show. dig the dude dancing with incense in the front row. great analog artifacts throughout audio of the power jam segment. santana (i think) is shredding fiercely & a note-bend transitions perfectly into a moment of tape warp. later a quick tape cut into hilariously hippie conga solo.2/5
2/5/70 fillmore west: opening of a 4-night run at the fillmore west with taj mahal & bigfoot. garcia plays pedal steel with the dead for 1st time since summer, accompanying weir on george jones’s SEASONS OF MY HEART & THE RACE IS ON, & possibly others missing from tape. 8-minute MASON’S CHILDREN expands again, with 2 deep mini-jams. missing start, 34 minutes of THE ELEVEN > CAUTION > NOT FADE AWAY > CUMBERLAND BLUES looks nuts on paper, but feels way loose & seems to run out of gas a few times. 1st taped segue into CUMBERLAND is excellent new move. pig’s B3 very occasionally audible.
2/6/70 fillmore west: pigpen playing B3 on songs he played before TC joined the band, including ME & MY UNCLE as well as DANCING IN THE STREET, which has a harsh cut in the middle but splices into a bonkers fierce jam with band locked together & garcia at full peak. pigpen totally adds to THE OTHER ONE jam, too, hanging in all the way with little conversational figures. 24-minute set-closing TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT achieves easygoing choogle, with good back & forth between pigpen & band, who sometimes talk back.
2/7/70 fillmore west: another pedal steel mini-set opens the show with GREEN GREEN GRASS OF HOME, SAWMILL, & SEASONS OF MY HEART, really enjoying lesh’s high harmony on GREEN GREEN GRASS, the last surviving version by the dead.
weir: i like to hear them monitors just rip-roarin’ loud, it makes me feel like a rooster crowin’.
pigpen: you look like a banny hen.
weir (as garcia starts BIG BOSS MAN): you look like a hummingbird.
nice glimmer of an outro jam during UNCLE JOHN’S BAND. blip of onstage tension after BLACK PETER. did someone turn weir’s volume down? GOOD LOVIN’ starting to heat up as tape cuts off, presumably missing the show’s jammier parts.
2/8/70 fillmore west: bill graham presents garcia with a framed picture of michael j. brody, the human meme who’d opened for the dead in hawaii a few weeks earlier. “direct from a command performance in new orleans, the grateful dead…” lots of repeats over the 4 nights, but digging deeper into the rarely played, including SITTIN’ ON TOP OF THE WORLD & pigpen’s 15-minute SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING opener. weir: “we’re waiting for the bear to turn on his lovelight.” (squeal of feedback) “he just did.” on part of the audience tape, between songs, either members of the crowd are doing very good bird calls back & forth, some hippies actually brought various birds to the show, or some combination thereof. i would fully believe any one of those explanations. quiet taper talk: “it’s that time… DARK STAR, i guess.” first, pigpen does a semi-rare HURTS ME TOO, but then a pretty deliciously sprawling 75-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > ST. STEPHEN > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. 26-minute DARK STAR takes time unfolding with melodious pre-verse conversations, vivid ambient noise, lush bass, & luxurious FEELIN’ GROOVY jam. unusually, ST. STEPHEN segues into NOT FADE AWAY after the “ladyfinger” bridge, with fuzzed choogle & equally cool reentry. way fun 35-minute LOVELIGHT. pigpen plays matchmaker & declares “women got power, too!” (is this pig lib?!), sez he’s taken. “i got caught a long time ago” (aw). deep jams with mickey on glockenspiel. band edges on UNCLE JOHN’S BAND, pig improvising melody.
2/11/70 fillmore east: opening legendary 3-show run with love & the allman bros.. fragment of the early show catches half of THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE & new soon-to-be-recorded DIRE WOLF & CASEY JONES. late show intro by keeva krystal, old catskills waiter buddy of bill graham. 61-minute DARK STAR JAM > SPANISH JAM > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. peter green and/or danny kirwan join about 4 minutes into DARK STAR, then duane allman. butch trucks on drums? never hit verse. band gives guitarists space, but they’re buried behind garcia/lesh/weir in mix. weir steers band into 1st proper SPANISH JAM since early ’68 & it’s a perfect, liquidy choice for communal garcia/allman/green/kirwan noodling, though weir & lesh dominate mix. brother gregg takes over organ for tasty jazzish licks. garcia reasserts himself to great effect. berry oakley takes over from lesh & jam shifts into the biggest, messiest LOVELIGHT of ‘em all, pigpen & garcia occasionally making order. complete chaos but never boring or even bad. solid unintelligible grunts from gregg when he takes a verse & only remembers 1st line. pig once again extols the virtues of his special ladyfriend: “i never get lonesome, cuz i got myself an old lady that won’t quit. she’s about 9-foot tall, 6-foot wide, & she wiggles like pigs fighting in a sack. that keep me pretty happy.” the audience tape of the 2/11/70 super jam is totally worth it. the balance for duane allman & peter green (who clearly weren’t running through the soundboard) is way better. a bit surprised nobody’s made a soundboard/audience mix of this yet. fun encore. lesh: “if you throw dope up here, throw it where we can see where it goes.” someone in crowd shouts “gawcia” in nyc accent & weir & others mimic. 1st acoustic UNCLE JOHN’S BAND sung by garcia/lesh/weir, with light percussion. beautiful.
2/13/70 fillmore east: hour-long early show only surfaced in ‘90s, with big HARD TO HANDLE & ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY. responding to a request (i think), garcia shrugs, “this is the first, or chickenshit, show. that means, well, y’know…” before CASEY JONES set closer. great goofiness to intro the late show: a candlelit procession rolls a big crate/coffin down the aisle (jerry does porky pig) & someone pops out in costume to introduce the band (same gag as next night with zacherle). effect isn’t terribly dramatic on tape. late set is one of the most epic ever: nearly 3 hours, ending after dawn, much of it on “bear’s choice” (in ’73) & “dick’s picks 4” (in ’98). half-hour of acoustic tunes, a debut, & legendary 90-minute DARK STAR > THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. 2nd straight show with heavy SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING before it disappears from tapes ’til fall, this one on “bear’s choice,” along with acoustic tunes BLACK PETER, KATIE MAE (2nd ever), & debut (maybe) of everly bros.’ WAKE UP LITTLE SUSIE, sung winningly by garcia & weir. nyc crowd claps along for 1st 3+ minutes of DARK STAR, muted by deep soundboard & arcing garcia lines. exquisite half-hour all-timer, transformed from “live/dead.” patient, rippling conversations, chiming swells, self-renewing bliss, & slow FEELIN’ GROOVY jam. tedious DRUMZ segment in OTHER ONE almost diverts to NOT FADE AWAY. lots more clapping along. LOVELIGHT is extra-powerful, where clapping along finally makes sense. band veers into ace psychedelic R&B weird-out (& back) while pig keeps raving.
2/14/70 fillmore east: after warm-up COLD RAIN & SNOW, hilarious crosstalk as owsley sets up monitors. weir: “put a spotlight on the P.A. man… he’s responsible for our loss of high-frequency hearing.” “nothing’s weirder than coming to new york,” sez garcia before 63-minute classic combo, DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > THE ELEVEN > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, last time as a sequence. sublime DARK STAR, strange flutters, light drums even at peaks, bright bass counterpoint. m0ar goofiness before late show, doofy back & forth as WNEW late night DJ (& TV personality) zacherle arrives (maybe the crate didn’t work tonight, actually?), slyly identifies himself as fellow DJ jonathan schwartz, devotee of the great american songbook. (crowd gets it.) and then zacherle provides one of my favorite all-time band introductions: “this is glorious sunday morning… the grateful goddamn dead!” & they kick into CASEY JONES, sounding shockingly pro. the late show is 2-and-a-half hours: few shorter selections, a solid pigpen jam, a 30-minute acoustic set, & a 62-minute ALLIGATOR > DRUMZ > ME & MY UNCLE > NOT FADE AWAY > MASON’S CHILDREN > CAUTION > BID YOU GOODNIGHT mega-jam, with high-energy brilliant segues. lots of classic banter. weir explains titling of THE OTHER ONE on “anthem of the sun” & sings a few lines of “the faster we go the rounder we get / in the 4th dimension.” jerry, apologizing for long tuning break: “too much! good people, great freaks.” laughing. “our fans.” garcia, after a few shrieks from the crowd during tuning: “i think the drugs have finally gotten to you people.” sweet, easygoing half-hour of garcia/weir acoustic, with good banter about capos & debut of DARK HOLLOW. (garcia: “you know all the words to that?”) it makes it to “bear’s choice.” another WAKE UP LITTLE SUSIE / BLACK PETER combo. not really a segue, but feels deliberate. DANCING IN THE STREET sets its controls for the heart of shining, floating bliss. my own canonical CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER > HIGH TIME, partly by virtue of “dick’s picks 4,” but garcia really gets inside the HIGH TIME vocal & nails it. heads’ve been shouting for ALLIGATOR all weekend (& band keeps teasing them) & it finally starts one of the great versions of that suite. another drab DRUMZ, but all the segues & jams are big & boss, & blasting in/out of MASON’S CHILDREN is just the best.
2/23/70 austin: in austin for the 1st time, the last (& only documented) night of a 4-show texas run. incomplete tape, missing beginning/end, opening for country joe & the fish, the 1st recording of the (2nd) post-owsley era. 6-song acoustic set, including rare solo weir version of ME & MY UNCLE, a BLACK PETER joined by pigpen on nice sparse hammond part, & last taped version of george jones’s SEASONS OF MY HEART (more organ there, too). garcia: “how’s about the microphones? hey PA guys, get on the ball, man! good grief, we’re gonna call the union if you don’t hurry up. what union? the rock & roll union, that’s what! the galactic rock & roll union.” 17-minute NOT FADE AWAY > MASON’S CHILDREN. early weir attempt at a screamo NOT FADE AWAY ending kinda wimpy. a hint of GOOD LOVIN’ but a swift segue into a not-totally-committed-sounding MASON’S.
2/27/70 family dog on the great highway: opening a 3-night stand at the family dog in san francisco, with commander cody & his lost planet airmen plus the heavy water light show. as tight & epic as the dead were at the fillmore east, they were loosest back home at the family dog. can really hear band/audience connection during tuning breaks, with much audible musician chatter & stoned exchanges with crowd. weir watch: as tape opens, “the moon’s out of scorpio, so everybody can relax” [big cheers] “i don’t want to [inaudible] anybody’s prejudices, but the moon in scorpio makes me forgetful.” with pigpen once again on bouncing B3, 15-minute DANCING IN THE STREET gets expansive. aggro-melodic lead bass & passing colors by weir lock in behind garcia. GOOD LOVIN’ hits slightly-less-graceful version of this mode, too, with a boss drum drop-out. several times, off-mic, band members mention requests for certain songs & honor one for CASEY JONES, introduced by phil as “casey dope.” also clear that owsley is off sound duty, replaced by longtime engineer (& recently ex-new riders bassist) bob matthews. never gonna hear CUMBERLAND BLUES the same way again after @moonshaugn’s presentation in albuquerque last week. here, lots of excellent lead bass to bridge the transition between garcia’s weirdness & the bluegrass outro. 35-minute NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT (with a bit of muddy waters’s TWO TRAINS RUNNING) closes tape, highlighted by fantastic improvised wordless harmony by weir & lesh. not highlighted by brutal outro shrieking.
2/28/70 family dog on the great highway: a fun but kinda sleepy 2-hour set bookended by TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, opening with a modest 16-minute LOVELIGHT > ME & MY UNCLE. a pretty fun garcia-led segue out of a drum break. “we’re gonna take everybody back about 60 billion notches, man, & play some acoustic guitars here for a little spell,” garcia announces. spirited MONKEY & THE ENGINEER. last taped dead version of the traditional LITTLE SADIE, returning to garcia’s solo sets, ’82-’88. neither garcia nor weir can keep their guitars in tune, which they discuss off-mic & garcia announces, “okay it’s back to the electric world, everybody can get back up again.” good ol’ CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER > HIGH TIME glides upwards & back down. show ends with 38 minutes worth of 2 sequences, not-quite-joined: ALLIGATOR > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE, followed by MASON’S CHILDREN > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. late OTHER ONE jam runs deep, but doesn’t stray far. the last taped MASON’S CHILDREN is a new slowed-down arrangement with bass intro, same as the studio outtake on “so many roads.” here, the bass intro is cool but the energy & harmonies & phrasing all seem to fall apart at this speed. too bad on all fronts. fare thee well! with a hint of CAUTION acting as a bridge, pig drops right back into his LOVELIGHT rap. like the first part, it feels a little muted, but finds its own sly groove, pig singing about feeling “some kinda way.”
3/1/70 family dog on the great highway: audience tape begins with short soundcheck-y blues noodle that’s (very) loosely related to NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE. another loose 2-hour set, including rare & always welcome warlocks-era staples BIG BOY PETE & IT’S ALL OVER NOW BABY BLUE. pretty sure this was the 1st multi-night run since early ’68 that didn’t feature some iteration of the DARK STAR suite. it did, however, include an appearance by garcia’s “playboy after dark”/“workingman’s dead” drug rug. great 25-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE. enticing drumless explorations during OTHER ONE proper & CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT outro that disassembles slightly before crystal peaks. pig’s B3 sounds more natural on these songs/jams than TC did. half-breath segue to BLACK PETER. led by lesh/kreutzmann, 12-minute GOOD LOVIN’ bops out of drum break in slightly different groove than usual, yielding eye-poppingly intricate jam. electric drumless UNCLE JOHN’S BAND is slowed down & joyous groove sort of disappears. glad it didn’t stick!
3/7/70 santa monica civic auditorium: pigpen’s soulful B3 on BLACK PETER is right on, though drummers can’t stay away. rainbow garcia leads cut through murk on CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER > HIGH TIME. ST. STEPHEN (or more) perhaps missing before 46-minute NOT FADE AWAY > DRUMZ > GOOD LOVIN’ > THE OTHER ONE > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. 1st real oldies/boogie-oriented segue sequence. maybe this was the night the band discovered the grand unified choogle? transition from medley-sized GOOD LOVIN’ into THE OTHER ONE is a thrilling moment of rhythmic dissonance before everyone locks together & weirds for 6 minutes mid-boogie. cool clapping patterns by crowd near the taper during LOVELIGHT, devolving quickly.
3/8/70 phoenix: on a rotating stage. future dead keyboardist vince welnick in the audience. show starts off decently enough, getting up to speed with CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER > HIGH TIME, but the rotating stage is clearly getting to the band early.
pigpen: you folks seem to be going around…
weir: this is a miserable situation & i hope to declaim it on account of you can’t really get to know YOU out there. because you look down, you look up, you look back, you look up again…
as they set up for an acoustic set, garcia & weir deflate song requests with fantastic (& impossible to summarize) absurdist, high status banter, finishing each other’s sentences with riff about how breathing should be made illegal. “you do one,” weir says. as garcia starts to play LITTLE SADIE, weir says, “i figured as much” & garcia abruptly shifts to BEEN ALL AROUND THIS WORLD. another unusual acoustic ME & MY UNCLE with distant garcia leads. pigpen in the process of closing acoustic set with supremely quiet KATIE MAE when a rando grabs mic & adds harmony. not bad for 30 seconds, but then pig says “go on” & from that point the show is fucked. the rando, followed by multiple randos, completely take over. the only remarkable part is that, over 10 minutes, it segues seamlessly from solo acoustic pigpen to full band/audience mayhem involving (i think) a few vocalists, harmonica players, percussionists, etc. it’s kind of amazing, really, but painful listening. according to @internetarchive comments, one of the rando singers is paul michael cantrell, also known as rathead. by the time garcia & the band to assert themselves, for a 23-minute NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, it’s a lost cause. some guy starts doing his own version of NOT FADE AWAY in between garcia & weir’s verses. per unpublished pictures, a rando is drumming with billy. a “short” 14-minute LOVELIGHT, started at hyperspeed, audibly drives the frenzy, but i’m sure they’re ready to clear out. lesh gettin’ testy as he tries to clear a path to microphone. one of the all-time wook meltdowns in dead history.
3/17/70 buffalo: one of the most infamous unrecorded shows in dead history, jamming with legendary composer/conductor lukas foss, the buffalo philharmonic orchestra, & a laser light show. the dead play one set by themselves, apparently rising with of the hydraulic orchestra pit while playing DARK STAR, joined by BPO percussionist lynn harbold & eventually others, before segueing into ST. STEPHEN & eventually TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. the main event features the BPO divided into 2 parts, lukas foss conducting the dead & one half, jan williams conducting the other half & local opening act the road. audience members apparently joined in, too. a great reconstruction of the whole night by LIA & commenters.
3/20/70 port chester: the capitol theatre debut. a 2-hour late show, beginning with (i think) 1st taped appearance by new road manager sam cutler, formerly with the rolling stones, having arrived in the dead’s employ after altamont, escaping the hells angels in mickey hart’s barn. band clearly digging the low key vibe, getting some the east coast dead freakdom without the pressure of being in manhattan. “this isn’t new york city, shit,” garcia says in response to a request. “it’s cool. we’re not going anywhere.” 6-song acoustic set, with 1st FRIEND OF THE DEVIL, by robert hunter & john dawson plus bridge by garcia. already a satanic joy, with some alternate lyrics. unplugged debuts of DEEP ELEM BLUES & DON’T EASE ME IN, both played electric in ’65-’66. 16-minute GOOD LOVIN’ > DRUMZ > NOT FADE AWAY > DRUMZ > GOOD LOVIN’ is a new level of choogle-medley that will propel the dead through the ‘70s (& beyond). some big peaks during NOT FADE AWAY. 1st taped VIOLA LEE BLUES since 4/69 is exuberant modal fun & a very welcome return. vocals are a little rough, but jam gets properly freaky/noisy, a natural with pigpen back on organ. weir takes more active role, too, trading licks with garcia.
3/21/70 port chester: early show opens with 1st recorded version of rufus thomas’s WALKIN’ THE DOG since ’66, playful vocals alternating between weir, pigpen, & garcia. after some chaos in the crowd, last taped DEATH DON’T HAVE NO MERCY ’til ’89, many worlds hence. both DIRE WOLF (in early show) & UNCLE JOHN’S BAND (in late) are the earliest taped versions featuring their tasty intro guitar licks, presumably added during the “workingman’s dead” sessions during the previous weeks. last known version of HE WAS A FRIEND OF MINE by mark spoelstra (its real name is JUST A HAND TO HOLD) & a beautiful send-off at that, with long articulate garcia solo that finds space close to what he’d do with ballads later in the decade. early show ends with 19-minute wtf of VIOLA LEE BLUES > THE SEVEN > CUMBERLAND BLUES. molten VIOLA LEE gets quiet & lyrical before immolations, resolving to 2nd & final taped version of THE SEVEN, a perfectly weird bridge to the cartoon bakersfield of CUMBERLAND. nearly 2-hour late show with a 30-minute acoustic set between slices of good ol’ dead boogie. in the 1st segment, a solid & fuzzy 15-minute DANCING IN THE STREET glides quickly into weightlessness & stays aloft ’til end. rowdy chompin’ east coast crowd. “take it easy out there, you unruly freaks,” garcia half-admonishes. dancers are shouted down, overpowering start of FRIEND OF THE DEVIL. “shut the fuck up,” weir says. light, semi-inaudible drums/percussion for acoustic tunes. “aoxomoxoa” faves set-up mega-choogle finale, COSMIC CHARLIE before 20-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY, virtually segueing back into ST. STEPHEN (& CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER). 20-minute MIDNIGHT HOUR > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT uses LOVELIGHT more like a coda.
3/23/70 dania: at a pirate-themed amusement park in florida, outside fort lauderdale, usually misdated as the day after. new society band opened. 11-minute GOOD LOVIN’ with zappin’ jam corners. pulse almost falls apart as they attempt reentry, so they go further out & come back. 1st electric DON’T EASE ME IN since ’66 owes more to the recent acoustic versions, with happily bopping intro solo. 50-minute DARK STAR > THE OTHER ONE > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT > ME & MY UNCLE is sensational. DARK STAR has 2 bummer tape cuts (including 1st verse) but filled with big melodic themes, including after the big peak that usually cues 2nd verse. compact LOVELIGHT has extra-driven drumming, hart’s marching band snare front & center, seeming to power the final segue. “our time’s up, see ya later” sez jerry to what sounds like a frothing crowd. onstage, someone lights firecrackers. in florida, robert hunter also presented the dead with the lyrics to “truckin’” & the band set them to music sitting around the hotel pool.
4/3/70 cincinnati: with ken kesey & the merry pranksters, wavy gravy & the hog farm, devil’s kitchen, & bubblegum pop band the lemon pipers. 2-hour set feat. 7-song acoustic interval with 1st version of CANDYMAN. tastefully quiet drums, heavy strums, unchill buzzing monitors. a bit uptempo, with cutely vocalized solo by garcia between verses. sweet entwined acoustics on FRIEND OF THE DEVIL. electric highlights include groovy DANCING IN THE STREET (with high-speed licks from the DARK STAR jam, i think?) & sparkling CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT outro jam, landing in COSMIC CHARLIE. neither pranksters nor hog farm are evident, though this balloon is definitely a sign of the hog farm. apparently, kesey & babbs showed prankster movies a few days before & the hog farm were en route back from the disastrous winters end fest in florida & did lights. garcia talked for years about how the hog farm used the energy from the show (& local underground radio) to organize local heads the next day to clean up a vacant lot & turn it into a cincinnati’s people’s park. likely owing to the hog farm or pranksters, this was a very early show to circulate. a member of stephen gaskin’s farm commune told me they had this tape before settling in tennessee the next year, but gaskin “nationalized” the reel & recorded over it.
4/9/70 fillmore west: opening of a 4-night run at the fillmore west with miles davis, barely 2 weeks after the release of “bitches brew.” with miles perhaps in the house, the dead open with ME & MY UNCLE, which does swing & shred in weird deady ways. great moment in dead history:
garcia: ready? 1-2-
voice (phil?): what are we doing?
…band manages to land in CASEY JONES together.
debut of pigpen-sung cover of james brown & betty jean newsome’s IT’S A MAN’S MAN’S MAN’S WORLD. weird mix, but band sounds crisp. weir takes leads under verse, band does restrained dance around big groove. there’s sort of a bass solo. backing vocals are doofy & cute. half-hour acoustic set. nice subliminal B3 throughout. 2nd CANDYMAN starting to catch a glow, with a stunner lead vocal, now featuring a solo followed by a wordless group chorus, both sounding a little tentative. somebody shouts an unintelligible request & weir responds (mostly off-mic) “hey miles, play sketches!” fierce post-DRUMZ jam in GOOD LOVIN’ starts as abstruse bass-heavy start/stopping (& semi-soloing) & turns into slashing conversational peaks with garcia & weir. THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE likewise glistens out from the murky audience tape. very random C&W song, maybe with a fiddle or jaw harp, & definitely with a still-unidentified rando singing back-to-the-earth type lyrics about “slowing everything down out in the country.” parts sound vaguely like an early draft of the soon-to-be-written SUGAR MAGNOLIA. during 31-minute NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT closer, sounds like pig pulls a person onto the stage, possibly even his gf vee? “mama told me there’d be days like this,” someone says into the mic as it ends.
4/10/70 fillmore west: perhaps the shocker is that, since last night’s gig, garcia has shaved his beard. i have a friend who thinks it was in reaction to seeing miles & co. via michael parrish’s report, the setlist seems normal for the period, with another version of MAN’S WORLD, an acoustic interlude, a presumably ecstatic DANCING IN THE STREET, & legendary ALLIGATOR > CAUTION. this show was definitely taped by owsley & went MIA at some point. perhaps it’s out there still.
4/11/70 fillmore west: cuts in at end of hot NOT FADE AWAY & upshifts to exceptional 29-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, catching a wave around 9 minutes & big fun the rest of the way. behind pigpen, band locks into far-out shapes, cartoon themes, even hints of FOXEY LADY. pig’s extra loose in matchmaker mode. “this man down here in the glasses, i want you to turn around & talk to that girl… come on, i know you been looking at her, i been watching you!”, calls the audience chicken, even plays some B3 during jam. not sure this’ll convert any LOVELIGHT haters out there, but this version really grabbed me. i find it boring sometimes, but not this one. can only imagine what’s on the show’s lost reels. le sigh.
4/12/70 fillmore west: good ol’ bill graham intro, “if the dead end kids were alive today, they’d be called the grateful dead.” a super-tight sunday. a curio on the audience tape: during 17-minute GOOD MORNING LITTLE SCHOOLGIRL opener, a woman very close to the taper’s mic sings/talks/trips along starting ~7:30, like a voice from another station. wish her words were slightly more audible. last recorded CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER > HIGH TIME, the full & proper version of the sequence. real heads know! (though here HIGH TIME is missing except 1st chords.) CHINA/RIDER transition even gets mildly abstract. no acoustic mini-set, but stellar electric versions of 5 of the staple acoustic tunes, including 1st plugged-in DEEP ELEM BLUES since ’66, finding its funk atop busy-but-easy swing. drummers starting drive the drama of UNCLE JOHN’S BAND. 1st electric CANDYMAN. dense & ecstatic garcia/lesh lightning distributed across primal GOOD LOVIN’, bananas DANCING IN THE STREET with bass-led FEELIN’ GROOVY jam (on the phil-curated “fallout from the phil zone”), snaking conversational MAN’S WORLD, & VIOLA LEE BLUES blowout.
4/15/70 winterland: with jefferson airplane & quicksilver messenger service. a classic 3 bands for $3 on a random wednesday. featuring an amazing jam with mystery guests, also released on the “30 trips” box. nearly 2 solid hours of mid-week sunshine boogie. love how garcia & weir fill different rhythmic spaces on MAN’S WORLD, like the warlocks perfected. garcia hasn’t quite latched into CANDYMAN solo, but the wordless group chorus is gaining confidence. seriously LOL 4 minutes of tech issues, narrated by weir, peaking with attempt to play MAMA TRIED that fizzes into soundless void after 3 seconds, followed by jerry’s distant voice: “well, so much for that.” to crowd: “everything went weird all at once.” it sure did. half-hour THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > DIRE WOLF. after 1st DRUMZ segment, a 6-minute high-speed freak-out with unidentified organist, percussionist(s), guitarist (maybe gary duncan?). i think jack casady takes over for lesh. one of the great super jams. but, really, lots of potential super-jammers in the house. could even be nicky hopkins on organ, though unlikely. after the super jammin’, another quick DRUMZ segment & the dead blast back into THE OTHER ONE. instead of spiraling to peaks, CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT winds down smoothly to DIRE WOLF, which sounds great, too. another bonkers sunburst DANCING IN THE STREET, this time with an ecstatic TIGHTEN UP jam that ramps to an even blissier peak & breakdown that magically finds its way back to the chorus. holy cow. lithe 22-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT > NOT FADE AWAY > LOVELIGHT that keeps turning quick corners, band digging hard into the jam. after a year of mostly tedious 40-minute versions, it’s kind of fire again.
4/17/70 family dog on the great highway: the 1st full acoustic set. advertised as mickey hart & his heartbeats + bobby ace & his cards from the bottom of the deck, with the new riders & charlie musselwhite. no tape, but a bay area deadhead named judy dawson kept setlists for all 3 family dog shows. when a recording surfaced of 4/18, it matched her list perfectly, pretty much confirming the others as accurate. this show had possibly the 1st acoustic (or acoustic/electric) versions of CUMBERLAND BLUES, MAMA TRIED, NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE, SILVER THREADS & GOLDEN NEEDLES, & the everly bros.’ CATHY’S CLOWN, a weir staple with the new riders. while we’re keeping track, also 50 years ago today: dave torbert debuts on bass with the new riders of the purple sage, along probably with the last batch of marmaduke tunes for their 1st album.
4/18/70 family dog on the great highway: MIA tape until its 2013 release on LP. playing under assumed names, the dead seem to be workshopping acoustic tunes for their upcoming tour. recording opens with 1st taped acoustic version of I KNOW YOU RIDER, a staple for rest of the year. weir & garcia giggle helplessly as lesh gets increasingly annoyed at owsley & the monitor situation. tons of classic, genuinely LOL crypto-stoner crosstalk, though they both get pissed, too. jerry: “[the guitars] are as though invisible, unheard, unstruck!” “this is an electric guitar,” garcia announces, “something new,” before hybrid acoustic/electric CUMBERLAND BLUES & NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE. both sound great with muted drums, SPEEDWAY close to the recently recorded “workingman’s dead” version, with sweet garcia bloozing. while someone fetches pigpen from the office, where he’s apparently hanging, a 2-song bobby ace mini-set: ME & MY UNCLE & MAMA TRIED, both with vocals by marmaduke from the new riders. MAMA TRIED is boss, someone (david nelson?) mimicking the guitar from haggard’s original. band members talked about how pig’s natural habitat the kitchen table late at night with a guitar & this is as close as he ever got onstage, beginning with his usual KATIE MAE before a bunch of debuts, some never heard again. perhaps a view of his kitchen repertoire/arrangements? AIN’T IT CRAZY (aka THE RUB) is a suggestive lightnin’ hopkins standard from the old jugband days, good fun. BRING ME MY SHOTGUN is also by hopkins, unflashy & low key. ROBERTA appears to be a pigification of several sources. show closes with pig’s versions of a pair of john lee hooker tunes, BLACK SNAKE & TUPELO BLUES. both among the quietest songs done on a dead stage. could see how it wouldn’t work most places. it’s not quite mindblowing, but it’s also really special.
4/19/70 family dog on the great highway: once again, no tape, only a setlist. their last of 8 san francisco shows in 11 days, the last time that’d happen for years. thanks to deadhead judy dawson for the setlist. I KNOW YOU RIDER opener on bicycle day is almost certainly accidental. another extended pigpen mini-set has debut of lightnin’ hopkins’s SHE’S MINE & an untraceable tune labeled BIG BREASA.
4/25/70 denver: with john hammond & jr. & spontinuity light show. fantastic show, murky audience tape often inaccurately labeled as 4/24. missing the 1st electric portion, catching seemingly all of the acoustic set & much (but not all of) beyond. tape opens with I KNOW YOU RIDER, languidly stretching to 9 minutes & not stopping as the sitters/standers scream it out. truly bizarre to hear UNCLE JOHN’S BAND without massive cheers for the first chords. crying baby is already on-brand, though. kicking off the 2nd electric set, an absolutely fantastic EASY WIND, rolling conversational swamp-boogie. 47-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > THE ELEVEN > DRUMZ > JAM (& newspaper review said it went into GOOD LOVIN’). the last taped version of THE ELEVEN, a major primal dead freakout. lots of MIA tapes from this era & it certainly showed up again, but a sad goodbye. DARK STAR (itself semi-rare in ’70) is titanic, space gongs emerging into exuberant FEELIN’ GROOVY & TIGHTEN UP themes, both turning themselves brightly inside-out & peaking peaking peaking. the post-DRUMZ fragment & MAN’S WORLD crackle, too.
5/1/70 alfred: the debut of “an evening with the grateful dead” at the @AlfredU student activity center in new york. acoustic dead, the new riders of the purple sage, & an electric dead set (or 2). beginning of a new era. the intro for the first “evening with…” tape is note perfect. “dig it, like, where it’s at, this bill is 5 hours long! the riders–”–tape pause/splice sound–and cuts into DEEP ELEM BLUES. a fantastic sounding recording with great energy. after 6 months of workshopping, 1st proper acoustic set is polished, sorta! almost-there-yet-winning harmonies, tasteful & almost fully muted drums, big jerry lead vocals, charming banter, not too much tuning, & those dashing new riders. but where’s pigpen? marmaduke & david nelson from the new riders join the mix & the performances are stellar, marmaduke finally hitting the tandem vocals with weir on ME & MY UNCLE & MAMA TRIED, nelson & garcia likewise finally nailing the haggard-style acoustic/electric guitar on the latter. nelson’s acoustic is fun & vivid in left channel, adding figures between weir & garcia on CUMBERLAND BLUES, RACE IS ON, NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE, etc., a natural extra layer, as is his mandolin on the 1st taped COLD JORDAN, spiritual sung by garcia/weir/marmaduke/nelson. after the glowing acoustic set, hour-long electric tape is just regular variety hot, with a 22-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE & bracketed by lots of boogie on either side.
5/2/70 binghamton: a classic grateful dead show in a low-ceilinged student center at @HarpurCollege. acoustic set includes garcia’s summary of the band’s new 5-hour format, “everybody just relax, man, we have you all night long.” crowd is on board all the way. the acoustic set is filled with quotable banter. when he’s playing, pigpen’s presence is an underrated & sometimes ambient part of the acoustic sets, including bouncing harmonica on DON’T EASE ME IN & quiet organ drones on I KNOW YOU RIDER. seems like he could’ve done more. on the original broadcast & “dick’s picks” CANDYMAN is spliced to sound like an intentional segue to a righteous CUMBERLAND BLUES, garcia shredding on electric, david nelson adding fills on 2nd acoustic, drums coming in midway. on full tape, there’s 3 minutes of tuning. more deadhead quotables before COLD JORDAN. “it’s gospel time everybody” “take off your hats; or men take off your hats, ladies leave them on.” apparently not a traditional song at all, but written by fred rich in 1954 & performed by the stanley bros. new riders set is 1st circulating tape with new bassist dave torbert. earliest versions of m. haggard’s WORKIN’ MAN BLUES, c. berry’s BROWN EYED HANDSOME MAN, & j. fogerty’s LODI. countrified CCR & chuck are sloppy fun. weir joins for 4 tunes, the tightest the band sounds. 1st electric set opens with 40-minute ST. STEPHEN > THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > COSMIC CHARLIE, anchored by a 14-minute OTHER ONE that pops with soaring leads & rhythmic trust falls, flowing into a graceful “slow” version of COSMIC CHARLIE, but it’s all just a prelude. everybody slashes together out of the drum break on 15-minute all-timer GOOD LOVIN’, weir twisting lightning shapes & edging into something adjacent to the FEELIN’ GROOVY jam & shooting sunrays in all directions. the backing vocals are still dorky af, but MAN’S WORLD is so tight, like all of the dynamics from LOVELIGHT jams turned into an arrangement. never gonna A/B it with a JB version, but pigpen owns it in his own greasy way. and (extreme janice the muppet voice), oh, like, wow, this DANCING IN THE STREET! infinite ecstatic garcia guitar soars through the TIGHTEN UP theme & into the starfield beyond, sounding deliciously like DARK STAR for a few breaths before a last fuzz burst & final chorus. lesh: “you folks should all follow the fine example of the fellow over here who got it on over here with his girlfriend & we’re going to take a short break & i want you to all feel each other for about 10 minutes…” set 3 is only 35 minutes but yowza MORNING DEW & 21-minute VIOLA LEE BLUES > BID YOU GOODNIGHT. VIOLA LEE swirls into the big translucent crystal tornado & lands in one of the more musical versions of BID YOU GOODNIGHT. i said goddamn.
5/3/70 middletown: the dead arrive in the thick of student demonstration time, stage announcements about getting gassed at the bobby seale protest in new haven. apparently thinking it was a nighttime gig, only garcia & weir arrive early enough to the play acoustic set. unidentified guest (possibly will scarlett) adds suitably aching harmonica to all 4 acoustic tunes, DEEP ELEM BLUES, FRIEND OF THE DEVIL, SILVER THREADS & GOLDEN NEEDLES, & BLACK PETER (where pig also plays ambient B3). the free food table has enough food for 1 person. electric set has a distant GOOD LOVIN’, a few tunes they couldn’t fit into the acoustic set, a fireworks display (with oohing & aahing & taper narration), & a 36-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT > THE MAIN TEN > UNCLE JOHN’S BAND > LOVELIGHT. probably some good music in there. however, if you are charmed by stoned babbling undergrads circa spring 1970 (including the oft-befuddled taper, working for a prof & not familiar with the dead) & the political nuances of the black panther movement on college campuses, this tape has it all.
5/6/70 cambridge: playing for free at @MIT during the nationwide student strike. circulating copies recorded by @WMBR (then WTBS) with fantastic raw garcia guitar sound. the nationwide protest against nixon’s invasion of cambodia was already planned when the kent state shooting happened & is barely mentioned in the student paper, but must’ve been in the air. weir stencils fists onto the kickdrums in solidarity. glorious 17-minute DANCING IN THE STREET opens, easing into DARK STAR zones & perhaps early hints of the so-called BEAUTIFUL JAM before the TIGHTEN UP theme. big bass! ned lagin has said that garcia echoed phrases from their earlier dorm room jam session. lost kid announcements from garcia, lesh complaining about the cold. he plugs the band’s gig the next night at dumont gym, but the bright jams to do that, too. 14-minute GOOD LOVIN’ bass-a-thon with lesh solo leading into jams with garcia & guitar/drums break. can almost hear the cold seep the band’s fingers during the 18-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY, which is impassioned but fuzzy, winding through quizzical conversation.
5/7/70 cambridge: serious props to the taper for bringing enough tape & batteries to capture the show. he & his buddy even politely limit their chomping to in-between songs. it’d surely be a more fondly remembered show with a better tape, though. even the dead’s endless tuning breaks were better in 1970. solid comedy & crosstalk. audience member shouts for “rock music” & garcia snaps back, “stop that, man! if you had a microphone *you* could say something weird, too. rock music, that’s an interesting label…” with no warning, weir & another band member (kreutzmann?) scream a very monty pythonesque delivery of one of weir’s terrible jokes. “I SAY THAT DOG HAS NO NOSE!” “NO NOSE, HOW DOES HE SMELL?” “BLOOMIN’ AWFUL!!” <crickets> david nelson joins (inaudibly) for CUMBERLAND BLUES & NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE. weir joins the new riders for the last 5 songs of their set, now closing with their big closing singalong on HONKY TONK WOMEN with weir (& the taper?) yawping along on the chorus. as crowd members audibly point out several times, pigpen’s MIA for the acoustic set (weir: “if anyone sees pigpen, that no-account shiftless turd, send him up”) but he’s back to open the electric set with a short, potent GOOD LOVIN’. “this is the little paranoid-in-the-streets mantra,” says garcia to introduce DIRE WOLF, timely then & timely now, the 1st post-kent state version. incredible EASY WIND with garcia tapping into bliss-flows, weir joining on the leads. short 3rd set, with unidentified rando howling the FROZEN LOGGER followed by 41-minute NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT feat. 8 minutes of tapped-in garcia wilding on ST. STEPHEN, CHINA CAT, & (for 1st time on tape) the youngbloods’ DARKNESS DARKNESS.
5/8/70 delhi: one of the worst audience tapes with the best jams, sound apparently mixed by legendary jazz DJ phil schaap. most of the show is MIA, but at least this blown-out recording gets right to the shit, 28-minute DARK STAR > DANCING IN THE STREET. deep space with diamond garcia melodies cutting upwards, through TIGHTEN UP & FEELIN’ GROOVY & out into the ever-bluer sky. 18-minute GOOD LOVIN’ has garcia setting totally crazed course out of the drum break, though lesh takes over by the end, with audience eruptions breaking through the murk throughout. UNCLE JOHN’S BAND is a well-deserved encore.
5/14/70 kirkwood: weir watch – “how’s about turning the lights off, all of them, including the spots & the light show & we’ll just go by the light of this one candle right here & everybody will have a good old time.” pause. “not going for it, huh?” lights off to big cheers. after a moment with the lights off & lots of amused crowd noises, garcia asks for a little more light & weir makes the wonderfully-phrased & self-conscious admission that “i ain’t exactly the 50,000-watt clear-channel voice of rationality speaking to you.” wasn’t totally paying attention, but kreutzmann & hart do seem to be alternating drum duty acoustic sets (so far, i think, MH on 5/1, BK on 5/2 & 5/7). tonight it’s kreutzmann. feedback & monitor issues shorten the acoustic set & continue into the new riders. midway through, the promoter asks, “jerry, we’re gonna let everybody in free, alright?” “anything you like” & they open the back doors. just like woodstock, man! 2-plus hour electric set has fierce (but way short) GOOD LOVIN’, garcia playing slide on GOOD MORNING LITTLE SCHOOLGIRL & NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE, & is mostly just boppin’ dance music. mostly. the debut of ATTICS OF MY LIFE (very likely, anyway) is a little ragged on the harmony side, but one of garcia & hunter’s most perfect mind-manifesting hymns. seems like it’d be an acoustic song, but will usually appear in the electric set. 40-minute NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT mega-choogle is maybe a step down from having DARK STAR & THE ELEVEN in that sequence. SPEEDWAY’s doom hits hard as ever, though, garcia jamming on NOBODY’S FAULT BUT MINE.
5/15/70 fillmore east: solid intro.
bill graham: from 710 ashbury street, mr. jerry garcia.
garcia: they’ll never take me alive!
graham: on the drums, the son of lennie hart, mickey hart!
garcia & weir: (hopeless giggles.)
for the early acoustic set, “road trips” is especially a huge improvement over the circulating tapes, where the music is panned left. pigpen’s version of AIN’T IT CRAZY finally migrates to a proper show & crowd digs it (& garcia comes up with a cool vocal part, of course). beardless garcia might be the most chaotic garcia. in this episode, he is not taking ANY shit from the nyc hecklers.
garcia: stuff it, man. eat it. we don’t have to dignify your miserable heckling, *do we*?
weir: that’s tellin’ em, jer.
garcia: fuckin’ a, man.
to be fair to hecklers, there’s a LOT of dead air.
woman: where’s your beard, jerry?
garcia: shut UP, i don’t ask you about *your* beard.
nelson plays on CUMBERLAND BLUES, CANDYMAN, & COLD JORDAN. can almost hear hart trying to restrain himself on CUMBERLAND. after a 2nd fragile version of ATTICS OF MY LIFE, the early electric highlight is 40-minute ST. STEPHEN > THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > COSMIC CHARLIE with a fierce bass-bombed middle that floats down into a crystal cavern after the verse. the dead don’t play any previously released tunes until well into the electric set, after almost 2 hours of music. also, this is a bonkers amelie rothschild photo. so much going on. and look how many people are crammed behind the amps! by the late show, all is dialed in & all 3 sets are fantastic. the acoustic dead do a few rare numbers, opening with the 1st of 2 known versions of the BALLAD OF CASEY JONES, mississippi john hurt-style, sung by garcia. a meta-treat.
garcia: we got a request to do this, we did this in the 1st show & we’re going to do it again now.
weir: thus breaking a longstanding tradition, we love to break tradition.
FRIEND OF THE DEVIL gets some excited applause from heads who know. really, a night of 1000 lulz.
audience member: HEY GARCEEAH–
garcia (bored): what?
weir (interrupting): HEY GARCEEEEAH PLAY WHITE RABBIT!!
dude tries to tell a “why did the chicken…” joke & pigpen shuts him down.
after a bunch of other crosstalk, another dude is still trying to talk to jerry, who’s not having it. “i’m sorry, man, i lost interest, went right past me… yeah, yeah, have it tattooed on your arm & come over later.” thankfully, the music is golden, including sweet UNCLE JOHN’S BAND & CANDYMAN. garcia tries to bring out the new riders for gospel, but pig interrupts. “don’t i get to play one before you bums sing that fuckin’ religious song?” enthusiastic weir intro (“the dog-suckingest man in show business, pigpen!!”) & rare pig double-shot, before new riders david nelson (on mandolin) & marmaduke (on bass vocals) join for the 1st version of bill monroe & bessie lee maudlin’s bluegrass spiritual VOICE FROM ON HIGH. someone asks when the dead are going to play for free in the park again. garcia: “as soon as everything is *perfectly* cool in new york city. and if you’re smart, you’ll get out too!” (@corry342 thinks the new riders actually played for free in the park the week before.) if you’re a new riders n00b, the late show from 5/15 is a swell jumping-in point. it has my favorite marmaduke tune ALL I EVER WANTED, 3 with weir, & raucous set-closing version of the stones’ CONNECTION, though they don’t repeat their “hit” HENRY from the early show. plus cartoons at intermission! pithy bill graham intro for 2-hour late electric set, probably ending at dawn: “set 2, group 3, take 1, the grateful dead…” & it’s impeccable full-service electric dead with bright CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER, apocalyptic MORNING DEW, & chonky GOOD LOVIN’. 58-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. DARK STAR turns gaseous. flexatone whistles, guitar sparkles & circular accelerating recombobulation before languid FEELIN’ GROOVY jam & 2nd verse. 27-minute LOVELIGHT burns hot. crowd is still way the fuck into it & wanting more. pig gets off an accidentally sun ra-like come on: “i wanna tell you somethin’ about nothing.” COLD JORDAN with gospel harmonies & bluegrass mandolin is a swell encore. it’s a repeat from the early show, too, but who’s counting. the gig started on friday night, but 7 hours later sure feels like sunday.
5/16/70 philadelphia: opening for jimi hendrix at @TempleUniv. MC5 cancelled. a few hours after finishing their 7-hour fillmore east marathon, the dead play an afternoon set at the @TempleUniv football stadium. muted sounding but fun, especially CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER & HARD TO HANDLE. vérité moments on the audience tape (clearly made from up close) including thickly-accented requests ALLIGATOR & boos when someone from the festival asks people to clear away from the fence. road manager sam cutler kills buzz during NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE, telling taper to shut down, 1st of a few occurrences. “i’m the manager of the band, i want the tape, i’ll pay you for it but you’re not keeping it,” cutler says. thankfully taper refuses, but eventually stops.
5/24/70 newcastle-under-lyme: overseas for the 1st time, an afternoon set at the hollywood festival (attendance ~45,000) in newcastle-under-lyme. after black sabbath, before traffic, with many between. BBC footage of the band’s short, strange trip to london is in @longstrangedoc, including record company reception & tasty footage of the band rehearsing at @RoundhouseLDN. the set is not quite a mindbender, but excellent fun that heats up as it goes. a glimpse into how the dead programmed themselves for an entirely new audience, opening with the big hit CASEY JONES, even though it wasn’t released yet. in all the elegant BBC film from this gig featured in @longstrangedoc, i don’t recall any sustained wide-angled shot of the stage, which festival organizers seem to have adorned with giant inflatable schlong & breasts? must be that british wit. solid intro to the dead, really, with healthy CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER, 23-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > ATTICS OF MY LIFE (even with lesh shouting chords to pigpen during latter) & kinetic GOOD LOVIN’ with kinetic rhythmic conversations. 67-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. DARK STAR begins uptempo & mellows. flexatone & super-hot gongs sound like blown-out synth & crystallize into slo-mo TIGHTEN UP jam & the bright beyond. weir pushes for DANCING IN THE STREET. glockenspiel twinkles through ST. STEPHEN peaks. always adorable when, in the midst of a LOVELIGHT rap about playing pocket pool, pig shouts out his gf. “i got myself a sweet little thing back on california coast.”
6/4/70 fillmore west: opening a delicious 4-night weekend at the fillmore west. acoustic set, new riders, southern comfort, & electric dead. hart drums on tonight’s acoustic set. WAKE UP LITTLE SUSIE sounds boss in the semi-electric portion with tasty garcia fills. 1st taped SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT in now-rotating late set bluegrass/gospel slot, nelson on mandolin & marmaduke on vocals. the pedal steel sounds sweet on audience tape during quiet new riders tunes like ALL I EVER WANTED. weir joins for especially raucous 3 tunes (included on recent @tuneinowsley box), including HONKY TONK WOMEN, where i think he’s just singing/wooing/instigating. someone who is not bill graham gives their attempt at a bill graham introduction before the late set. “direct from being voted the horniest band in the world, the grateful dead.” garcia: “we’re havin’ some power difficulties up here, so everybody think real hard at the power company down the road.” near end of HARD TO HANDLE, a weird noise that sounds like a UFO landing” is either more power difficulties or someone’s hallucination caught on tape. tech break tape comedy: tape cuts into rare hart-instigated telling of the “my dog has no nose…” joke, pauses/cuts to weir leading the crowd in “999,997 bottles of beer on the wall…” & cuts away again. when tape returns, band is midway through final dead version of IT’S A SIN (part of warlocks’ repertoire, later in garcia’s solo sets) with sensitive pigpen harmonica part. could be the audience tape blending away sour notes, but ATTICS OF MY LIFE creeping towards magic. late part of the set is almost all boogie, kicking off with a snappin’ MAN’S WORLD & capped by 22-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > MIDNIGHT HOUR. garcia’s in a teasing mood, playing ST. STEPHEN in NOT FADE AWAY & CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER in MIDNIGHT HOUR. BABY BLUE closer, always crazy rare & which mostly seemed to come out late night in heady “home” venues (avalon ballroom, family dog, capitol theatre, fillmore west) & here gets more dramatic & confident as it goes.
6/5/70 fillmore west: abbreviated (or incomplete) acoustic set, kreutzmann on drums, but the whole night is plagued with tech issues & feedback, with lots of band ire directed at owsley, at the mixing board for local gigs all the way through his jail date in july. uneventful late set, though maybe missing a reel in the middle. centerpiece is 30-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > ATTICS OF MY LIFE, with sweet landing. no big pig number. instead, a HARD TO HANDLE / MAN’S WORLD twofer & UNCLE JOHN’S BAND closer. ST. STEPHEN > CASEY JONES (with the segue coming in the former spot of ST. STEPHEN’s “william tell” ending) is a casually perfect encore.
6/6/70 fillmore west: another incomplete acoustic tape, hart drumming this evening, notable mainly (perhaps) for weir & band getting a few verses into THE FROZEN LOGGER. summer’s here & the time is extra-right for DANCING IN THE STREET, 13 minutes with another joyous spin around weir’s TIGHTEN UP theme, one of the longer versions, stretching almost the whole jam, with garcia folding the peak back to halftime before final verse. charming 13-minute GOOD LOVIN’ with the band jumping right into NEW ORLEANS out of the drum break, led by weir, having a little trouble finding its groove, before back into GOOD LOVIN’ jam. in an alternate timeline, NEW ORLEANS would’ve stuck around. 67-minute DIRE WOLF > ALLIGATOR > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. next-beat shift into ALLIGATOR out of DIRE WOLF seems almost accidental but garcia hops right on. jam out of the ALLIGATOR drum break is a glorious 15-minute thrashing of late primal dead, possibly the final san francisco version of the tune, with hints of CAUTION & turns through DARKNESS DARKNESS, coming to a noise landing before final sequence.
6/7/70 fillmore west: ready steady bill kreutzmann drumming on the acoustic set. last acoustic/electric version of ME & MY UNCLE, occasionally popping up during weir’s appearances with the new riders.
garcia: we’re going to do a few semi-electric numbers. we’ve got a million new labels!
weir: acoustic semi-electric, electric semi-acoustic, full electric, quasi-electric, demi-electric, nouveau electric.
5 songs with dawson/nelson. slithering NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE. electric set gets right to the weird with 37-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > DRUMZ > THE MAIN TEN > SUGAR MAGNOLIA. during drum break after 1st CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT, curious & rare little moment where band seems to give forum an anti-war protestor. weir gives consent before someone onstage (but off-mic?) announces they’re from the youth international party & we should be getting off our fuckin’ asses & helping our brothers in vietnam, & when they finish the band bombs almost-perfectly into THE OTHER ONE. garcia turns the final OTHER ONE shreds inside-out. during CRYPTICAL’s reprise, a woman sing/speaks poetry & band goes molten, landing in a percussive/harmonic jam, brief DRUMZ, & fairly developed MAIN TEN, the proto-PLAYING IN THE BAND instrumental, seguing into 1st SUGAR MAGNOLIA, the definition of a 1st draft, only the 1st verse & chorus repeated 3 times with a slow-motion lurching/shuffling rhythm. weir’s 1st collaboration with robert hunter & a breakthrough of sorts, though far from finished. late part of the set goes full goof, with brief burp of LOUIE LOUIE. “we’re gonna stand around until a good idea comes,” garcia says to many requests. big love to the dude shouting for YOU DON’T HAVE TO ASK. “we don’t like any of that shit,” kreutzmann (i think) yells back. weir: “there’s a guy over there & he’s *always* over there & he always shouts out ‘GOLDEN ROAD’ & i wanna know who he is, man, because you take the cake.” a rando adds a few lines over the start of COSMIC CHARLIE & sounds nifty. 18-minute GOOD LOVIN’ stumbles slightly out of the drum break but locks in for casually swingin’ thrills. a 4-night run with no DARK STAR & only one LOVELIGHT. changes always afoot. they’re all transition years.
6/12/70 honolulu: 26-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE in fierce stereo with chanting in drum break, tech screwiness, post-DRUMZ drop where they maybe forget for a few beats that it’s not ALLIGATOR, garcia/drummers jam feeding deeper, & vast soaring outro.
6/13/70 honolulu: no organ on the tape, but alluringly, after EASY WIND, pigpen asks the sound engineer for a microphone “so i [can] plug it into the piano so everybody can hear the mistakes i make.” perhaps it’s there because of nicky hopkins, then in quicksilver. engineer plays with balances during ensuing UNCLE JOHN’S BAND (with crashing drum finale), but there’s no piano audible until much later in the weirdly mixed recording, on NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE, where pigpen adds some really boss solos & color. supposedly gary duncan and/or dino valenti are on GOOD LOVIN’ & TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, but both sound like normal kinetic blues-psych dead jams to me. GOOD LOVIN’ has a few atonal weir squonks. crackling & super live drum mix during soundboard portions.
6/21/70 pauley ballroom: a solstice benefit for pit river indians organized by wavy gravy, possibly also including @stewartbrand, sandy bull, new riders, & light show. not a lot of the vibe survives on tape, but eyewitness accounts make this sound like a low-key sunday night acid test with refreshments at the door & participation. bands apparently played on the ballroom floor, separated from crowd by a flower rope. in an interview the next day, garcia called the 6/21/70 show “a pretty good example of how it was 3 or 4 years ago. and any weekend at the fillmore is how it is now.” tape opens with another weir rendition of THE FROZEN LOGGER, this one seeming to count smoothly into CASEY JONES. or possibly it’s a pause/splice. the taper seems to do that in a few other places. recording quality is especially meh, but crackling CUMBERLAND BLUES, deep EASY WIND, & lovely (& quiet for the circumstances) CANDYMAN. 25-minute NOT FADE AWAY > ST. STEPHEN > DRUMZ > GOOD LOVIN’ boogie. ST. STEPHEN in the middle is a new move, breaking up the boogie. the fun hippie freakout vibe comes through most fully during the GOOD LOVIN’ drum break, which includes lots of clapping, stomping, & maybe some pit river indians? hard to say wtf is happening. tape cuts off, presumably with weirdness to spare.
6/24/70 port chester: promoter howard stein introduces all the sets. debut acoustic versions of ATTICS OF MY LIFE (angelic despite NY rowdies) & weir-sung LET ME IN (gene crysler via porter wagoner, played in ’69 pedal steel mini-sets), 1st of 2 surviving takes for both. of 4 songs repeated between the early & late shows, only UNCLE JOHN’S BAND (acoustic early & electric late) is from the brand new album, along with the newer ATTICS OF MY LIFE (acoustic, then electric) & the acoustic CANDYMAN & FRIEND OF THE DEVIL. perhaps the tape with the most frequent & unexpected cannon & fireworks detonations, like the totally normal & appropriate explosion a few seconds into MAMA TRIED. weir drops roughly a half-syllable. exceedingly chatty crowd during acoustic sets. in the late acoustic set, the 1st recorded acoustic BIG RAILROAD BLUES, missing from tapes since 1966. it’s missing the jug band propulsion but has a ghost of the original arrangement via pigpen’s harmonica (sorta/kinda) doubling the vocals. quality audio theater via the balcony-rail microphones during new riders’ late set when someone accidentally drops their hat into the crowd below & taper/usher ken lee orchestrates its return. side note: well-made audience tapes are great artifacts of regional accents. late electric set opens with stellar 20-minute NOT FADE AWAY > EASY WIND, garcia immediately hooking into ribbons of color. weir tries to reign it back to the song, but garcia ignores him & eventually they pour smoothly into EASY WIND. garcia: “mickey has to get his gongs all together, we’re gonna do DARK STAR.” cheers. “there’ll be a minute or 2 of respectful silence while mickey fiddles aimlessly around the stage.” goddamn exquisite 45-minute DARK STAR > ATTICS OF MY LIFE > DARK STAR > SUGAR MAGNOLIA > DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER. patient post-gonging reformulation into ATTICS gets cheers even. amazing framing, dripping in & out of psychedelia. the post-ATTICS segment turns into a slow-motion TIGHTEN UP theme, with a wee bit of the FEELIN’ GROOVY jam acting as the transition to the prototype one-verse/chorus-only SUGAR MAGNOLIA & reentering the DARK STAR universe like flipping a switch. final DARK STAR is a gorgeous post-script. someone near the lee’s mics freaks when they get to ST. STEPHEN. screaming peaks & a righteous ’68-like tag into CHINA CAT. acoustic SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT encore, show ends after 5 am on thursday morning.
7/1/70 winnipeg: festival express (tapes detangled here). compact & honkingly good EASY WIND, a pretty solid intro to the dead for the small crowd, with a pretty delicious video of the whole performance. CANDYMAN’s a little wobbly, part tape, part band.
7/2-3/70 somewhere in canada: an hour’s worth of messy but fun lo-fi jams from the music car(s) on the festival express tour as it hurdles across canada. with a few exceptions, hard to say who’s playing, but tons of pedal steel. garcia (i think) on pedal steel for 1st 40 minutes or so, jamming on jimmie rodgers’ BLUE YODEL NO. 1, the stones’ HONKY TONK WOMEN, & otherwise. could be buddy cage (then with ian & sylvia) but, to my ears, sounds just sloppy enough to be garcia. david nelson of the new riders told me that, on the train, garcia & buddy cage set up their pedal steels side-by-side so cage could give pointers. parts of the 1st jam here seem to maybe have 2 pedal steels at points, but the mix is weird enough that it’s hard to tell. tape ends with 18 minutes built around the SUGAR MAGNOLIA riff, though someone’s singing PICK A BALE OF COTTON at some point & later 2 not-that-audible singers jump in with what seems like a unison vocal. no garcia here, from what i can tell.
7/4/70 calgary: how i wish there was so much more footage like this show! joyous summertime DON’T EASE ME IN. amazing to see the band’s original acoustic formation in action with cowboy kreutzmann as the sole drummer & pigpen up front on harmonica. undervalued part of the band’s early double drum set-up: no (or sometimes low) drum risers. during NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE & HARD TO HANDLE, love seeing lesh/weir/garcia play between or even behind the kits, usually when pig fronts the band. nice SPEEDWAY harmonica by pig. close-up LOVELIGHT footage is big fun, seeing pig work the crowd. gonzo garcia peaks & more good shots of the drummers, including mickey’s sub-mini-kit & mid-jam cigarette. film of ian & sylvia’s big set-closing jam includes garcia, weir, & kreutzmann, with garcia playing the rosewood telecaster used by george harrison on “let it be,” then belonging to delaney bramlett. apparently, janis joplin played in seattle on 7/5 (& hawaii on 7/6), so seemingly flew to seattle for the day & came back to close the show. or maybe the closing jam happened on 7/4? time worked differently in 1970.
7/8/70 edwardsville: at @SIUE’s mississippi river festival, playing acoustic & electric, accompanied by the electric rainbow light show. no tapes, but several reports. crowd estimated at 8,500, maybe the dead’s biggest standalone headline gig to date? acoustic set includes SILVER THREADS & GOLDEN NEEDLES, electric has GOOD LOVIN’ & others. garcia plays a les paul instead of his usual SG. [2/3]
7/9/70 fillmore east: midnight at the fillmore east, the 1st of 4 shows. acoustic & new riders sets MIA. soaring EASY WIND (with harmonica) before 36-minute ALLIGATOR > THE OTHER ONE > ATTICS OF MY LIFE > THE OTHER ONE > CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > COSMIC CHARLIE. purposeful 45-second inside-out garcia deceleration into ATTICS, an abrupt flip back afterwards. 18-minute GOOD LOVIN’ > CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER > GOOD LOVIN’. again, band uses usual drum break for segue, flipping back quickly afterwards. during drum break, one of marty’s seatmates quotes zappa: “i wanna hear CARAVAN with a drum solo.” both sequences are great, but feel more like one-off suite drafts than actual jamming. enormous fun, though. marty weinberg narrates before encore. “here we are at the scenic fillmore auditorium in the heart of the scenic east village…” hi marty!
7/10/70 fillmore east: no tapes (yet!!), but a few reports & reliable-seeming fan memories. acoustic set almost certainly features a few barely played tunes. reports suggest late set opened with MORNING DEW, anchored by DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, plus the pig light show.
7/11/70 fillmore east: also, at the start of his tape of the late set, marty weinberg clearly announces, “it’s saturday night, july 11th, 1970.” somehow it still got misdated. 1st HOW LONG BLUES, sung by garcia, traced by @alexallan to the 1929 frank stokes version, not the more common leroy carr tune. hart is the acoustic drummer du jour. “mickey mickey tom-tom,” jerry calls him during a tech break. last of the taped pigpen solo sets, final KATIE MAE, SHE’S MINE, & BRING ME MY SHOTGUN. 1st surviving versions of charlie monroe’s ROSA LEE McFALL & traditional TELL IT TO ME (a cocaine song, but not COCAINE BLUES), both sung by garcia, david nelson on mandolin. setbreak entertainment by the pig light show apparently includes the classic sunshine makers cartoon, nixon’s checkers speech, & (as the dead take the stage) “night of the living dead.” 60-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE > DANCING IN THE STREET > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, an insanely hot sequence that’s a bit hard to hear through the audience-heavy tape. another night, another delightful split OTHER ONE. the big peaks come in DANCING, which brightens into a glorious TIGHTEN UP jam. harsh splice before LOVELIGHT, but the jam keeps burning hotter, garcia tearing through the ST. STEPHEN melody. another harsh cuts during the song’s finale.
7/12/70 fillmore east: oddity-filled acoustic set with kreutzmann on drums. rare tunes almost all across. last BEEN ALL AROUND THIS WORLD ’til ’80. DARK HOLLOW returns after its 2 february plays, settling into the acoustic rotation for rest of the year. 1st taped version of marty robbins’s EL PASO, sluggish compared to what it’ll become as an electric standard. garcia duets with weir & plays electric on the only surviving version of everly bros.’ SO SAD (TO WATCH A GOOD LOVE GO BAD). gorgeous under tape hiss & chompers. taper kenny schachat pauses tape between every song, as was the style of the time, to save batteries. extended gospel mini-set with marmaduke & nelson, including SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT & VOICE FROM ON HIGH, a gradual hand-off into the new riders’ standard issue set. smokin’ electric set which kinda sounds worse the better it gets, the tape saturating more & the crowd screaming/clapping louder. 14-minute NOT FADE AWAY is just splendid, filled with colorful melodic rivers. pigpen doesn’t sing during the electric set, organ only, so weir takes vocals on GOOD LOVIN’ for the 1st time, becoming the 1st dead tune to have 3 different lead singers at different points. more technicolor jams under the fuzz. set closes with 19-minute VIOLA LEE BLUES, the last monster version on tape, & the nyc crowd flips appropriately. beautiful up & down gearshifts throughout the jam, peaking & coming down gradually.
7/14/70 euphoria ballroom: 1 block from the front street rehearsal space they’d rent a few years later. rubber duck co. featuring tom constanten opens. acoustic & electric sets. owsley is off to prison soon, but the band remains merciless on their sound engineer. @thedavidcrosby on semi-audible 12-string acoustic for CUMBERLAND BLUES & NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE, with a wee outro jam. whole tape is hard to listen to because of the glitches (from a DAT transfer, maybe?), but the only surviving soundboard of the sweet garcia version of HOW LONG BLUES. think kreutzmann is the acoustic drummer for the evening. someone up front asks people in the back to move back & early version of “take a step back” turns into a point/counterpoint:
lesh: that’s kind of reasonable, i’d think, everybody’s up here crammed against the stage…
garcia: DON’T LISTEN TO HIM IT’S NOT THAT REASONABLE.
“here’s what weir gets his wish… at the expense of EVERYBODY,” garcia announces before the 1st taped electric version of EL PASO, still lurching & slow as they attempt to match marty robbins’s tempo, but garcia’s squigglies are starting to coalesce. good brief OTHER ONE meltdown but both EASY WIND & (more significantly) GOOD LOVIN’ have some majorly harsh cuts.
7/16/70 euphoria ballroom: bear’s pre-prison farewell after a bust the day before with housemates bob matthews & betty cantor. his last early dead tape, with janis joplin. a few eyewitness accounts suggest that janis joplin & pigpen sat in with the new riders of the purple sage & duetted on possibly both merle haggard’s THE BOTTLE LET ME DOWN & SWINGING DOORS. plausible! only set 2 circulates, but wow. off-mic amusements as janis enters (including a good “playwhiterabbitgoddammit”) before charming, mega-soused 18-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT with her & pigpen volleying like exes. she calls him ron. messy but adorable. garcia wah action. post-janis, a stunning ATTICS OF MY LIFE & drippingly fantastic 22-minute NOT FADE AWAY > ST. STEPHEN > UNCLE JOHN’S BAND. weir drives cool, unusual NFA groove & flows into backdoor turn into ST. STEPHEN, UNCLE JOHN’S in place of the “william tell” ending.
7/30/70 lion’s share: opening 3 acoustic nights at the lion’s share in san anselmo, headlined by new riders of the purple sage. there’s no conclusive evidence about where this tape is really from. the logic is as tangled as the music is lovely. sometimes, the new riders tape is labeled as 7/29 at the matrix. my vote is 7/30 at the lion’s share. amazing work by @JGFateMusic to recover the lion’s share dates. intimate soundboard, often labeled as being at the matrix.pigpen’s absent, kreutzmann’s on drums. early part of set perhaps missing. tape opens with earliest TO LAY ME DOWN, finding a beautiful stillness already. wonderful vocal performance. gorgeous guitar counterpoint by weir.
cheerfully testy garcia gets into it with a crowd member.
garcia: go away, man, get your own band.
audience member: my own band, what’s that mean?
garcia: it means fuck off, man. fuck off.
dead portion of the tape closes with trio of bluegrass/gospel tunes joined by marmaduke (on vocals) & nelson (on mandolin). after tech issues, they sing around a single mic. “this is an old principle, it’s called singing in a group,” says jerry.
7/31/70 lion’s share: there is a tape labeled “8/5/70 san diego” but i think it could be this night. hissy but low-key classic acoustic set with many rare tunes & david nelson on mandolin. there’s no evidence & no eyewitness accounts that put the dead in san diego in mid-summer 1970, which is when this tape virtually has to be from. but they definitely played 3 nights at the lion’s share before the “american beauty” sessions. 2 new riders of the purple sage recordings exist from this week, too, one of which is edited similarly to this, with the gaps between the songs removed. both the new riders’ sets contain MAMA TRIED, making it a different night than this tape, which also has MAMA TRIED. in this era, bill kreutzmann & mickey hart often alternated nights drumming during acoustic sets. the tape dated 7/30 has kreutzmann, which would make 7/31 a hart night, which this tape is. this hour-long tape is sometimes labeled as 2 sets, don’t think it is. this recording was in circulation as early as summer 1971 labeled “8/5/70 san diego” but i wonder if it was leaked by a sound engineer with blurred info so as to not get caught. or someone misread “san diego” as “san anselmo.” anyway, the music… pigpen’s absent again. david nelson on mandolin for most of set, including EL PASO, only surviving dead version of DRINK UP & GO HOME (done in the folk era & revived solo in the ‘80s), & last VOICE FROM ON HIGH. last acoustic version of MAMA TRIED. 2nd & final surviving version of BALLAD OF CASEY JONES (“a whole other casey jones”). 2nd TO LAY ME DOWN, last with garcia on acoustic guitar ’til ’80. drums a bit skittery, but still aching.
8/17/70 fillmore west: opening 3 nights at the fillmore west with the new riders of the purple sage, debuting big batch of “american beauty” songs. no tapes. fragment dated “8/17” is actually 6/24/70, but detailed reports & reconstructed setlist via rolling stone. uncirculating acoustic set likely features debuts of TRUCKIN’, RIPPLE BROKEDOWN PALACE, & OPERATOR, with pigpen playing piano on several. @thedavidcrosby is spotted backstage with acoustic guitar. no reviews mention him, though he jams the next night. also, phil debuts his new mustache & the electric set features DANCING IN THE STREET (presumably with a typical monster ’70 jam) & an extended TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT closer.
8/18/70 fillmore west: in acoustic set, earliest circulating versions of TRUCKIN’, RIPPLE, BROKEDOWN PALACE, & OPERATOR, 1st two (plus NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE) with pigpen on soulful piano. i know pianos are difficult, but wish this had become the norm. he sounds great. TRUCKIN’ has a few alternate lyrics (“garlands of neon…”) but it’s ready to go & the piano sparkles. i’d notate it RIPPLE > BROKEDOWN PALACE, played one right after another, just like on the album & other early versions. both perfectly formed & hymn-like. 1st taped OPERATOR, 1st major pigpen original, his first non-blues, beginning mini writing burst over next 3 years. can’t believe there are only 4 surviving versions of this. sounds so natural for both acoustic & electric bands. not sure if he’s playing guitar, too? not-bill graham intros the electric set: “direct from the whittaker training camp…” before glorious & chaotic 14-minute DANCING IN THE STREET that splatters towards FEELIN’ GROOVY jam, though perhaps the audience tape is making it sound more chaotic than it is. 20-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > SUGAR MAGNOLIA, garcia leaning subtly into the wah-wah during jam. SUGAR MAGNOLIA has more verses (& more defined groove) than the june versions but still no ending.
8/19/70 fillmore west: whole acoustic set is sheer joy. bill the drummer is drumming & pig plays fun & soulful upright piano again, this time on on HOW LONG BLUES, DARK HOLLOW, CANDYMAN, RIPPLE, TRUCKIN’, & NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE. last surviving TELL IT TO ME. long gospel portion with the new riders, but the set centerpiece is unquestionably another stunning RIPPLE > BROKEDOWN PALACE with big outro vocals. baby crying during RIPPLE is on brand. electric set is almost straight choogle & boogie, including ST. STEPHEN > SUGAR MAGNOLIA, the latter’s ending still unwritten. in all of its earliest versions, the band fits it into suite spot (inside DARK STAR, after THE OTHER ONE, paired with THE MAIN TEN, etc.). volcanic GOOD LOVIN’ peak. @thedavidcrosby joins for 39-minute NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT finale, though i can only pick out a 2nd guitar in NOT FADE AWAY. a few unusual grooves that could perhaps be croz-triggered.
8/23ish/70 KQED studios: in quad from @KQED in san francisco with freaky visuals by jerry abrams’ headlights & in-studio crowd, one of their great TV appearances, probably filmed a week earlier. tight EASY WIND opener. even through the video editing hallucinations, it’s boss to see pigpen front & play harmonica & occasionally pick out weir’s hands playing his mini-leads. do love the light show freak outs, though. to use @thoughtsonthedead’s phrase, garcia is at full muppet. CANDYMAN is the 1st with garcia’s guitar intro & slightly slowed down arrangement, presumably adjusted during in-progress album sessions, the version they’d stick with for the next 25 years. crowd looks pretty chill. bouncing CASEY JONES, maybe with high-pitched quad effects (or piano?) starting during break before guitar solo. 1st electric BROKEDOWN PALACE, taken slightly fast, has pretty fantastic 3-part harmonies. UNCLE JOHN’S BAND closer is brisk & confident, cool to see hart playing secondary percussion (no kick or snare), wonder if he did that live, too? wish there was so much more like this.
9/17/70 fillmore east: opening 4 nights at the fillmore east with the new riders of the purple sage & joe’s lights. charming REVOLUTION 9 tune-up. hart drums on acoustic set, though mostly inaudible. 2nd & final run with upright piano in acoustic set-up, also rather inaudible tonight, played by pigpen on opening TRUCKIN’, DARK HOLLOW, & BROKEDOWN PALACE. mandolin (by nelson?) on DARK HOLLOW. for the last time RIPPLE & BROKEDOWN are paired (though with tuning break between them) & once again both are effortlessly perfect minus the barely listenable tape quality. debut of newly written BOX OF RAIN, only known version played in its original studio lineup with lesh on acoustic guitar, garcia on piano, david nelson on electric guitar, dave torbert on bass, weir on vocals. sounds amazing. some lists mention fiddle, but it’s just nelson. audience tape is icky but new riders sound great, notably snappier on SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD opener. tightest-yet SUGAR MAGNOLIA opens the dead’s electric set, still no words in the SUNSHINE DAYDREAM outro(s), just joyous dit-dit-dits (or doot-doot-doots?) by weir & lesh. 47-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > GOOD LOVIN’. after 1st DARK STAR verse, long emptiness with uncharacteristic piercing electronic squeals (by garcia?) before slow upwards spiral & high-speed TIGHTEN UP jam. 2 drum breaks interrupt GOOD LOVIN’ jammin’ but all kinds of nifty start/stop pockets & hot miniature grooves. UNCLE JOHN’S BAND just beginning when the tape cuts off. these shows were also apparently the debut of the big light-up grateful dead sign.
9/18/70 fillmore east: accounts vary, but just before the show (or maybe during a setbreak) dustin hoffman, shel silverstein, & dr. hook shoot part of this scene for “who is harry kellerman,” using light show & dead audience as backdrop. too bad cameras didn’t stick around. acoustic set is a wash, abandoned after 2 songs because of monitor issues. can’t really hear piano on opening TRUCKIN’ & obvious they’re struggling. either garcia is playing unusual BLACK PETER leads to accommodate sound issues or there’s mandolin. too bad, the tape mix is good, kreutzmann is on drums, & maybe they would’ve done BOX OF RAIN again. lots of entertaining off-mic talk, kreutzmann chatting with the randos crowded in (i think) behind the amps, as often happened at the fillmore east shows. new riders open with HONKY TONK WOMEN & i’m impressed marmaduke doesn’t change his altered lyric about san francisco back to new york city. weir joins for MAMA TRIED (the sweet haggard arrangement), RACE IS ON, & SAWMILL, the latter 2 being his last with the new riders. SUGAR MAGNOLIA sounding more confident by the night (as does garcia’s new wah-wah). love hearing the original vocal arrangement with lesh’s backing. it’s on the gnarly part of the tape, but it’s 1st version where weir sings SUNSHINE DAYDREAM outro lyrics. 24-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > BROKEDOWN PALACE, that combination’s only time on tape. last recorded MAN’S WORLD is moody & sinuous. farewell. 1st taped TILL THE MORNING COMES. lyrics always sat weirdly with me, but appreciating the light double-drummer groove. on the crispy part of the tape very thankfully, the only surviving electric version of OPERATOR & it sounds fantastic, basically just like the almost-finished album, with kreutzmann on drums & hart on scraper. sad this didn’t stick around. 13-minute DANCING IN THE STREET cuts straight to the bliss & builds from there. 29-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOOD LOVIN’ is a sign of set-closing choogles to come. happy NFA flows. weir latches onto cool & nearly mechanical 4-chord groove in GOOD LOVIN’. after a few minutes of house music (the youngbloods’ GET TOGETHER), the now-rare BID YOU GOODNIGHT, 1st since the spring, a sweet getaway encore.
9/19/70 fillmore east: newly-circulated acoustic set is just atrocious quality, but still! last circulating versions of COLD JORDAN (minus with the new riders in ’73) & SILVER THREADS & GOLDEN NEEDLES (first played circa ’66). garcia plays piano on stunning TO LAY ME DOWN. the new riders set is too icky for me to even get through. “it’s GOOD MORNING LITTLE SCHOOLGIRL, i haven’t heard this for years!” says marty weinberg as the song starts. last known dead version with pigpen, added to the repertoire in ’66. (thanks, marty!) thankfully, the tape switches over to an absolutely pristine soundboard for the incredible final stretch, cutting in during a primal SUNSHINE DAYDREAM in time to catch stunning 63-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, each part perfect. extra-melodious DARK STAR keeps flowing (with extra scratcher during intro). besides post-verse proto-electronic squigglies (making more sense on this soundboard), jam unfolds with gorgeous themes including dramatic cowbell intro to FEELIN’ GROOVY jam. entirety of ST. STEPHEN hits hard: glockenspiel bridge, the timing of the cannon explosion & drummers’ entrance afterwards, perfectly crunched guitar, etc. all-timer 9-minute NOT FADE AWAY with wild garcia rainbows & DARKNESS DARKNESS & CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER themes. a fave LOVELIGHT with garcia zones, crowd work, & primo exchanges. weir: “pigpen, did you say ‘fuck’?” pigpen: “FUCK!!!!!!” with A+ callback by pig on the final beat of the song. i think about @choccosalo’s review all the time.
9/20/70 fillmore east: one of the all-time most wonderful acoustic sets, the only soundboard with core “american beauty” songs. in terms of performance & tape quality, perhaps the peak ’70 acoustic set & most developed. last with piano, fully confident kreutzmann on drums, developed “american beauty” songs, & davids grisman & nelson on mandolins. the double mandolins replicate grisman’s stereo part(s) on the just-recorded studio RIPPLE, and, like, wow. piano by garcia on knockout TO LAY ME DOWN (the last ’til ’73) with equally knockout electric (?) lead figures by weir (?!) & pig on organ. grisman is almost immediately apparent on DEEP ELEM BLUES, with an almost funky backbeat & pig piano. BIG RAILROAD BLUES is 2nd taped version after an amorphous debut just before the festival express train tour. here, more like MYSTERY TRAIN than the dead’s later versions. pig plays piano on final acoustic TRUCKIN’ (which finds its mojo) & set-closing BROKEDOWN PALACE (my god). last taped acoustic/electric CUMBERLAND BLUES & NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE. last SPEEDWAY ’til ’91, snaking playing (& sweet vocal outro) by soon-to-be-familiar almost-quartet dead. even the little bit of the new riders’ set is tasty, 1st circulating version of buck owens’s TOGETHER AGAIN with garcia getting his tom brumley on. electric dead isn’t quite as next-level. enjoying the early SUGAR MAGNOLIA configuration with jerry & phil’s backing vocals. in the electric set, last version of BIG BOY PETE with pigpen, shelved until ’78 acoustic breakout, a warlocks favorite. fairly sour ATTICS OF MY LIFE harmonies, only noteworthy because it’s been mostly pretty solid since its spring debut. set’s jam is 44-minute NOT FADE AWAY > CAUTION > BID YOU GOODNIGHT. big happiness over the bo diddley groove, garcia pushing the band into CAUTION & (i believe) the last old-style feedback segment into BID YOU GOODNIGHT, ala “live/dead.”
9/25/70 pasadena: no tapes, but great scene reports. a lost DARK STAR & possibly a version of bo diddley’s MONA.
9/26/70 salt lake city: no tapes, but solid reportage. acoustic & electric sets, new “american beauty” songs, DANCING IN THE STREET, MORNING DEW, & more, plus much hassle from cops.
10/4/70 winterland: with jefferson airplane, quicksilver messenger service, & more at winterland. big night, not quite reflected in music. broadcast live in quad via @KQED radio & TV. only stereo audio remains. while the dead play, word circulates that janis joplin has died in LA. also the night that young couple keith & donna jean godchaux fall in love with the dead & decide they NEED to play with garcia. onstage, a solid set. tape fades in with brief excerpt of 1st electric TRUCKIN’ before rippingly confident version of TILL THE MORNING COMES, with phil up front in the vocals usual. BROKEDOWN PALACE sounds a little rough in winterland’s cavernous maw. pigpen is without B3. typically wonderful CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER. i think weir might be experimenting with some pedal/effect near beginning? lots of bouncing lead bass during RIDER. mid-set, @rosiemcgee12 returns from the medicine ball caravan (& gets shout-out on @KQED broadcast). 1st SUGAR MAGNOLIA that clicks in any way, with happy garcia leads bridging into the rapidly evolving SUNSHINE DAYDREAM coda, garcia & lesh’s background doot-doot-doot vocals starting to sound unforced & even relaxed, pure sunshine pop. what a difference a mix makes. UNCLE JOHN’S BAND sounds rough on the broadcast, but glorious on the golden road box set, maybe from the multi-track. vocals glow.
10/5/70 winterland: often misdated as 12/17 (when tapes were mixed down from multitrack). were the dead considering this material for a live album, or maybe they just wanted to hear how the multi-tracks sounded? crisp, short HARD TO HANDLE pokes into bright sunshine.pigpen has his B3 back. with CANDYMAN’s pedal steel overdub from “american beauty” only a week or two (or possibly days) old, totally dreamy guitar solo. subdued & somehow mournful 12-minute DANCING IN THE STREET the night after janis joplin’s death. as LIA points out, jam has a kind of a proto-BIRD SONG vibe, written for janis a few months later.
10/10/70 queens college: a show organized by taper ken lee. the dead begin a 2-month east coast tour, hitting every corner of NYC & beyond, beginning with a show put together in part by @capitoltheatre usher/taper ken lee for his girlfriend judy’s birthday (also his taping/ushering partner & now wife). “marmaduke stayed home, there’s no new riders tonight,” weir announces. “this is the economy package.” no touring sound crew either, only local engineers & tapers for fall 1970. they do bring pigpen’s B3. band doesn’t quite get it into gear, but tape upgrade helps a lot. openin’ TRUCKIN’ is still finding its electric footing, still a pretty hard boogie-shuffle, not yet choogling, garcia sorting out his bakersfield/blues licks, with winding outro that kinda just stops. at least on tape, 1st electric DEEP ELEM BLUES since april. there’ll be a few more acoustic sets, but these shows (& these 2 openers especially) are the raw beginnings of the next dead & the post-acoustic bakersfield groove. SUGAR MAGNOLIA adapting most enthusiastically. 26-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > THE OTHER ONE > NOT FADE AWAY. cool sprung-clockwork jam near OTHER ONE’s end. during NOT FADE AWAY, garcia introduces GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD as instrumental theme, ala BID YOU GOODNIGHT, just before its proper debut next show. garcia taps into a few nice UNCLE JOHN’S BAND flows, though dynamics get weird. hard to tell if one of the drummers is disintegrating or if it’s an offstage percussionist/thumper caught on audience tape.
10/11/70 wayne: 1st ever show in new jersey, at @wpunj_edu. a grungy but worthwhile audience tape. lesh is late, something about taking a cab from the city & getting lost, so early & late shows are each condensed sets to make it to curfew. nice subtle wah-wah color by garcia behind pigpen on HURTS ME TOO & not-subtle wah-wah color on CANDYMAN solo. DANCING IN THE STREET gets intricate, finding mini-zones & cool pockets as garcia & lesh zig-zag. MORNING DEW dips into beautiful quiet space not served well by tape. also not served when tape cuts off before the peak. at least someone taped! during the break, a teenage dead freak hangs with the band & helps write the setlist for the late show. late show starts with CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER, also cut off. missing the beginning but not cut off, very thankfully, is 36-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY. DARK STAR in full flower as tape fades in, with big drum swells before vocals where usually there’s only hand percussion. beautiful wah-wah moods in post-verse weirdness, evoking alien calls & prepared pianos. hyperspeed sputnik arpeggios, cloud-flight, gentle landing. in the middle of NOT FADE AWAY, 1st taped version of GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD, picked up by garcia from delaney bramlett during the festival express tour. pretty raw, but an instant staple. arrangement will solidify. played every year through 1995.
10/16/70 philadelphia: no tapes of the @DrexelUniv homecoming at @Penn’s irvine auditorium. a philadelphia daily news report with good scene color & decent setlist coverage filling out the fragments in deadbase. a lost (for now?) 1970 DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT.
10/17/70 cleveland: 1st show in cleveland. of the not-yet-released “american beauty” tunes, newly electrified TRUCKIN’ is still shufflin’ but more comfortably, signature licks & grooves TK, sadly cut harshly on tape. unusually, garcia takes a verse-long solo to start CANDYMAN, maybe a mic issue. also during CANDYMAN, pretty sure that someone near the mic says “i just snorted a half-gram of…” & enthusiastically describes. not coke. can’t make it out. the voices near the mic do get chattier. not too distracting, even charming, & audible on headphones. funny to hear THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > SUGAR MAGNOLIA, with SUGAR MAGNOLIA as the post-peak comedown, sounding a bit subdued at first without the usual wah-wah drenching. 3-part vocal sunshine still in fully effect. jam in 18-minute GOOD LOVIN’ gallops out of dream break, channeling primal dead before an actual bass solo, everybody else dropping out. 51-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. 19 minutes worth of wonderful DARK STAR. splice in languid intro, eerie glockenspiel in post-verse drift, turning into bright swinging bliss with locked in lesh/weir/kreutzmann. this almost certainly has to be the last time they played DARK STAR at 3 consecutive shows. evolving GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD features 1st use of BID YOU GOODNIGHT as its instrumental coda. employed by garcia to cue transitions since ’68, it now becomes a building block in the late set choogle medley, though also makes NOT FADE AWAY a little less wild.
10/18/70 minneapolis: no tapes of early or late shows, but enough to reconstruct setlists. between shows (probably) tom perthauime photos of the band jamming with swedish stewardesses (hubbed out of minneapolis) jamming with lesh on kreutzmann & hart’s sets.
10/23/70 washington, dc: @georgetown homecoming in the overstuffed mcdonough gym. taper cary wolfson, current @KGNU DJ, bribed an usher with mescaline to make the recording. the new riders of the purple sage return to the tour. the new riders are back & they’ve been practicing! their vocal blend with dave torbert sounds boss. SUGAR MAGNOLIA’s slow transformation into megalith continues, tonight seeming to click up microscopically in tempo & energy. compact primal sequence lays out the future of the dead, 25-minute TRUCKIN’ > THE OTHER ONE > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELIN’ BAD > NOT FADE AWAY. TRUCKIN’ isn’t exactly jammed, but its 1st taped segue seems to give song/groove a new focus.
10/24/70 st. louis: the new riders close their opening set with HONKY TONK WOMEN, which is kind of a hot mess, marmaduke doing a more pronounced jagger & adding the “paris” verse from the stones’ outtake, which i don’t think he usually does. mix is chaotic but 13-minute DANCING IN THE STREETS opener pulls out the stops, including ricocheting TIGHTEN UP jam. 1st electric FRIEND OF THE DEVIL has some tape cuts, but garcia & weir are adjusting to new dynamics. ATTICS OF MY LIFE exceedingly rough vocally. 18-minute GOOD LOVIN’ gets extra-propulsive after drum break, launching from bass jam into extra-melodic high-speed not-quite-ST. STEPHEN major key bliss that seems like it’s following/finding its own new set of chord changes for a few delicious moments. 33-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT has severe cuts & feels medley-like with the tamed NOT FADE AWAY. slide guitar & more bass propulsion through LOVELIGHT.
10/30/70 stony brook: early & late shows. the late show started well after midnight. early set is compact hour. TRUCKIN’ finds its wheels, almost 10 minutes, starting to hint at the big unison jam peak. another gonzo early SUGAR MAGNOLIA with over-the-top doot doot-doots & extended falsetto shriek ending. 21-minute GOOD LOVIN’ > DRUMZ > CUMBERLAND BLUES > GOOD LOVIN’, in which CUMBERLAND replaces the post-DRUMZ jam & doesn’t jam at all, coming to a hard stop before fading up into the usual GOOD LOVIN’ . a 1-time occurrence but looking for the song to do something new. the new riders’ late set is an exceptionally good recording with great blend of present vocal, big acoustic guitar, enough pedal steel, & (most unusually) hart’s drumz sounding pretty tight, even crisp on WHATCHA GONNA DO. embarrassed that in the spate of absolutely terrible audience tapes, i missed the summer emergence of the new riders’ 1st jam tune: DIRTY BUSINESS, featuring a wide-open space in which garcia lays wild fuzz (& wah-wah?) on pedal steel & weaves with nelson’s 6-string. says weir, “have no fear, by the time we finish playing, folks, it’ll be november.” hot mickey mix, capturing insane thump on BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE (with rare 2-beat intro) & primal BIG RAILROAD BLUES. electric FRIEND OF THE DEVIL has a very different tone than acoustic. the tempo is similar, but it feels mellower. maybe it’s the recording, but i think the strings sound less bright. TRUCKIN’ is a rare early/late show repeat, not quite igniting as much as earlier. 12-minute DANCING IN THE STREET floats into TIGHTEN UP jam. 40-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, crisp but confined until opening into wah-wah propulsion in LOVELIGHT.
10/31/70 stony brook: a halloween bust-out for the new riders in their early set with the 1st proper LONG BLACK VEIL since previous fall & the last version with garcia. comings/goings in early dead set. 1st electric DARK HOLLOW sounds fine, if tentative. with a new mellower ’70 vibe lending to easy segue, 14-minute VIOLA LEE BLUES > CUMBERLAND BLUES. an already-rare east coast fave, it’s the last recorded VIOLA LEE, with many MIA tapes. chaotic night. apparently a bomb threat in between the early & late shows. i think this is maybe even the last time the dead played early & late shows. i swear this is also the show where pigpen tells the local soundguy “i’m going to rip your head off & shit down your throat,” but can’t seem to find that bit on this recording. anybody? late dead set doesn’t quite make halloween magic, either. classic combo 29-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > COSMIC CHARLIE, with weir yelling at the local sound crew & a fairly burpy COSMIC CHARLIE. (spot the typo on the ticket.) lots of pigpen representation. BIG BOSS MAN returns to the rotation, shifting ever closer to even representation between garcia, weir & pig. jam highlight is 14-minute GOOD LOVIN’. ultra-compact 20-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, the sequence still feeling new, garcia painting some fuzzed corners in the transition back to NOT FADE AWAY.
11/5/70 port chester: with american beauty in stores, the grateful dead open 4 nights at the @capitoltheatre with the new riders of the purple sage, last acoustic/electric shows until 1980. as always at @capitoltheatre in 1970, the stuff dreams are made of, 89-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. the 1st taped TRUCKIN’ edging into real swagger, full band leaning into the build to the final chorus. garcia fire throughout & especially as they leap into the jam, which flips into THE OTHER ONE a few seconds before the drum break, a move that will get very familiar. inaudible on audience tape, but keyboardist ned lagin maybe makes his debut, joining for intense OTHER ONE, detouring into drumless freeness before tape splices into warped pulse & 1st verse. clean DARK STAR segue using end tag usually leading to CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT. after 1st verse of DARK STAR, long flow of gongs, feedback, sustained notes & maybe ambient organ by ned? or maybe he didn’t show up ’til the 8th? whether ned’s onstage, feedback forms into conversation &, flashing past the main theme, up into a soaring FEELIN’ GROOVY jam. last taped sequence with DARK STAR/ST. STEPHEN & LOVELIGHT, the “live/dead” suite fading away. somewhere between NOT FADE AWAY & GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD, pigpen adds harmonica. also, an alternate verse, transcribed by @alexallan. LOVELIGHT features a amped-up weeknight crowd, slide guitar jams, crowd-work, & awkward match-making that seems to maybe actually work?
11/6/70 port chester: tape opens with 25-minutes of audience-recorded soundcheck, including an acoustic ATTICS OF MY LIFE & (i think) a reference to future dead lighting designer candace brightman, then on-staff at @capitoltheatre. exceptionally psychedelic tape warble during the acoustic set, bordering on pitch-bending during garcia’s EL PASO solo. can’t totally tell who’s drumming, but i think it’s hart tonight. last taped acoustic versions of THE RUB & BLACK PETER. love this, during the acoustic set:
group of people in crowd: louder!
garcia: listen more carefully. [5/11]
only circulating new riders ME & BOBBY McGEE, marmaduke doesn’t quite remember all the words, cool to hear pedal steel, though. a few weeks before it hops into the dead repertoire. a C&W hit, janis joplin’s was recorded just before her death a month earlier, out spring ’71. forceful sunshine in CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER, catching of the charge from the NOT FADE AWAY jam. TRUCKIN’ almost up to full speed, ripping into a big solo/jam before coming back for the last verse & a fade out. 1st electric set closes with 24-minute GOOD LOVIN’ > DRUMZ > THE MAIN TEN > DRUMZ > GOOD LOVIN’. band keeps seeking new directions for GOOD LOVIN’, here placing hart’s MAIN TEN instrumental between drum breaks, confined but dreamy. 2nd electric set is a 57-minute @capitoltheatre choogle fantasia with blazing garcia throughout: ALLIGATOR > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > CAUTION > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. like the “live/dead” DARK STAR sequence on 11/5, tonight is the last taped ALLIGATOR/CAUTION, ala “anthem,” perhaps the pivot between primal & bakersfield deads. ALLIGATOR rages ala ’68, melodic garcia over drums, dancing around MOUNTAIN JAM & soaring into NOT FADE AWAY. NOT FADE AWAY outro detonates gloriously into CAUTION, with fierce jamming & noise squalls, enhanced somewhat by the tape grunginess. LOVELIGHT is almost a coda, pig telling a story about a bear. “you outta see my old lady, she can whip a dozen of ‘em.”
11/7/70 port chester: final acoustic versions of BIG RAILROAD BLUES (groove now starting to resemble later electric versions) & BROKEDOWN PALACE (stately & perfect, big harmonies), last garcia-sung HOW LONG BLUES (turning up later with guests). drums are basically inaudible on the acoustic set, but pretty sure it’s kreutzmann based on the easy grooves in BIG RAILROAD & DEEP ELEM BLUES. the newly released OPERATOR gets unusually big cheer, though maybe there’s something else happening off-camera as it starts? scintillating development: i think the 7-beat intro to BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE might be the 1st recorded instance of the day-of-the-month effect — as outlined, of course, in robert k. toutkousbian’s influential 1999 paper. 39-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > CASEY JONES. another stompin’ TRUCKIN’ but tonight’s 17 minute drum break is a bit much. OTHER ONE doesn’t telescope but gets fierce, best heard on marty’s tape, with a splice segue to CASEY JONES via CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT tag. 2nd electric set features rare ATTICS OF MY LIFE opener, wonderful & invocatory way to start. set doesn’t have big jam centerpiece, closing with a relatively short 11-minute GOOD LOVIN’ with machine gun garcia & a bit of a latin feel from weir at times.
11/8/70 port chester: half of the acoustic songs will turn up in the band’s ’80 acoustic sets (DIRE WOLF, DARK HOLLOW, ROSALIE McFALL, EL PASO, RIPPLE), but many won’t. final version of pigpen’s OPERATOR on any tape. never got why this didn’t last as an electric song. last of the molasses-slow acoustic versions of I KNOW YOU RIDER (before the 1st verse here it almost sounds like garcia is sliding into SO WHAT) & the joyous bluegrass-speed acoustic FRIEND OF THE DEVIL. somebody calls “stagger lee” & weir & garcia play a fragment of mississippi john hurt’s STACK O’LEE BLUES. “that one hasn’t past the hotel room stage, we don’t know all the words,” says weir, before final WAKE UP LITTLE SUSIE save a single garcia/weir revival in ’83. electric set filled with requests & WTFs. riveting MORNING DEW opener with quietly stadium-sized solo. near start, a woman says, “they got your message.” taper marty weinberg had sent a cryptic note to garcia (via ramrod?) & got his request. thanks, marty! both MORNING DEW & EL PASO are featured on marty’s homemade LP of live dead, of which at least phil lesh was a fan. i wrote the full story of marty’s LP here, mostly excised from “heads.” torrent of marty’s LP. weir pops string (maybe?) & half-dozen unexpected songs follow. garcia picks pattern, crowd claps along, & he half-whispers MYSTERY TRAIN. kreutzmann joins & suddenly it sounds like the garcia band circa ’76, with part of willie dixon’s MY BABE, finding its own groove. weir charges confidently into AROUND & AROUND, the song’s dead debut, instantly in the rotation through ’95 (& beyond). this one’s garage-y & fuzzed, ala the stones. wish it’d stayed closer to this! sloppy fun pairing of NEW ORLEANS (led by weir) & SEARCHIN’ (by pig), as they did on one other family dog tape from ’69, making me wonder if they did it like this in the old days. NEW ORLEANS disappears, besides random outing in ’84. wonderful BABY BLUE (all over ’til ’72), garcia remembering verses, hitting big solos & band finding a good tempo & riding dynamics nicely. snap-cracklin’ TRUCKIN’ with weir spitting the verses, big build & fade, but even that’s only a prelude to the heart of the set. 35-minute DARK STAR > THE MAIN TEN > DANCING IN THE STREET with ned lagin on ghost organ. DARK STAR spins into melodious dialogues before 1st verse & then right into deep end. rich & shifting layers of glockenspiel, piercing squeals, audience restlessness, gongs, rumbles. maybe the most developed version of hart’s MAIN TEN theme & last before it becomes PLAYING IN THE BAND in ’71. weir & garcia find harmonized parts, jam blooms & drips into an all-timer DANCING. ear-popping TIGHTEN UP jam, garcia spitting joyful breathless melodies. 15-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY & 16-minute GOOD LOVIN’, both finding wonderful happy pockets & self-renewing grooves that don’t get boring, MOUNTAIN JAM colors, requent surprising peaks.
11/9/70 action house: the grateful dead begin a week in deeply off-broadway nyc venues, tonight at action house in island park. circulating tapes with this date are a mish-mash of terrible audience tapes with one oddity that could plausibly be from this date (but likely isn’t). most songs from “action house” bootleg have been identified, but still a loose/unaccounted version of WALKIN’ THE DOG, played in ’66 & 1 other ’70 tape, sung by weir & pigpen.
11/11/70 46th street rock palace: in borough park, brooklyn! atrocious sound, allegedly made with microphones hidden in a wheelchair parked at the rear of the orchestra pit. after sam cutler intro, smokin’ 3-hour set with lots of fierce playing buried behind mild tape distortion & crowd noise. after a few amorphous versions, 1st BIG RAILROAD BLUES to gel with the circular guitar intro lick. sounds boss. 26-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > SUGAR MAGNOLIA pairing feels more successful than its previous outings, a resolution rather than comedown. OTHER ONE prisms quietly between verses before a joyful segue from the cannon shot in the CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT outro. HARD TO HANDLE has extra little juice, painting new corners. in 17-minute GOOD LOVIN’, garcia finally plays up the rhythmic similarities to LA BAMBA & sings a verse (a trick he’ll repeat a few times in ’87), igniting into even more searing GOOD LOVIN’ jam. unusual standalone GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD begins with garcia & weir only, playing mellow electric folk arrangement, with band entering midway through along with special guests @JormaKaukonen, jack casady, & papa john creach as people near taper audibly freak out. last hour of the set amounts to a @hottunaband takeover, including UNCLE SAM BLUES, ODE TO BILLIE DEAN, COME BACK BABY, & a 23-minute NOT FADE AWAY that moves through little bits of HEY BO DIDDLEY & WHO DO YOU LOVE. an absolute fantasy for a segment of nyc heads. blues-rock occasionally pierced by guitar heroics & wondrous diamond-like psychedelic melodies by garcia or kaukonen. besides the virtuoso players, sometimes sounds like deliberately lo-fi DIY blues revivalists from the ‘00s. i like it with the tape fuzz.
11/13/70 (maybe) 46th street rock palace: after 2 mostly empty weeknight shows, 1st of 2 packed weekend gigs. bit of the short-lived TILL THE MORNING COMES. 13-minute GOOD LOVIN’ followed by more GOOD LOVIN’ from another mystery tape. confusing! is there harmonica at the end the longer GOOD LOVIN’ or is it just shrieks on the tape? if it’s harmonica, it seems to continue under pigpen, which makes it a guest, maybe will scarlett, which maybe makes this the friday show with guests? who knows? the 46th street rock palace gigs also provide some of the only eyewitness accounts of the band frying bacon onstage during a drum break, in a skillet perched on jerry’s amp. more research on that soon. is it audible on this tape? definitely not. possibly the ultra-rare WALKIN’ THE DOG & not-rare NEW MINGLEWOOD BLUES from this hodge-podge also come from this same night at the rock palace?
11/15/70 albany: scheduled to play in albany, but split after a bomb threat.
11/16/70 fillmore east: last-minute add-on with hot tuna replacing jefferson airplane. excellently peppy FRIEND OF THE DEVIL, dancing bass. a tape cut here is where i think maybe the audience tape of GOOD LOVIN’ with papa john creach fits, overtones piercing through. curious about the keyboard on the left, not audible anywhere on tape. (as pointed out by a commenter, there’s also a weird bit of elton john performing honky tonk women which appears to be some tape filler in-joke because it was recorded the next day & released on elton’s 17-11-70 album.) steve winwood joins for HARD TO HANDLE, playing pigpen’s organ & sounding odd in the mix but grooving. winwood, traffic’s chris wood, & ramblin’ jack elliot all sing in NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELIN’ BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, will scarlet poking through on harmonica. trying to appreciate what i think are ramblin’ jack’s contributions/yawps on GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD, given the song’s woody guthrie connections, but he almost sounds a bit forced out by the dead’s arrangement & the dead’s vocals. i think he’s bop-shoo-bopping on NOT FADE AWAY? 17-minute TRUCKIN’ > THE OTHER ONE. OTHER ONE abstracts into dialogues, bending & turning by the dead’s the-one-is-where-you-think-it-is musical logic while scarlet tries to find a place in the mix for harmonica & doesn’t totally succeed. the dead’s set ends with an amazingly cool move where scarlet starts toodling on harmonica & band magically coalesces around him into UNCLE JOHN’S BAND. allegedly another hot tuna jam set follows?
11/20/70 rochester: 1st trip to rochester, blowing it out in the @UofR gym, with the jefferson airplane’s @JormaKaukonen dropping by for an hour of great jams. i remembered this tape as being unpleasant, but not at all. CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER feels extra-propulsive as they lean into the transition, weir coming up with cool 2-chord groove as they climb over peak. the brief golden age for the original SUGAR MAGNOLIA with effusive wah-wah guitar & delighted group vocals. maybe i’ve spent a bit too much time with the song lately but, with these early versions, i’ve been appreciating & really loving it for maybe the 1st time. last taped GOOD LOVIN’ before the arrival of pigpen’s rap & it’s a full service 22-minute epic with long drum break (featuring probably-not-bacon sounds) followed by dynamic & slightly jazzed conversation. surely the 1st TRUCKIN’ with a cheer for “up to buffalo.” 31-minute TRUCKIN’ > THE OTHER ONE > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY is a very fall ’70 suite & almost like a blueprint for the future, feeling fresh here, especially using the CRYPTICAL tag to land in ST. STEPHEN. after nearly 2-hour 1st set, bonus hour with @JormaKaukonen, almost all jams except weir’s hopped-up ALL OVER NOW (rare on tape in this era, last ’til disappearing until ’76) & AROUND & AROUND (in 4 loose sets this month, here with a kersplat false start). 90-second tuning jam is stunning little example of garcia & kaukonen together. one starts casually fingerpicking & it turns into articulate elizabeth cotton-y flow for a brief moment. tapes say jack casady is on bass, but student newspaper strongly disagrees. then: 30 minutes of fantastic playing with jorma, maybe some of the most underrated jams of 1970 because they’re buried on a shabby-seeming audience tape. can’t recommend this whole sequence enough if you can get into 1970 audience tapes. at the heart is 20-minute JAM > DARLING COREY. tape says it’s marmaduke singing, but i think it’s garcia, the only dead version of a traditional song he did in the folk era. given the erratic fall ’70 tapes/setlists, i wouldn’t be surprised if it’d turned up other times. jams unfold like DARK STAR episodes at the matrix with the hartbeats. great jerry/jorma blend. just before harsh tape cut, sounds like they were maybe veering into DARK STAR. when it cuts back, feels more like HIGH FLYING BIRD, which is maybe even cooler.
11/21/70a boston: no circulating tapes from boston university’s seargant gym, though a few fakes. with ned lagin on keys for the whole night. first up, a chimp act. apparently didn’t go over too well. many great photos of the night.
11/21/70b boston: around 3am, jerry garcia, bob weir, & duane allman play an acoustic session on boston’s WBCN after their respective gigs. due to hippie wtf, there are only 2 guitars, & garcia & duane never play together on this tape. garcia sings a sweet version of johnny cash’s BIG RIVER, later a weir standard. garcia & weir do a short noodle on what seems to be BEAUMONT RAG. one last take of the drippingly slow I KNOW YOU RIDER. DJ requests TRUCKIN’ & CANDYMAN but garcia declines, saying his voice feels scratchy, though dispenses tons of high quality shit-talk throughout. duane (who turned 24 the day before) didn’t bring a guitar. finally, garcia gives duane his acoustic & duane shreds a bit of davy graham’s ANJI (crediting it to bert jansch). wow. duane accompanies weir on gene crysler’s LET ME IN before the tape cuts off. maybe jerry & duane jammed after that?
11/22/70 edison: a sold-out gym at @MiddlesexCounCo. likely the dead show that bruce springsteen writes about in his memoir. no tape, but @corry342 & commenters put it together. one seemingly confident memory of NEW SPEEDWAY BOOGIE, otherwise absent from fall setlists. likely a flyer (& maybe review) of this show buried in unscanned back issues of NJ underground newspaper, all you can eat.
11/23/70 anderson theater: a party for the nyc hells angels at the anderson theater on 2nd avenue, around the corner from the angels’ clubhouse on east 3rd. circulating tapes are actually 11/16, but mind-melting review from east village other. if you thought it was absurd for the hells angels to do security at altamont, this was a show entirely booked, promoted, & operated by the angels. amazing account here of a street fight outside the show & buying a ticket from a blood-covered angel. naturally, the hells angels party opens with a set by a mime. possibly it’s joe mccord of the rubber duck co. accompanied by garcia on pedal steel. mccord was working with tom constanten at @BAM on “tarot,” where garcia will play the next day. also: hells angels guarding tapers! seems like a recording existed at some point. alas, the commenter has not resurfaced.
11/24/70 brooklyn academy of music: jerry garcia rehearses in brooklyn at @BAM with the cosmic sounding “tarot,” music by tom constanten.
11/29/70 columbus: show opens with mickey hart’s last show as drummer for the new riders of the purple sage, not circulating on tape. dead’s set opens with 1st (taped) electric DON’T EASE ME IN since ’67, sounding perfectly natural but disappearing until ’72. casually devastating mid-set MORNING DEW, too bad about tape quality. 32-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE. OTHER ONE cracks open fully, turning inside out before/between/after verses, beginning 4 heady years for already 3-year-old song. 1st taped dead version of kris kristofferson’s ME & BOBBY McGEE, sung by weir, played at some earlier uncirculating shows. what a perfect song, finding a bittersweet place in the dead repertoire for the next while. wonder if they knew yet that janis recorded it. epic 21-minute GOOD LOVIN’ is the 1st with pigpen rap, more story-like than his LOVELIGHT spiels. tape quality is a little too fuzzy to parse, but some great atmospheric jamming (i think even slipping into TIGHTEN UP theme) as pig works it.
12/12/70 santa rosa: visuals by orb lights! not an amazing show, but the dead’s own soundboard tapes start up again here. the new riders of the purple sage debut with former jefferson airplane drummer spencer dryden. their portion of the night is only on a murky audience tape, but they really do instantly swing harder. not anybody’s best night vocally, all seem to be wavering in the same way, likely an especially shitty monitor situation. in related news, though, the dead have their sound crew back & won’t be without them again. TRUCKIN’ gets an agreed-upon ending for the 1st time. after the jam, band swings back to final verse & lands. weir watch: amusing tech break radio theater as weir encourages everybody in the crowd to whistle. “no screamin’, just whistling.” does sound kinda cool. tape flip in the middle, but pretty sure the set centerpiece is 28ish-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY. again, OTHER ONE melts into quiet conversation, & weir skips 1st verse. after GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD, as the NOT FADE AWAY groove starts up, brief passes through DARKNESS DARKNESS & CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER themes before fading to a clap-along. weir tries & fails to count band back into NOT FADE AWAY. he explains off-mic, garcia laughs, & they do it. for pigologists, the beginning of the golden era for GOOD LOVIN’, where pigpen’s raps are less formulaic & more inventive than LOVELIGHT, & same for band’s accompaniment, though i will miss the pure vocal-free jams. “you don’t need no speed, you just need a little lovin’.” i take back what i said about the drummers overrunning UNCLE JOHN’S BAND in the late ‘70s, they are at full tumble-thump here.
12/16/70-ish the matrix: david & the dorks featuring crosby, garcia, lesh, & kreutzmann. though these recordings circulate as 12/15 (or sometimes 12/17), crosby’s banter on the soundcheck tape (“i overblew their mics last night”) means the tape has to come from the 16th or 17th. one of the great coulda-been bands of any era, with @thedavidcrosby & 3 members of the dead. hissy tape & rough mix, but wow. amazing new tunes by both croz & jerry, folk standards, deep jams with croz playing dynamic rhythm to garcia. some instrumental jamming on EIGHT MILES HIGH is probably the coherent music on the soundcheck tape, but oodles of historical interest & delightful headphone time travel. after COWBOY MOVIE, croz asks excitedly “wanna learn something new?” and so they learn THE WALL SONG (note: same version repeated 2x in file), after which garcia teaches the band primitive versions of BERTHA & BIRD SONG, 2 months before before their dead debuts, both with slightly different feels. the show itself is so great. sometimes maligned due to the meh sound quality, it’s remarkable music. all 4 @thedavidcrosby originals take a moment to click but all absolutely hit magic jam-space with assertive rhythmic movement by croz & weaving by garcia/lesh/kreutzmann. many of the tapes say that mickey hart is drumming, but to my ears it’s almost unquestionably kreutzmann. along with the pix from a few days later, it grooves/swings/flows too easily. hart had just been replaced in the new riders weeks earlier for unreliable tempos. especially thick feedback/sustain on slightly jacked COWBOY MOVIE. TRIAD floats from jazzy singer-songwriter mode to darting/slashing jams. THE WALL SONG has nice easy lilt, garcia harmonizing a few times as the song unfolds & it’s sweet. BERTHA’s stage debut is a little iffy, with more straightforward backbeat & dropped lyrics, but fun to hear crosby sing harmony. crosby’s rhythm gives DEEP ELEM BLUES a moodier feel than the dead’s versions. strong alternate universe vibes with crosby in place of weir. kinda too bad garcia’s not playing pedal steel on LAUGHING. missing the sublime studio delicacy, but slides into easy, groovy sweetness & blooms into a fuzzy peak. can only imagine the jams on the MIA sets.
12/23/70 winterland: billed as “acoustic dead,” the electric grateful dead at winterland, a benefit for montessori schools & owsley, with the new riders & hot tuna (on @jormakaukonen’s 30th). the “acoustic dead” billing is probably the result of fascinating offstage machinations, chronicled/pondered by @corry342. owsley was in jail as of july. his partner rhoney remembers there still being more appeals (& lawyers to pay). she gave birth to their son 2 days before this show. happy 50th, starfinder! none of the $$ went to them, but the dead kept up bear’s salary while he was in jail. a thin wednesday night crowd. briefly lived electric DEEP ELEM BLUES, weir’s bounce contrasting with darker feel of david & the dorks’ rhythm guitarist david crosby. good monitor theater. i will never get sick of garcia’s ME & BOBBY McGEE harmony. only jam is 19-minute GOOD LOVIN’, no pigpen rap, just hot garcia solos, before closing with friendly faves CASEY JONES & UNCLE JOHN’S BAND. “thanks for helping us bail out the bear,” garcia says figuratively. bear won’t be released ’til july ’72.
12/25/70 laguna seca christmas happening: locally-based global LSD smugglers in the brotherhood of eternal love drop free orange sunshine on the crowd from a plane. the grateful dead, en route to el monte, are supposed to play but, as the los angeles times reported, can’t make it through the barricades i asked sam cutler about this when researching “heads” & he had a vague memory of this being an accurate story.
12/26/70 el monte: ragged vocals but spirited playing, notable for overloaded BIG RAILROAD BLUES (with alternate verses) & NEW MINGLEWOOD BLUES (with a verse of DARK HOLLOW), driving EASY WIND, & last recorded TILL THE MORNING COMES, a little frayed as it fades to oblivion. heaviness in 1st set with BLACK PETER & opening the 2nd with MORNING DEW (rough singing, soaring guitar), but mostly a big night for small crowd to boogie at the legion stadium (with in-wall fireplaces). band crashes charmingly thru 26-beat BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE intro. new era in which not even a choogle suite is guaranteed. again, jamming is limited to 20-minute GOOD LOVIN’. bright healthy noodles with an almost proto-SCARLET BEGONIAS bounce to the jam before pig’s rap. nice variations in outro chorus.
12/27/70a KPPC: fun & informative interview with ted alvy. at the 30-minute mark in the interview with garcia & weir & co., there’s a brief interaction with the DJ in the next time slot, @theharryshearer, hosting the cool freeform-sounding show, destination music. nobody makes reference to it, but shearer was the ex-roommate of once/future dead manager danny rifkin & helped draft the band’s statement after the san francisco police raided their house in ’67. the last of the early acoustic tapes. final SILVER THREADS & GOLDEN NEEDLES, sung by weir on/off since ’66. COLD JORDAN, A VOICE FROM ON HIGH, & SWING LOW SWEET CHARIOT all return briefly when garcia/weir sit in with the new riders in ’73.
12/27/70b el monte: another chilly night in a not-full venue. band encourages crowd to dance & circulate. garcia: “there’s room to move around. we’re not going to do anything unpredictable, you can listen almost anywhere.” new pigpen era ramping up, weir introducing him as “mountain man mckernan.” HARD TO HANDLE, 1st taped MIDNIGHT HOUR since june, GOOD LOVIN’ (incomplete on tape), & show closing TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT all have pig raps, plus the eternally aching HURTS ME TOO. the last SUNSHINE DAYDREAM with doot-doot-doot backing vocals. last ATTICS OF MY LIFE ’til 9/72, a sad disappearance. rough around the edges, but still beautiful. i dig these raw faster versions of AROUND & AROUND more than the slow-motion boogie it became. 33-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. drums get hushed for nice transition into GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD. “aw no you don’t,” pigpen says as they shift into LOVELIGHT. they do.
12/28/70 el monte: opening new riders set has 1st taped version of merle haggard’s SWINGING DOORS. when dead come on, they comment on the smell of fire, in reference to giant in-wall fireplaces/space-heaters in venue. the little window of 2-drummer versions of TRUCKIN’ between the restarting of soundboard tapes in december & the departure of mickey hart in february is almost an alternate universe, with mellow shuffle-blues outro jam. 26-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > SUGAR MAGNOLIA finds mellowness & zips into cymbal-tapping peaks before 2nd verse. revealing audio oddity before SUGAR MAGNOLIA: the sound of garcia’s wah-wah getting plugged in backwards, maybe not part of his regular rig yet? lesh & garcia drop the doot-doot-doot backing vocals in SUNSHINE DAYDREAM for good. new sound starting to consolidate amid the post-“american beauty” C&W/boogie with BIG RAILROAD BLUES (cool B3, buried in mix), DEEP ELEM BLUES (the last ’til ’78 & last electric version ’til ’80), the ever-cool ME & BOBBY McGEE. late set MORNING DEW is last 2-drummer version ’til ’76, with lovely & crushing finale solo. 25-minute GOOD LOVIN’ with pig’s rap continuing to get more narrative, this time about hitchhiking.
12/31/70 winterland: broadcast in quad on KQED, only audio remains.the last hometown dead show with the full double-drummer/pigpen lineup. show opens at midnight (i assume) with a barrage of popping balloons during TRUCKIN’. 1st taped cheer for “what a long strange trip it’s been.” weir watch: “for the sake of you TV viewers out there who are maybe new to this kind of thing, this is what a spaceship looks like in construction, complete with its malfunctions, & we’re experiencing the 1st here, being that phil’s bass has just passed the astral zone.” only full electric MONKEY & THE ENGINEER except for a random version with bob dylan in ’89. 29-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > THE OTHER ONE > BLACK PETER. after bombing bass jam, OTHER ONE drips into slow-motion (half-time?) play around the pulse, never totally letting go. lesh & garcia narc out a taper & accuse them bootlegging. lame, guys!
garcia: can we can some spotlights on the microphones out there?
lesh: let’s find out who those people are, follow the cords from the microphones, folks.
garcia: there’s one sticking up, dead center.
lesh: the periscope… ah, it’s going down.
garcia: underground records, incorporated.
lesh: find this one for $10 at your local…
weir: as long you keep the price down, you oughta put it in a paper bag…
GOOD LOVIN’ has some ugly slices & a weird tape balance, cutting in on unusually driving & dramatic single-note bass, which pig starts his rap over, resolving to pig’s message. you might be a rockefeller, but you still need (checks notes) good lovin’. 40-minute jam after the dead’s set featuring hot tuna with weir doing the standards (JOHNNY B. GOODE, AROUND & AROUND, NOT FADE AWAY, jorma’s version of I KNOW YOU RIDER) is not especially compelling.
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