#deadfreaksunite 1971
#deadfreaksunite 1971
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.
1/21/71 davis: with the new riders & good brothers, beginning their 1971 opening a road weekend. jerry garcia’s 1st dead show with peanut, his 1st fully custom guitar, built by rick turner at alembic. harsh vibes in the venue. apparently appropriated r. crumb art in the lobby that reads, “mr. natural says smoking dope can be harmful to your freedom.” easy but fun blues-boogie segue from SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING > TRUCKIN’, with pigpen hanging around on harmonica, as on the early acoustic versions. later on the soundboard segment, lesh goofs around with LOUIE LOUIE between songs. 31-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > COSMIC CHARLIE. nearly drumless OTHER ONE middle space charges on bass pulse into spooked garcia/weir jam. chiming build from CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT into last original high-steppin’ COSMIC CHARLIE, reconfigured in ’76.
1/22/71 eugene: in an oversold gym in eugene, a benefit for @LaneTitans & local clinic, with notary sojac & the new riders of the purple sage. ken babbs immediately faceplants his band intro. “over here on the left we have, of course, ron mckuen,” amusingly conflating pig’s family name with kitschy pop-poet rod mckuen. babbs seems to get audibly dragged away. 1st proper dead version of weir’s JOHNNY B. GOODE, previously sung by garcia at family dog jam in ’69 & recently by weir with hot tuna on new year’s. i’m sure it was fun to dance to, but meh. the bar band dead coming into focus. not terribly exciting on tape, mostly warm-up type covers plus BROKEDOWN PALACE & CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER. reviews offer no clues, but it was a friday night in prankster-ville, so there could be deep missing jams. or maybe they just boogied.
1/24/71 seattle: with ian & sylvia & the new riders of the purple sage. nice to have pigpen’s B3 in the mix during big openin’ TRUCKIN’. crowd hassles band during long tuning break: “get this fucking crap together.” weir: “in a minute!” garcia: “get it together yourself.” one long set, despite labels. SUGAR MAGNOLIA solo getting bigger & bigger. “keep it down,” weir notes to his bandmates off-mic before SUNSHINE DAYDREAM, which they try to somewhat awkwardly. a development i missed on 12/28, though: garcia & lesh no longer sing the doot-doot-doot vocal parts. “we’re running short on time & so we’re going to wrap it up with this number,” weir says before 54-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > LOVELIGHT > DRUMZ > GOOD LOVIN’, the last 2-drummer pigpen blow-out. garcia adds rare & typically awesome harmony to the “shine on me” part. NOT FADE AWAY slides into bliss bubble before segue. messiness in a few transitions but great overloaded lesh/garcia jams in GOOD LOVIN’ & then pig gets political. “just my opinion,” he repeats.
“what would be
the state of our nation
if political magicians
back biting politicians
all this turmoil & strife
all be gone if them guys had a wife
to call their own
just my opinion.”
pig on nixon: “that ol’ rat up in the white house/he knows he’s gonna die someday.” and political philosophy: “don’t go pushing/but don’t get pushed.” lesh leads not-quite-segue into semi-frayed UNCLE JOHN’S BAND closer.
2/1ish/71 point reyes rehearsal hall (possibly?): 3 takes of weir/hart/hunter’s PLAYING IN THE BAND. lesh & garcia are adamant about going back to the intro after the break, but weir’s pretty sure he doesn’t wanna do that. when the song hits the stage, weir thankfully gets his way. unless i’m mishearing, lesh appears to call for dan healy, who would take over as live engineer later in year. not sure it sheds any light on where they’re rehearsing, but @corry342 has a detailed history of grateful dead rehearsal spaces. BIRD SONG, practiced & maybe performed in december with crosby/lesh/kreutzmann, is drumless here, running through the structure & vocals, trying to find a 2 guitar groove & communicate the rhythmic feel to weir. they eventually get it. harmonies sound pretty great. only 1 semi-full take of GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, much fun, built on the rhythm of the water pump at mickey’s ranch, though it’s the guitar that totally powers the song. the 1 take of WHARF RAT is missing dynamics, but song is pretty much all there.
2/18/71 port chester: 5 big debuts, ned lagin on keys for the whole night, mickey hart’s last appearance ’til ’74, the 1st ESP experiment, the 1st real betty board. on audience tape only, fresh from their 1st LP, the new riders are tight, especially nelson & dawson. debut of marmaduke’s new LOCHNIVAR. difference between ex-drummer hart & new drummer dryden audible on tighter HONKY TONK WOMEN. the dead arrive at @captioltheatre with betty cantor, bob matthews, & a 16-track seemingly intending to make a new live album over the 6 nights with their new songs & covers. absolutely does not go as planned & the 7-piece dead on night 1 is a future left hanging. show opens with 1st BERTHA, bright & bouncing, but with more hopped-up 2-drummer dynamics. lagin’s mostly on clavichord for the show, maybe B3 on LOSER’s debut, more conversational than pigpen. both songs rehearsed with crosby & co. in recent months. GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD is 1st of 2 new weir/hart/hunter songs, built around rhythm of water pump at mickey hart’s barn. missing the bridges, but big bass! weir’s rock scream doesn’t quite launch. song doesn’t really end, so shifts into JOHNNY B. GOODE, standard in ’71. to close 1st set, a moondusted 26-minute DARK STAR > WHARF RAT > DARK STAR > ME & MY UNCLE. 1st DARK STAR since november, only played in these months with ned, here on chiming clavichord. kreutzmann is quiet & nearly free on kit, hart’s last on only hand percussion. DARK STAR dissolves amid clavichord clouds into 1st WHARF RAT, major new garcia/hunter song, all in place. instead of a big solo, they slip back to DARK STAR by way of bright theme & resolution, 1-time occurrence later aptly named BEAUTIFUL JAM on the “so many roads” box. when i had this on cassette, i wondered what the bell-like tones were, but only became apparent later that lagin was there the whole night & had been planning to play more if not for band shakeup that week. nice dissolve to ME & MY UNCLE, its 1st time as a DARK STAR chaser. 2nd set features debut of weir/hart/hunter’s PLAYING IN THE BAND (possibly helped by @thedavidcrosby), after 2 years of jams on hart’s early instrumental riff, THE MAIN TEN. despite jammy roots, it’ll be a year before the song gets a real jam & becomes weir’s signature. also in the 2nd set: dr. stanley krippner begins his 8-night pilot study in dream telepathy, projecting slides behind the band with instructions for the audience to telepathically send the images to sleeping recipients in brooklyn. naturally, some lovely comedy occurs around the ESP experiment slides.
lesh: “that ain’t no rembrandt, that’s a dali! idn’t it?”
weir: “yeah, that’s a dali.”
cute off-mic discussion about the name of the dali painting in question. lagin’s clavichord doesn’t sometimes sounds a bit too chiming/thin for me on the songier songs like CANDYMAN & ME & BOBBY McGEE, like an acoustic prototype of the dyna-rhodes. 27-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > UNCLE JOHN’S BAND is dense with conversation. bass bombs en route to NOT FADE AWAY, twin keys by mckernan & lagin, some fun peaks. almost a prototype for the post-’76 band. and after the show, mickey hart disappears from the grateful dead stage until late 1974, though is kept on salary. stories differ. kreutzmann’s more recent memoir has the most straightforward version, calling it a firing.
2/19/71 port chester: no mention of absent mickey hart, but sound is well decluttered, beginning thrilling 4 years as a 1-drummer band. for now, more or less a quartet, with pigpen not adding much B3. 2nd LOSER is most developed of new tunes. a lot of the last 2 albums had been recorded basically in 1-drummer mode, but it’s still a big change as kreutzmann rediscovers the “the” in “bill the drummer.” BERTHA’s pretty leapin’. rare electric DARK HOLLOW feels fully filled, a lost piece of the quintet repertoire. lots of pig, with a 14-minute SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING (with rap/spiel) & rare 1-drummer EASY WIND. less drama, more swing, oodles of weir soloing, band hitting a floating slow-motion pocket as he passes solo to garcia. no mention of the dream telepathy experiment either but it continues on slide screens behind band during 2nd set. alternate 1st line to GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, “moses come ridin’ up in the bar car.” hunter was at these shows. maybe still tweaking lyrics? in 2nd set, garcia debuts BIRD SONG, his & hunter’s tribute to janis joplin, rehearsed briefly with crosby. 1st of the song’s incarnations with striding tom-tom heavy arrangement. barely a guitar break, lesh a bit tentative. B3 briefly under intro but disappears. 1st DEAL, garcia & hunter’s cosmic boogie standard, still working on groove, but close to how it sounds through ’95 minus big ending. perfect for new lineup. 4-piece dead flexes in 25-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT & 19-minute GOOD LOVIN’. THE OTHER ONE enters the modern age, sailing into jam at full speed from the drum break, hitting spaces that could come from any point in the ‘70s. still a lot to sort with clanging WHARF RAT dynamics, but already nestled permanently in the post-jam slot with fat outro. hart’s absence (& kreutzmann’s grace) opens lots of room for weir & lesh in the jams. lesh continues to find driving aggressive pockets in GOOD LOVIN’. pigpen references STEALIN’. weir’s, uh, workshopping his falsetto.
2/20/71 port chester: says weir, “we certainly hope that none of you are quite as hungover as certain select members of our band are.” (pigpen groans.) later he vaguely addresses hart’s continued absence, “mickey’s still under the weather.” besides the “outro” vocal before the solo, BERTHA is the only new song sounding ready for proposed live album. no BIRD SONG jamming yet & still working on structure (1st verse repeated 4x here?) but the 1st guitar break has tiniest flare of the solo that will emerge. 25-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. not always a fan of the OTHER ONE drum break, but this one is a nice example of kreutzmann as a solo drummer, not flashy, but inventive. set-closing SUGAR MAGNOLIA chaser follows for 1st time. before 2nd set, some off-mic comments by the band about the images being projected on the screen for the crowd to send via dream telepathy. kreutzmann: “i wouldn’t wanna receive that.” think lesh responds with a mom joke. 1st of 4 surviving electric versions of RIPPLE from early ’71 finds a sweet lope & gets big hoots. missing a little of the acoustic glow, but works on its own terms. garcia reaches for a few new notes. 41-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT highlighted by bright pocket after BID YOU GOODNIGHT jam. punchline of LOVELIGHT rap amounts to “little pimpin’,” 1st draft of princeton version in april.
2/21/71 port chester: fun new riders set, with tight post-album vocals. after, taper accidentally leaves deck running & it’s like a meme: “listening to the colwell-winfeld blues band but you’re sitting in the back of the capitol theater while waiting for the dead to start.” yeah, i guess i did just shazam the house music at a concert from 1971. jeffrey norman’s new mix is stunning, what the proposed live album from the capitol might’ve sounded like had they not scrapped the tapes. these shows have never really grabbed me, but the bass mix here is bonkers. on both the beefy 2020 mix & the rougher betty mix, kreutzmann’s drums sound big, getting more assertive (especially LOSER). can’t tell if pigpen is lost or trying to come up with something new to sing during EASY WIND. think it’s the latter. it’s not an even split just yet, but with weir’s new originals & covers (& steep reduction of psychedelic jam suites & acoustic sets), the capitol shows are really where the dead start alternating noticeably songs led by garcia, weir, & pigpen. another electric RIPPLE, disappearing again ’til april. big clapalong, but group vocals are mixed sympathetically & totally fits into the ’71 repertoire. BIRD SONG starts rough, still the barest of 36-second solos. can see why they wanted to develop it more. 4th GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD has 3rd & final draft of 1st lyric, “moses come riding up on a quasar” (previously: on a guitar, in a bar car). it’s hunter’s lyric but he’s not pleased with weir’s choice. weir’s voice sounds a bit tattered. more people ask where mickey is. perhaps in reference to the ongoing ESP experiments, weir says. “it’s, uh, strange. why don’t you all concentrate & make him well or something.” 10-minute CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER is a highlight with particularly committed garcia vocal, bright guitar breaks, & over-the-top bass leads. poppin’ BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE. 1st & always-rare standalone WHARF RAT. semi-but-not-totally-unfounded theory based on this & other dead tapes from ’71: before a certain kind of person shouted for FREEBIRD during concert lulls, they shouted for LOUIE LOUIE. nice just to hear kreutzmann on GOOD LOVIN’.
2/23/71 port chester: “hail caesar, motherfucker,” lesh comments off-mic, which seems like it’d be in reference to the slides from the ESP experiment, but those don’t start ’til 2nd set. pigpen’s B3 gives nice spaghetti-western coloring to LOSER. group in crowd shouts for MORNING DEW a few times & garcia eventually plays it, 1st version of the year. lesh hijacks intro, but he & garcia link up for powerful peaks & valleys. group says “thank you!” after & garcia responds with cheerful off-mic “you’re welcome!” BIRD SONG is still a little bit of a structural mess, with garcia cycling through verses. but now the break doubles into more than a minute of gentle guitar figures, primally flapping if not yet soaring. during the lull after BIRD SONG, band doofs around, jokes about the GOLDEN ROAD. someone (a loose wook?) taps one of the onstage mics. “hello in there, awahwahwah….” 1st TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT, a combination played (with SPACE added) thru ’94. 12-minute OTHER ONE is night’s jam highlight, kreutzmann’s free cymbal dances finding a home in the between-verse ether. lesh leads GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD & fun to hear surf-ish bassline at the fore. abbreviated GOOD LOVIN’ & 14-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT AWAY AWAY is compact detail-filled choogle, if not quite a big finale.
2/24/71 port chester: final show at the @capitoltheatre, a favorite east coast venue, the last of 6 shows, 16 since the previous march. last night of stanley krippner’s dream telepathy experiment. bomb threat clears the venue. promoter howard stein tells rolling stone it was harassment to force him out of town. weir suggests, “whoever phoned in that bomb report, thanks a whole hell of a lot, i know you’re out there & i know you got in free.” weird mix, but BIRD SONG makes subtle graduation from solo to jam, 90 seconds, with nice peak before settling back to riff, then disappearing til april. super-fab (1-time only?) lesh/kreutzmann intro to snappy BERTHA before garcia & weir come in. 1st bars make a dope loop. show’s jam highlight is 17-minute 1st set closing GOOD LOVIN’ with no pigpen rap, instead melting into space-blues after the drum break. then, led by lesh, building up through cool jam pockets & landing back in chorus without really making room for pig to do his thing. fun off-mic chatter before 2nd set when a dead freak is talking to the band from the stage.
garcia: are you one of the MORNING DEW crowd from over there?
kreutzmann: how many nights have you been here? you’ve been here 4 nights?
someone shouts (i think) “let phil lesh do a solo!” garcia asks off-mic “what’d that guy say?” lesh oinks & weir drops a zappa reference, “caravan with a drum solo, right?” (lesh: “tear down the wall…”) 2nd ever DEAL, which is fine though doesn’t quite catch fire, maybe already determined not to be one they needed for the proposed live album or they’d’ve played it more? i wonder when they decided that a capitol live album was unfeasible. “have we played TRUCKIN’ tonight yet?” kreutzmann (i think) asks off-mic before 44-minute TRUCKIN’ > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, one final choogle for the dead at the @capitoltheatre.
3/3/71 carousel ballroom: a benefit for local independent radio stations at the fillmore west on a night when bill graham’s not there, listed once last time as the carousel ballroom. poster has wrong year! on HARD TO HANDLE, lesh & weir begin to trace out 4-chord sequence late in the jam that works as counterpoint to garcia’s big solos & becomes a bigger & bigger moment throughout spring. weir’s guitar is pretty out of tune, but PLAYING IN THE BAND is finding its dynamics with garcia’s faux-steel squigglies & lesh’s diving bass. the B3 is so overdriven during BERTHA that it almost sounds like somebody else, but pretty sure it’s still pig. 36-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT with nice organ texture as OTHER ONE jam dissolves but never goes fully drumless, kreutzmann getting quiet & conversational. organ drones appear near end as they build back into song & equally patient WHARF RAT. with a long jam sequence followed by SUGAR MAGNOLIA, more & more bits of “modern” dead appear at seemingly each show. during messy GOOD LOVIN’ encore, there’s someone playing flute (martin fierro?) or maybe harmonica (will scarlett?), but not on mic.
3/5/71 oakland auditorium arena: black panthers’ revolutionary day of solidarity (& huey newton birthday celebtation) at the oakland auditorium arena. the dead met newton on a flight the previous fall. no tapes, but much press. apparently, the dead (& ken kesey & paul krassner) didn’t arrive until after newton spoke, though. a tense time in black panther history, many details in the above link. some eyewitness memories to the dead’s set.
3/13/71 east lansing: the last dead show with no circulating tape & absolutely zero info. 3(!) posters, but (unlike tulsa ’79) no setlist or coverage. dick latvala once said there was a tape in the vault.
3/14/71 madison: at the @UWMadison field house, apparently set up mid-court. unsympathetic vocal mix, can almost feel singers straining over ineffective monitors. except garcia, who just sings more quietly, or maybe he’s listening louder. BERTHA has found its groove, pigpen included. garcia seems to be dropping words/lines, though. 10-minute HARD TO HANDLE is the 1st jam of the night. “bobby’s gonna play his guitar for ya…” pig announces, which he does, but things get cooking (maybe after a tape splice?) when garcia takes over & lesh/weir latch into their new jam pattern. burnin’ GOOD LOVIN’ jams. pig’s raps don’t quite coalesce. he briefly sermonizes on “hate,” making a surprise turn towards eco-consciousness (“ain’t gonna do nothin’ to save our land”) but before he can tell us about the cure, garcia takes over for totally triumphant solo. jamless 40-minute 2nd set. rare standalone WHARF RAT, kinda awkward end. “rock & roll!” someone shouts. “rock & roll, what’s that?” lesh asks before GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, only sort of answering. garcia finds sparkle in UNCLE JOHN’S BAND closer.
3/17/71 st. louis: top-shelf ME & BOBBY McGEE with A+ weir intro, “we’re going to do a song we picked right off the top 40 charts & renamed THRENODY FOR THE VICTIMS OF HAIGHT STREET.” fluffy garcia solo/noodles & backing vocals.
3/18/71 st. louis: garcia still working on getting the BERTHA lyrics in place. 1st electric version of lightnin’ hopkins’s AIN’T IT CRAZY (aka THE RUB), sung by pigpen, played acoustic in ’70 & in ’64 with the jug band. a perfect bounce for the reconstituted warlocks. 35-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT, garcia telegraphing THE OTHER ONE from 1st guitar break. the 1st big WHARF RAT, more a jam than a big solo, with the whole band firing together & landing with total grace & no extra chords or clatter. 26-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > CAUTION. melodic bliss before GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD & easy shift into only recorded CAUTION of ’71. a bit downtempo with only 1 drummer, unfolding into moodiness, mini grooves, & noise under pig’s raps. man do i hate guest harmonica players, but pig’s harp on CAUTION totally works, not quite jamming but not exactly trying to solo either. discourse on mojo magick, how you need to slip it under your old lady’s pillow, & wait 24 hours. some label this the last “feedback” segment. personally, i think it’s a bit silly to label those but, if you do, there are other jam segments that might qualify for the name starting a few weeks later. either way, this CAUTION channels primal dead & is good fun.
3/20/71 iowa city: like all the complete shows from this run, sets begin with TRUCKIN’ & CASEY JONES. DEAL seems to be the runt of the new songs, returning for 1st time since the capitol theatre shows a month earlier. super mellow tonight. musical mojo seems in somewhat short order, perhaps related (or not) to an unforgiving vocal situation. CUMBERLAND BLUES gets it on. 40 minutes worth of sometimes bumpy pigpen across set-closing versions of GOOD LOVIN’ & TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. show would go down in local history as the night the People rose up to collectively fold the folding chairs & move them to the back of the venue so they could dance. after SUGAR MAGNOLIA, perhaps-tripping dude crashes mic to try to muster vibes for dude having a bad trip. apparently a request-y crowd, with a caustic “playwhiterabbitgoddammit” from a bandmember just off-mic. “we’re not a jukebox,” garcia says later, giving way to more LOUIE LOUIE jokes/teases. weir tries to appease (i think successfully) with AROUND & AROUND.
3/21/71 milwaukee: despite the source chain, totally enjoyable listen. according to reports, a full-on sunday rock fest replete with frisbee, kids area, & yippies starting bad faith arguments with the promoters. the ox, a local band, plays before the new riders. compact 8-minute HARD TO HANDLE catches a groove. 17-beat intro for BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE. 8 minutes worth of NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD soars through pretty space before segue & might end abruptly. like marty weinberg’s LPs, it focuses on material not on albums. if i was a head collecting bootleg LPs in the ‘70s before the taping scene coalesced, i’d be psyched & probably listen to this a ton. funny it’s all that seems to be left.
3/24/71 winterland: another local gig, another benefit. the locally-based sufi mystic choir play first, with the dead (minus pigpen) joining for the last few tunes (no tape, sadly) followed by whirling dervishes. alembic seems to be testing new mics, weir approves. band sounds tight on new songs, especially lesh, bouncing all over. opening GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD is a burner, with subsequent JOHNNY B. GOODE used later that year on “skull & roses,” the only non-NYC recording on the album. after a month, BERTHA has its groove. “we’ve got pigpen here but we forgot to bring an organ,” garcia announces. smokin’ HARD TO HANDLE with short effective pig rap & fire lesh/weir jam. 24-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE rolls hard but not far. surely good midweek dancing.
4/4/71 manhattan center: on easter sunday, the grateful dead begin an overcrowded 3-night “dance marathon” (& 1-month east coast tour) at @ManhattanCenter. ads say it was in the grand ballroom, but pictures are definitely the hammerstein. lit by future dead lighting director candace brightman (late of @capitoltheatre). can pretty much hear the dancing start the moment they kick into opening BERTHA. jacked nyc energy throughout. definitely not the fillmore. the 1st “big” nyc dead show, kinda. thundering mid-set MORNING DEW. final EASY WIND. pig gets lost in the vocals a few times. too bad this went away. the 1-drummer band sounds dope playing the groove. can hear crowd singing along on CASEY JONES, i think. more band in-jokes. another night, another off-mic “playwhiterabbitdammit” (kreutzmann this time). also a new weir thing when testing mics, is this a reference to something? “do you think i have a deep voice? kinda husky?” these shows are remembered most for their overcrowding, but the playing’s pretty hot. mostly just rockin’, but in terms of extended rockin’ there’s a good-not-wild 23-minute GOOD LOVIN’ & 22-minute GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > UNCLE JOHN’S BAND. pretty odd to have GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD start from a cold stop, more effective maybe as a jam module. there’s a weird tape splice, so the extremely smooth segue into ST. STEPHEN works best on audience tape. nice feedback dissolve into UNCLE JOHN’S closer.
4/5/71 manhattan center: frequent requests for people in the back to move further back. audible screams from overcrowding. marmaduke joins to yodel during ME & BOBBY McGEE. nice combo of garcia’s scorching leads & pig’s harmonica on AIN’T IT CRAZY, fab early ‘60s vibe. charged energy nyc throughout. BIG RAILROAD BLUES is the 1st (surviving) version since new year’s & it will go right onto “skull & roses,” out in the fall. clearly a keeper take. garcia destroys the solo, lesh at full flight. 33-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. tape sources change with whoosh during OTHER ONE vocals, very “anthem of the sun.” during space-out, garcia leans into diamond arpeggios similar to the DARK STAR sputnik jam. weir/lesh/kreutzmann crash up & through. during tech difficulties after DEAL, garcia & weir fool around off-mic with merle haggard’s SING ME BACK HOME. “gotta learn it,” garcia remarks but they play it anyway & it’s a pretty stunning debut. by the end, they have an arrangement they’ll play for the next 2 years. 35-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, 1st 2 parts on “skull & roses” but all overflow with bright garcia inventions, pig taking partial back seat. emphatic “do you feel alright? ALLLRIGHT!” end. #deadfreaksunite [6/6]
4/6/71 manhattan center: opening BERTHA is so slowed down that it feels like the tape speed is off, but it’s not. on the other hand, the now-rare DIRE WOLF feels a little hopped up, though doesn’t quite click as a dance marathon tune. big warlocks-y fun: rare dead version of OH BOY (b-side to buddy holly’s original 1957 NOT FADE AWAY), started seemingly spontaneously, weir & then jerry do count-offs & they nail it. feel like they must’ve played it before? only post-’66 version of leiber & stoller’s I’M A HOG FOR YOU BABY, sung winningly by pigpen & jerry, immediately followed by the version of PLAYING IN THE BAND used on “skull & roses.” nice! the definitive pre-jam version, i guess? weir makes reference to one of the quasi-legal live dead LPs from 1966 then in stores, “straight from the grooves of ‘vintage dead’ here it is…” introducing 1st MIDNIGHT HOUR of ’71. tight moves. kreutzmann keeps going at end & rest of band smoothly cover for him. big jammage is 23-minute GOOD LOVIN’ with wild garciaing & jam that slooowwwws down while pigpen does call & response culminating in a big “take off your clothes!!!” before snapping back to ending. 21-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > TRUCKIN’. nice false ending on TRUCKIN’ with one last boogie go-around. there’s a long way to go, but the dance marathon shows seem like a 1st peak for the new model warlocks.
4/7/71 boston music hall: only 1 dead set tonight. going by a newspaper account, the tape is missing the opening TRUCKIN’ & maybe an hour or so more. when tape cuts in, weir is changing a string & lesh proposes a toast “to cosmic orgasm.” ned lagin plays wurlitzer electric piano throughout, sounding much better than february’s clavichord experiment, but both that & pigpen’s B3 are absent from the tape mix, which is a bummer. can hear ghosts during LOSER outro, BOBBY McGEE intro, & elsewhere. cool combo. band heats up with beautifully cresting 10-minute CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER. 27-minute ST. STEPHEN > DRUMZ > JAM // NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY > JOHNNY B. GOODE. audible ned twinkles during ST. STEPHEN’s “ladyfingers” bridge. forceful drum break, i think with bob (or betty!) adding occasional efx. night’s heppest improv is 2 minutes of detailed dialogue with active electric piano, savagely cut by tape flip, maybe missing a lot en route into NOT FADE AWAY, or maybe only a little.
4/8/71 boston music hall: for once, an abnormally loud weir guitar mix. though still hard to hear, ned lagin’s aggressive electric piano is way more audible than the previous evening, trading lines with garcia during the opening TRUCKIN’. odd feature of this tape is occasional roadie commentary between songs (precarious??), maybe from open stage mic and/or headphone line, talking about pretty mundane stuff. especially audible after BERTHA & before CASEY JONES. manifestation of the psychedelic chaos, perhaps. suggested onstage by lesh, garcia debuts his version of smokey robinson & al cleveland’s I SECOND THAT EMOTION, fun guitar part worked out with weir. played with the dead throughout april ’71 only. partly the mix, but psychedelic fog seems to abound. 38-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY. the 1st DARK STAR since mickey hart’s departure, the last of 4 during the 6-month period during which they only played the song when ned lagin guested. a new DARK STAR is born. subtle but dramatic structural rearrangement with pigpen playing hart’s old guiro part & kreutzmann starting quietly on full drum kit, sending the band right into the deep end. it both flattens the arc & makes it more unpredictable. the mix is weird but 15-minute DARK STAR is epic, with dense melodious jams. weir & lesh are louder than garcia & lagin’s wurtlitzer occasionally twinkles during super-quiet moments. weir takes some leads in NOT FADE AWAY & gets into sweet weave with garcia, lesh, & lagin. hard to say exactly what’s happening & there aren’t any reviews of the show, but based on lesh’s stage announcement & tape cut, it seems like there’s another setbreak after the DARK STAR sequence. were any of you there? 40-minute 3rd set opens with SING ME BACK HOME & closes with an 18-minute GOOD LOVIN’. pig’s rap doesn’t achieve coherence but more blown-out weaving leads by weir & garcia & lesh, lagin even more buried here.
4/10/71 lancaster: a strange mix with instruments changing levels & some blown-out guitars makes the tape a little sickly & hard to appreciate, the band sometimes sounding more off than they probably were. weir watch: “this number’s for all you 12 fans. anybody who gets off on the number 12, well, get off on this one.” kreutzmann’s on top of it & begins a 12-beat intro to BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE. both of the night’s big jams are pigpen tunes. 26-minute GOOD LOVIN’ is good boogie but doesn’t grab me. 13-minute MIDNIGHT HOUR, with gentle garcia/lesh/weir jams floating.
4/12/71 pittsburgh: fresh from their 2 big breakthrough albums, both released in the previous 9 months, the dead play a grand total of 3 songs from “workingman’s dead” & “american beauty,” a pretty normal ratio by now. another blown-out mix, the vocals & garcia’s guitar especially overfuzzed. super-loud bass, though, which pushes new tunes like BERTHA & PLAYING IN THE BAND into joyous overdrive. also a nice mix for hearing pigpen’s percussion parts. 31-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT is the big showcase jam, the between-verse OTHER ONE improv is casual but dynamic, kreutzmann taking a more conversational role. WHARF RAT is powerful but still not quite dramatic yet. arguably the simplest of the new tunes, DEAL is having the hardest time finding choogle. economy model 23-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT. fast-speeding LOVELIGHT pocket with big bass. nice jer backing vocals.
4/13/71 scranton: garcia is deep inside the LOSER solo, maybe the first of the new songs to gel. BERTHA is a potent example of lesh finding more space to move around in the 1-drummer lineup. 30-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > GOOD LOVIN’. with the drum break out of the way, the GOOD LOVIN’ jam dives right in, getting moody & bass heavy with a nice DARKNESS DARKNESS theme. pig offers political rants (“kick out them politic bullshit”), not much policy. #
4/14/71 lewisburg: tour manager sam cutler introduces the band’s “penultimate pennsylvania performance.” feels a bit ramshackle at times, a combo of the mix & songs the band is still working out. a slow clunky DEAL, the unjammed PLAYING IN THE BAND. some very early ’70s stage banter as tour manager sam cutler takes to the mic to request darker gels in the stage lighting. 9-minute BIRD SONG is 1st since the port chester debut(s) in february, a 1-night-only arrangement (i think) with weir now cycling through the familiar riff (ala CHINA CAT) & garcia garciaing, but feels listless (& out of tune) until outro jam, when all suddenly works. increasingly rare OTHER ONE suite, 34-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. post-verse OTHER ONE jam blooms into a brief DARK STAR-like arpeggio nebula & a few new tricks in alt-consensus gravity.
4/15/71 meadville: another night, another college gym in pennsylvania. short on jams, long on boogie, 4 new songs vs. 3 songs from 2 big albums from the previous year. DEAL still feels a little slow-motion, but maybe the 1st where they find some fire. garcia still looking for his faux-steel licks on PLAYING IN THE BAND.
muppet news flash –
lesh: we were supposed to tell you that the DA is here tonight & if anybody out there is doing anything illegal, you know what to do.
weir: he’s easy to see, he’s a guy dressed in a gorilla suit.
garcia: he’s one of you guys, it’s not one of us.
the night’s improv highlight is 21-minute GOOD LOVIN’, band surfing a fine propulsion out of the drum break, with pigpen’s raps feeling very much on the same wavelength; “make you feel so fine / you just can’t count time.”
4/17/71 princeton: big TRUCKIN’ energy right from the start, band & crowd sounding equally lit, carrying right into BIG RAILROAD BLUES & beyond, extra-sharpened for the ivy leaguers. hot HARD TO HANDLE, articulating the bass jam. BIRD SONG arrangement changes again. weir keeps cycling the riff, but lays back during vocals. once again, garcia’s leads are tentative at 1st, catching some air during the final solo. seems authentic, but not a bad metaphor. but it’s really the pigpen show, including legendary set-opening 27-minute GOOD LOVIN’. ripping, glowing major key jam with pig in maximum flow, a tale of little pimpin’ about a booty as big as the brooklyn bridge (which pigpen sells), band in tight formation behind him. by contrast, show-closing 25-minute GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT has bright jams & some of the era’s more wholesome rock concert matchmaking, pig seemingly connects 2 couples, has them hug it out; defers to his own gf back west.
4/18/71 cortland: another over-crushed night in a college gym, with minimal jamming & maximum boogie. always-joyous CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER has the nu-warlocks locked tight, give or take a vocal collision & giggles during the landing. another night, another battle with local lighting techs about keeping the spotlights down. when vibes get settled, pigpen adds at his most menacing, “mr. electrician man, if you mess with the lights, we’re gonna hog-tie you & throw your ass out of this place.” 1st tour where band really commits to setbreaks, seemingly taking the room’s temperature, then pausing to get their heads together. “we don’t have much time here, unfortunately,” jerry apologizes. so why take a break? heads know. some chaos during LOSER, with a kinda threatened-sounding lesh just off-mic, addressing “kid,” which could either mean a stage-crasher or the band’s roadie kidd, about to disembowel a stage-crashing kid. the dead’s version of SECOND THAT EMOTION, joyous as always, is prototype for the whole jerry garcia band. during GOOD LOVIN’, pigpen repeats set-up from the previous night’s brooklyn bridge rap (as band hits similar beats), but bails without a punchline.
4/21/71 providence: audience shouting match early in the show, sitters vs. standers. weir: “stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down — same old story, man. you guys work it out!” argument still going when band starts LOSER (& probably still going now). increasingly rare 1st set suite, 34-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. OTHER ONE starts at full zap, with bright zags & which-song-is-this moments before/after 1st verse. 2nd jam splits open & melts, band seems to give up before weir/lesh reel them back. a few times during THE OTHER ONE (& BIRD SONG & elsewhere), can hear pigpen playing B3 at full tilt. probably plenty loud onstage, but virtually inaudible on the tape. lesh/weir/garcia refining their power chiming dynamics on WHARF RAT. 8-minute BIRD SONG has 2 short lilting jams, 1st led by lesh’s bass as garcia winds about, the outro begun with wordless cry by garcia as they flutter up. 15-minute economy version of GOOD LOVIN’, no drum break, more little pimpin’.
4/22/71 bangor: 1st show in maine, now serious dead country. new riders’ set is only on a bumpy & sometimes warbly audience tape, which occasionally makes garcia’s pedal steel sound like a hammond running through a rotating leslie set-up. kind of lovely as glitches go. the tape mixes, new songs, & 5-sort-of-4-piece band are getting tighter as the tour winds onwards. PLAYING IN THE BAND especially punchy. the primal GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD gets a 1-night BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE pairing, kinda fun, though sort of a gearshift. maybe the 1st stunner version of SING ME BACK HOME. quiet, thoughtful garcia vocals & slightly ragged harmonies that are still blended so effectively that i can’t tell if lesh is adding a high part. i think he is? quality stage announcements. weir tries to describe & return a set of lost car keys; the person who takes them realizes they’re not theirs & passes them back. garcia as ride board: “also, there’s a guy somewhere in this building that needs a ride to boston.” thanks, jer. a real motherfucker of a GOOD LOVIN’ jam, lesh steering the band out with a variation on the descending FEELIN’ GROOVY bassline, turning minor & dark before pigpen starts his spiel & band digs in deeper with shapeshifting groove.
4/24/71 durham: 1st show in north carolina & 1st outdoor gig since previous summer’s festival express. new riders & the dead followed by butterfield blues band, mountain & the beach boys. thrilling HARD TO HANDLE jam after pigpen leaves, veering further & further from the tune like a primal VIOLA LEE BLUES, lesh & weir locking gradually into their boss chord pattern. after ME & BOBBY McGEE, a giggling weir takes on a heckler. “ah, fuck you, man… we’re gonna play something 3 more times reaaaal slow & out of tune.” think he’s intentionally hitting clankers during the intro to the subsequent BERTHA. garcia’s playing a random guild S100 at this show, never seen again, at least in shows that were photographed. in this shot, marmaduke from the new riders is playing percussion behind kreutzmann, seemingly with his own microphone. maybe this happened more often than is apparent from the tapes? “enjoy the last few minutes of sunshine before it sets behind yonder wall,” garcia suggests before set break. the 1st instance of them playing 2 sets when there are still other acts scheduled to play after them? really committed to the bit! during GOOD LOVIN’ drum break, woman uses mic to page her brother. apparently it’s the same woman who crashes SING BE BACK HOME to ask “can’t you all see how beautiful this is??” jerry doesn’t miss a word. she showed up in @InstituteJerry’s comments. at least according to one story, garcia stuck around to see the beach boys. they’d just signed with bill graham’s management agency, probably a big reason why they turned up onstage with the dead a few days later.
4/25/71 fillmore east: the dead (& the new riders) open their final shows at the fillmore east. bill graham will announce the closure at the end of the 5 nights. buncha tunes on the crucial “ladies & gentlemen…” set, too. the boogified dead. HARD TO HANDLE digs in (yet again) with the great weir/lesh middle jam. after a few attempts at the electric FRIEND OF THE DEVIL in the fall, the only version of ’71. bit jerky but fun to listen to kreutzmann. a few sweet off-mic moments of kreutzmann fucking with pigpen. garcia cheerfully announces the set break news-for-the-hard-of-hearing style: “we’re going to take a short break (short! break!) & we’ll be back later!” jerry also notes, “mickey isn’t with us, but grandma is.” mickey’s maternal grandparents, ethel & sam kessel, were regulars at fillmore east shows & apparently local rock heads. testy garcia: “dawk staw, dawk staw, where were all you ‘dawk staw’ people 2 years ago when we were playing it all the time?” (unintelligible reply.) “too bad, man! too bad!” off-mic: “9! 9! 9!” (or “nein! nein! nein!”?) before a 9-beat intro to BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE. testy lesh, less charming: “alright wiseguys, write your requests on your girlfriends’ bosoms & send them up here & we’ll check ‘em out carefully before honoring them. we have quality control back here.” somebody off-mic: “yeah, pigpen.” the big jam is 23-minute GOOD LOVIN’ with pigpen again trying to kickstart the little pimpin’ theme, but band soars around him, up into bright architectures then down into chiming nearly drumless space, almost to no return, until kreutzmann reels them back. vague disconnected memory of a SPANISH JAM, from which kreutzmann tries to segue, but that doesn’t quite happen before 15-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, coming close to MOUNTAIN JAM during segue.
4/26/71 fillmore east: startlingly pro set by the new riders, still the new norm. dead set cuts in on BIG BOSS MAN, the version used on “skull & roses.” MAMA TRIED is from this night too. another extra-fierce HARD TO HANDLE. in 1st set, 20-minute DARK STAR > WHARF RAT, 1st without ned lagin since 10/70 & 1st real quartet version. with hart gone, jam goes freeform, tone poeming & sidetracking as kreutzmann lingers between percussion & kit, only hitting 1 verse before dissolving into WHARF RAT. canonical “skull & roses” version of WHARF RAT, minus the organ & piano overdubs & with some extra tape warpage here. even so, after 2 months, garcia clearly has a handle on the tune. also the keeper MAMA TRIED. duane allman (in town for a gig the next night in island park) arrives for 2nd set, his last time with the dead. could be louder, but a joy to hear him skipping across SUGAR MAGNOLIA & playing slide on HURTS ME TOO & BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE. wish he’d stayed out longer. like, really, where else did duane have to be on a monday night in nyc? even without him, infinitely propulsive 18-minute GOOD LOVIN’, aching SING ME BACK HOME, & NOT FADE AWAY/GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD.
4/27/71 fillmore east: the album version of BERTHA, casually grooving & fun, weir’s rhythm guitar clicking fully with garcia’s. except for weir (or phil?) coughing (?) right before the last chorus, it all sounds great, even pigpen’s B3, replaced later by merl saunders. also the “skull & roses” take of ME & BOBBY McGEE, such a perfect fit for the austere 1-drummer dead. vocals & tuning are iffy (forever thus), but the 1st great BIRD SONG where band tightens the structure & the jam coheres into weaving conversation & makes surprises. and then out come the beach boys. there are no pictures, sadly, but oh there is most definitely tape. they’d just signed with bill graham’s millard agency, probably how the collaboration ended up happening. i say this as a pretty enormous beach boys fan: if i’d been at this show & consumed anything stronger than weed, i would’ve been in helpless laughter for the beach boys’ whole 42 minutes onstage. even as i can hear every moment, it’s somehow total cartoon & doesn’t seem real. the beach boys do a few tunes with the dead, a few by themselves, a few more with the dead. between songs, the energy level is off-the-charts awkward. i think it’s carl wilson, m*** l***, al jardine, & bruce johnston, plus touring drummer mike kowalski. the music is better than i remembered. pigpen leads SEARCHIN’ one last time with beach boys vocals (might be nice on the multi-track?). l*** does a screaming moog part on RIOT IN CELL BLOCK #9. kinda wish they’d sung the recently recorded STUDENT DEMONSTRATION TIME lyrics. amusingly, the beach boys seem take just as long between tunes as the dead do, except they awkwardly keep introducing the upcoming songs long before anybody’s ready to play them. some jeering, but no real boos. of the BBs’ “solo” tunes, GOOD VIBRATIONS gets appreciative cheer & I GET AROUND hits pretty hard, too, but a major missed opportunity when nobody introduces I GET AROUND as being a song about “a real cool head.” the best dead/beach boys jam, a standalone classic performance that makes it all worth it, is merle haggard’s OKIE FROM MUSKOGEE, just breathtakingly well-picked in terms of sensibility & vibe. garcia bakersfields his heart out, adding big raised eyebrows over m*** l***. true story: bob dylan is there & supposedly set to join for encore when his name is prematurely flashed on light show screen & he bails. reported in rolling stone.
4/28/71 fillmore east: during the new riders’ set, a really convincing (& semi-complete) 1-minute version of FUN FUN FUN, in reference to the beach boys’ appearance the previous night, marmaduke cutting it off as pedal steel solo starts. wish they’d kept going with this! many of the night’s highlights are on the wonderful “ladies & gentlemen…” set, including a graceful BIRD SONG that catches & floats on gentle currents, kreutzmann rolling on the toms, staying off the snare, garcia connecting with the vocal. no ’71 jam shortage tonight. 29-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT, drum break & OTHER ONE extracted for “skull & roses.” picturesque pre-verse scene & expansive 1-drummer jamming, big flow packed with little inventions. tom constanten visits for the only time after his early 1970 departure, 34-minute DARK STAR > ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY. legend is pigpen was dosed, but probably it’s just that TC was living NYC & had night off from “tarot.” during post-verse DARK STAR space, kretuzmann keeps free swingin’ on hi-hat/cymbal & eventually a darting jam coalesces around it with thundering bass peak, TC sounding a little more natural than when actually in the dead, contributing color & light conversation. also the last proper DARK STAR/ST. STEPHEN, at least on tape. weir & garcia tentative on last verse but lean into “been here so long, got to calling it home” to big cheers, now knowing (though crowd doesn’t) these are the band’s last fillmore east shows.
50 years ago tonight,
much is on “ladies & gentlemen…”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KffwyECiNkA&list=PLzptvlG1JiNDE39pXjpMx0qjlUTAWXfLH
ace new riders: https://archive.org/details/nrps1971-04-29.shnf
dead: https://archive.org/details/gd1971-04-29.sbd.miller.105926.flac16 [1/8]
[2/8]
4/29/71 fillmore east: the grateful dead’s last show at the fillmore east. earlier in the day, bill graham announced the closing of the fillmores. the end of a month-long tour & 5 nights at the fillmore. bill graham says that, if they get a permit, the dead will be playing central park on june 14th. not to be sadly. after a month on the road & 4 previous nights at the fillmore east, tight & bouncing for classic final show. ME & MY UNCLE makes the cut for “skull & roses.” after finding BIRD SONG’s sweetness on night 3, they lean in & play it the next 2 shows, tonight with lovely darting bass, if not quite as dramatic. after tonight, DARK HOLLOW disappears until ’78 & RIPPLE until ’80. during RIPPLE, eileen law & other members of the dead’s office sing on the wordless outro, offstage but on mic, audible a bit on “ladies & gentlemen…” fantastic HARD TO HANDLE (with weir’s descending middle jam). MORNING DEW has stunning quiet garcia/weir/lesh weave building into final peak, played exclusively at at album-recording shows in early ’71. 30-minute ALLIGATOR > DRUMZ > JAM > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > COLD RAIN & SNOW. last ever ALLIGATOR goes out righteously. post-DRUMZ jam(s) hover at the magical edge of choogle & openness/outness, a mood allowing for big ST. STEPHEN tease & natural segues. after a proper bill graham rap/harangue before the encore, final pigpen MIDNIGHT HOUR (with solid pigisms & twinkling garcia reprise) & equally proper BID YOU GOODNIGHT with the ominous lines about eating all the children. g’bye to the village theater.
5/29/71 winterland: a notoriously dosed saturday. previous night postponed ’til sunday cuz garcia was sick. he sits out the new riders. 1st version of THE PROMISED LAND, only one of weir’s chuck berry covers that i care for at all, mostly just ‘cause it’s such a perfect & unassailable song, but also kinda won by weir’s exuberance. 39-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. maybe the 1st TRUCKIN’ where the monster outro peaks are starting to become apparent, fully sketched out over next few years & codified into the jam by ’73. since the last version in april, used on “skull & roses,” OTHER ONE has already found another dimension. purposeful disassembly before 1st verse & surprising groove suspensions throughout. weir garbles lyrics & sounds like “spider in my mind,” which is kinda more badass. crowd chants for ST. STEPHEN.
off-mic, garcia: who’s gonna tell ‘em “no”?
lesh: let’s all yell, 1, 2, 3…
garcia/lesh/weir: NO!!!
the acid-spiked drinks get national coverage via wire services & bill graham almost loses his permit to put on shows in san francisco & definitely loses his shit.
5/30/71 winterland: could be accidental, but i think the 1st set is the 1st time garcia, weir, & pig take even turns picking songs. it will rarely cycle this cleanly, but many sets find a similar balance over the summer. hard to say what’s happening due to terrible tape quality, but it sounds like the GOOD LOVIN’ jam falls into blackhole, like tape is slowing down without changing pitch. drums disappear & music oozes into beautiful weirdness. after a (brief?) cut, they recombobulate. a “playwhiterabbitgoddammit” kinda night. says weir, “we’ll start playing up here as soon as you stop barking order at us.” big night for choogle with 25-minute TRUCKIN’ > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, TRUCKIN’ jam getting more assertive every show. salty LOVELIGHT pigologue about snacking with extended matchmaking by pig & weir, not terribly interesting on tape. another quiet milestone, as noted by a local head: “’twas the last time I was in Winterland when you could walk down in front with no troublin’ o’ th’ waters.”
6/4/71 new monk: possibly the jerry garcia & merl saunders club gig in berkeley where the 4 other dead members apparently showed up spontaneously & played a set. the dead definitely played the new monk at least once, reported by reliable witness charles reich in “signpost to new space.” according to another witness, the dead played THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OL’ DIXIE DOWN, then a regular part of garcia’s side repertoire. it’s possible the dead played at new monk in march ’72, as well. still another witness to one of these says the show attended was recorded by jorge santana, late brother of @SantanaCarlos (who was also there), apparently a taper. whether or not the dead played, it was garcia’s 1st weekend at the new monk, which became keystone berkeley the following year, where garcia played 200+ times over the next 13 years.
6/21/71 herouville: after gig at le festival d’auvers sur oise outside paris is rained out, they play for local villagers & film crew at the so-called “honky chateau.” playing for a group of farmers, firemen (in uniform, apparently), & other locals, as well as a heated swimming pool, with local teens pushing each other in during the show. lots of fun over 2 sets & cute broken french banter. though pigpen does another HARD TO HANDLE with devastating jam, he’s apparently a bit out of sorts & doesn’t do either of his big closers. he’s also playing some kind of electric piano, which is a different sound, almost no sustain. new-fashioned 25-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. short by recent standards, a new delight each time kreutzmann dissolves the OTHER ONE groove, everyone there & melting in/out a few times before & after verse. pig gets a little jazzy. the show is also the debut of courtenay pollack’s tie-dye speaker system. after the dead, bill ham’s light sound dimension performs, a light show that also has a band featuring drummer jerry granelli. while the dead were hanging in herouville, there was much jamming occurring in the recording chateau’s, including an early version of SUGAREE & a jam with members of magma.
7/2/71 fillmore west: last gig at the fillmore west, closed a few days later, once the carousel ballrom, the band-run DIY venue. broadcast on local radio. garcia (on pedal steel), kreutzmann, lesh, grisman, & maybe marmaduke accompany rowan brothers (minus peter), crossing into ultra-cheerful christian-folk. very not my thing, but also not harmonizing well tonight. the new riders truck righteously. weir announces bill graham, “and now here he is, folks, the protagonist…” lots of fun footage of the dead & graham in the “last days at the fillmore west” documentary, including soundcheck jams. fun watching, though soundtrack is kinda meh. the last san francisco dead show by the original 5-man lineup. final version of AIN’T IT CRAZY, lightnin’ hopkins tune sung by pigpen on/off back to jug band era. archetypal GOOD LOVIN’, nearly. no drum break, solid garcia/lesh jams, fun pigpen spiels. 24-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE. nice post-verse freak-out, a fun garcia/kreutzmann storm, re-coagulating dramatically. after the ending tag, a 1-minute epilogue that lands the song gracefully. people in crowd (or maybe one person) seem to be insistently shouting for CASEY JONES & JOHNNY B. GOODE, which both get played. “here’s the one it’s all about,” garcia says before the latter. this one rips.
7/31/71 yale bowl: tape begins with a simultaneously level-headed & discombobulated intro by late taper marty weinberg, who i became friends with when writing “heads” & it’s bittersweet to hear him here. i was looking forward to more hangs. after TRUCKIN’ opener, debuts of SUGAREE, & MR. CHARLIE, both tight template boogies & varying tempos/moods, 1st songs written for the 1-drummer dead. just recorded for garcia’s solo debut, SUGAREE will become his bar band groove standard. “that was okay,” marty shrugs after MR. CHARLIE, music by pigpen, words by hunter, still missing “i can the drums…” verse. it kicks off hot pigpen summer, also including a great HARD TO HANDLE later in the show, with a slightly subtle version of the cool weir/lesh jam. also the debut of phil lesh’s new hot-rodded guild starfire bass, known as big brown or the godfather, tricked out by alembic, giving lesh the warm ’n’ punchy bass sound that helped define the era’s sound. one of only a few gigs with garcia playing a les paul jr, too. this show also marks the 1st appearance that i can find of the dead’s steal your face logo on any piece of clothing, only a few days before the dead performed for owsley in prison & i wonder if there’s a connection? “what happened to mickey hart??” marty shouts in his light nyc accent. later, on the soundboard, somebody else (i think) shouts from the front. “he’s on safari in africa,” weir replies off-mic. 23-minute DARK STAR is 1st since april & 2nd of only 2 by the “quartet” ’71 lineup. 10 minutes before 1st vocals, which garcia tries to move to 3-4 times but band keeps diverting. kreutzmann on shaker & free cymbals, finally moving to full drums for pre-verse bliss-out. after DARK STAR verse it’s back down to silence & the jam resets through a big bass cloud & a series of deliciously bright themes/jams. he doesn’t get a credit on the packaging, but marty weinberg’s tape is used to patch over a reel-flip & sounds pretty good. after clean DARK STAR landing lesh calls for WHARF RAT but garcia overrides, counting off into BIRD SONG, the 1st version with the opening chord crash from the studio take, recorded a few weeks earlier. looks cooler as a segue but profoundly isn’t. apparently, the grateful dead’s yale bowl show in july ’71, 50 years ago tonight, was the site of the 1st ever glowstick war. (cc: phishheads) in NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, BID YOU GOODNIGHT theme is followed prophetically by the youngbloods’ DARKNESS DARKNESS before resolving. during encore, tear gas clouds rise over stadium’s rim. there’s a riot goin’ on.
8/4/71 san pedro: the grateful dead perform in the library at the terminal island correctional facility in san pedro, where LSD engineer & sound chemist owsley stanley is incarcerated. though bear doesn’t get to run sound, prison officials let him help set up the equipment & the roadies apparently smuggle in some supplies to share. would love to hear some prisoners’ accounts. garcia: “a lotta time we play concerts, we got people breaking in…” about half of the songs are new to the dead since bear’s last show almost exactly a year earlier, including set-opening TRUCKIN’, referencing the bust that revoked his bail. a situation where weir & pigpen’s familiar covers were probably appreciated regardless of how they stand next to the originals, including HARD TO HANDLE, MAMA TRIED, NOT FADE AWAY, & TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT among others. not much open jamming, but deep pockets in HARD TO HANDLE, NOT FADE AWAY (especially), & LOVELIGHT, all with a whole lotta lesh & his new bass. garcia & co. make a few cool turns in LOVELIGHT, but pig’s a little disconnected.
8/5/71 hollywood palladium: with the new riders of the purple sage & the rowan brothers. during new riders’ set, 1st of 2 performances of JULIE, only played at these hollywood shows & abandoned. love the playful chorus, maybe regrettable lyrics otherwise. a (presumably) very very high woman introduces the dead with some awkward energy & many giggles. “you need something & i think that maybe possibly it’s gonna come right now. i’d like to introduce…” (almost no enthusiasm) ”…the grateful dead.” after a few weeks of weir introducing pigpen as “the dog-suckingest man in show business,” pig’s revenge before EL PASO: “and now ladies & gentlemen, the prettiest & most compassionate drawing[?] man in showbiz, mr. candy weir.” meaty 29-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT, getting wonderfully dense right out of the gate, thick bass, chunky rhythm guitar, dips, detours. lesh leads post-verse charge into alien dialogues. titanic & confident WHARF RAT. TRUCKIN’ thunders towards satisfying peak but they still haven’t figured out the big chord/detonation, though they’ve worked out some of the descent & weir’s figured out the outro screams. really good 9-minute BIRD SONG, propulsive feel with fast-fluttering 1st solo & more jam-like conversational coda. 15-minute GOOD LOVIN’ where pigpen doesn’t quite gel but band (& especially lesh) build solid head of steam.
8/6/71 hollywood palladium: taper tip from weir, “you down there with the microphone, if you want to get a decent recording, you got to move back about 40 feet.” a few moments later someone says “right here” as new taper arrives in kaslow & todd’s sweet spot. band pulls out a few rare songs. 1st BROKEDOWN PALACE since february, a little ragged but gets there. primal dead staples ST. STEPHEN & MORNING DEW appear, lately only getting played at big city gigs. celebrated HARD TO HANDLE, a potent specimen of the ’71 version with a weir solo giving way to garcia & the year’s usual thundering weir/lesh descending jam, garcia finding nice twists in peak & getting huge cheers. 28-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE, weir signaling & bringing jam up out of space zones into chaos & great segue into ME & MY UNCLE. the exit segue kinda kersplats, though, dropping off a cliff & back into drumless space. ME & MY UNCLE was played inside THE OTHER ONE a few times in ’70, but after this version it becomes a common jam move for the rest of ’71 & into ’72. during reprise segue, weir toodles on WEATHER REPORT SUITE PRELUDE before graceful build back. lots of bass in MORNING DEW & 26-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT, both rapturous. LOVELIGHT tilts towards dense & varied jam, though solid crowdwork & big pigpen shrieks, including one that overblows the ending & drives one more big reprise. the dead’s 8/6/71 palladium show was teeming with tapers & bootleggers. lots of underground LPs for sale outside & tapes of the show become a legendary bootleg.
8/7/71 san diego: a tape given to keith godchaux when he joined the band a month later so he could learn the repertoire (& probably never listened to), rediscovered decades later, now “dick’s picks 35.” the dead get an introduction? the same woman/women who introduced the dead at the palladium? some good shots capturing the new @courtenaytiedye amp set-up. fairly standard issue ’71 dead. no extended improv, just digging in as a quintet, finding bounce on the new MR. CHARLIE & SUGAREE. weir watch: gives more of an off-mic “hey-uh!” than a “w00!!” at the end of PROMISED LAND, but getting closer. another mind-flaying HARD TO HANDLE with band hitting weave & lesh thrashing chords as he leans into jam’s ’71 sub-changes & hitting a melodious peak with garcia. cool garcia fills under the last chorus. short night ends with 21-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > JOHNNY B. GOODE, with a spacious (but relatively content free) mini-foray after the BID YOU GOODNIGHT instrumental coda, i think because weir is replacing a broken string.
8/14/71 berkeley community theater: final new riders version of buck owens’ HELLO TROUBLE, probably silly-sounding to actual c&w heads, but one of my fave new riders covers. extra-present lesh in the mix, presumably thanks to his new bass, really playing up front co-leads in SUGAREE & BROKEDOWN PALACE. the latter has an especially sweet vocal blend, now back in the rotation. ned lagin makes his west coast debut at the beginning of 2nd set during jam segment of 24-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE. after verse, jam disassembles & builds up through bright themes with joyous garcia/lesh leads, a quite similar mode to the so-called beautiful jam from february. ned’s not really audible, but he sticks around for ME & BOBBY McGEE & some other tunes. wish there was an audience tape. before encore, bill graham brings out @thedavidcrosby, presents cake, & crowd sings happy birthday. happy birthday, croz!
8/15/71 berkeley community theater: the last bay area gig by the original 5-man lineup of the grateful dead, at the berkeley community theater, with another 2nd set appearance by ned lagin. after someone in the crowd screams for it, band plays opening roll of WHITE RABBIT before devolving into more playwhiterabbitgoddamnit jokes, but this time weir offers the origin story of dude shouting for it drunkenly in new orleans. ned lagin once again takes over on B3 for big 2nd set jam, similar to the previous night, 41-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. ned’s contributions are occasionally audible on headphones during quiet passages. driven by lesh’s new mega-bass, THE OTHER ONE breaks into pretty abstraction & swinging new pocket before 1st verse, then folds with grace into grooveless weirdness before a dancing recombobulation into ME & MY UNCLE, moving back into space with more ease than 1st night. 16-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT is last by original warlocks lineup. the piggin’ is solid, but stellar locked-in jams by the rest of the band, stinging guitar & cool turns. relentless bass under pig & weir’s extended final scream-off.
8/21/71 mickey’s ranch: a super-megajam at @mickeyhart’s ranch in novato with nearly all of the dead, @thedavidcrosby, ned lagin, john cipollina, @jormakaukonen, @jackcasady, & many more. known as “a day in the country,” the new riders & shanti were seemingly shot for KQED but unaired. some recall FM broadcast, but no evidence. a bit of the new riders turned up, with @thedavidcrosby cameo. a deeply eagle-eyed viewer noticed a bit of the shanti performance from 8/21/71, preserved on early VHS, in an impressively prescient 1973 news report about early “video rock ’n’ roll.” missing from the soundboard: a 2-chord mega-jam on FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN prototype, twisting, going nova, & setting tone for 2 hours of charged, good energy jams that generally stay interesting. hart’s 1st known session since starting his furlough in february. ned lagin’s memories of the day in the country, via NedBase. ned is also the source for the clean soundboard recording from his personal stash. thanks, ned! soundboard opens with a 33-minute THE OTHER ONE JAM > THE WALL SONG. OTHER ONE is only a brief prelude, but missing from the audience tape. from the start (& throughout), lagin is playing assertive & conversational co-leads on piano. THE WALL SONG is much more interesting on the soundboard, mellow & rolling. i think david freiberg joins on B3 as it gets going. drums drop out after vocals, maybe tagging in a new drummer? after THE WALL SONG, garcia excuses himself, “i gotta go play,” & heads off for his 3rd & (maybe 4th) sets of the day, playing with the new riders of the purple sage in cotati. thematic jams continue with cipollina & kaukonen & lagin & co. much like a night at the matrix, it’s hard to tell who’s playing & things eventually land in somewhat generic blues. amused to see that ned & phil’s tape also uses the “blooz” spelling. is that a horn player? electric jug? the last hartbeats show, kinda.
8/23/71 chicago: hard to overstate how much more 3-dimensional SUGAREE becomes with lesh’s new punched-up bass tone & how important the garcia/lesh/weir weave is to this song. last BIRD SONG until 7/72, pigpen’s haunting B3 already at full ghost. some good lesh banter: “well, if we got it all as loud we’d liked, we’d all be deaf.” … “what do you want us to tell you? that you can dance? OKAY, YOU CAN GET UP & DANCE. TELL ‘EM PHIL SAID IT WAS OKAY.”
weir: it’s a long show, you might just relax for a while.
garcia: there’s something’s to be said for sittin’ down, too…
garcia: sometimes you can stand up & sometimes you can sit down.
lesh: if your butt hurts, you can stand up for a while.
garcia: if your feet hurt, you can sit down for a while.
lesh: and if your head hurts, forget it.
weir: get a new one.
44-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE > CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > WHARF RAT, the 1st complete THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONCE since january. with lesh’s new bass, THE OTHER ONE is getting faster & rounder all the time, here a delightedly freaked kreutzmann-driven swing through the 4th dimension with a great peak that just about glides into ME & MY UNCLE. still working on their exit strategy.
8/24/71 chicago: a recording that only surfaced in 2005, as part of keith godchaux’s stash, given to him in order to learn the new songs, released as “dick’s picks 35.” “we’re gonna play this year’s music this year, gang,” says jerry, in response to requests, though lesh’s new bass is especially great on CUMBERLAND BLUES & UNCLE JOHN’S BAND, like the “american beauty” bass sound translated live. 1st of only 2 version of pigpen’s EMPTY PAGES, spare & soulful & allmans-y. bluesy, but not too generically so. not an ideal vocal performance, but great to have, & especially foreboding given the health crisis we now see looming in a few weeks. debut of BROWN-EYED WOMEN, played faster & with a more straight-ahead groove (& strident bass) than it’d acquire, & a few different words. a subtly different country-soul mode for garcia/hunter, leaning more on the soul. tape is incomplete, but no real jamming besides a 21-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, part of the original ST. STEPHEN’S last stand.
8/26/71 gaelic park: outside gaelic park, many bootleg LPs! sam cutler confiscates a bunch from yippie-affiliated heads & spurs an article in the east village other. marty weinberg sells his white labels without hassle. i wrote about it, mostly trimmed from “heads.” final show by the original 5-man grateful dead/warlocks quintet before pigpen is derailed by health issues. rescheduled from 7/30. at the final show before pigpen’s sick leave, the 1st set finally reaches an exact balance of songs led by garcia, weir, & pig. really impassioned SUGAREE vocal by garcia, especially poppin’ on marty’s audience tape. final pigpen version of HARD TO HANDLE, revived with etta james in ’82, & one more turn through the crushingly cool lesh/weir jam that always feels like a perfect left turn, resurfaced once in ’81 & maybe other times. 2nd & last version of pig’s spare, soulful EMPTY PAGES. relatively brief GOOD LOVIN’, mostly jams, only a little pigpen rappin’. some witnesses say pig was mostly offstage for 2nd set, minus NEXT TIME YOU SEE ME. another says there was an untaped LOVELIGHT encore, but feels unlikely based on memories & multiple surviving tapes. lesh asks people on nearby roof to wave if they can hear him. i think they do. boppin’ 10-minute CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER is prime example of lesh’s bright & absurdist lead bass. garcia pops string & weir takes RIDER’s “northbound train” verse. in addition to pigpen’s last show, the last jams by the “quartet” dead of garcia/kreutzmann/lesh/weir. 25-minute TRUCKIN’ > THE OTHER ONE has especially potent weir guitar playing, slashing & building as the OTHER ONE jam freaks & circles. according to ace frehley’s memoir, teenage ace sneaks in, meets jerry, gets drunk, passes out.
9/2/71 gold street club: maybe, a rare pigpen solo show. advertised for 9/9, some heads showed up & were told that the ad was late & the show had happened on 9/2. possibly merl saunders was involved? gold street was open from at least the early ‘60s through the late ‘70s & didn’t often advertise specific one-night acts, yet the erroneous pigpen listing appeared in seemingly all the local papers. wish i knew the full story.
9/28/71 santa venetia armory: from his taped 1st rehearsal, keith godchaux blends right in. lesh bounces amuck across BERTHA. early rehearsal of TENNESSEE JED, a good deal faster than its debut a few weeks later. a lot of fun. pre-debut version of weir’s ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT, hunter’s name removed from the credits, sounding much like it still sounds when bob weir plays it on saturday night near you, a few alternate words. studio rehearsals of BROKEDOWN PALACE (fragile in a good way), CUMBERLAND BLUES (groove slips a few times), & CANDYMAN (fragile in a meh way) feel like regular ol’ brush-ups on songs recorded on previous year’s albums. 9/29
9/29/71 santa venetia armory: another uptempo roll through the new TENNESSEE JED. earliest MEXICALI BLUES, the 1st dead lyrics by @jpbarlow, lesh swaggering pretty hard. pretty much unchanged from the rock-polka it still is, minus any post-’95 tempo drops. BIRD SONG starts drumless, already more forceful & confident than its stage versions with a beautiful jam/solo that collapses pretty much exactly at the moment where the ’72 arrangement takes flight with drum fill. flown until next summer. keith plays B3 on a number of tunes, which he’d barely do onstage, including MEXICALI BLUES, EL PASO, ME & MY UNCLE, TENNESSEE JED, TRUCKIN’, & notably a run through the jam outro to UNCLE JOHN’S BAND, generally sounding alright, if a little tentative.
9/30/71 santa venetia armory: BROWN EYED WOMEN has cool piano intro, soon excised, & adjusts to its familiar tempo & swing. after 7 months of performances, PLAYING IN THE BAND finally develops 60-second jam on the MAIN TEN theme. no key change yet, but a breakthrough. 1st taped version of JACK STRAW, keith playing organ. some alternate lyrics at the bridge. TENNESSEE JED keeps its early & quite enjoyable brisk bounce. only DEEP ELEM BLUES with keith godchaux, who does a solid boogie, even a bit basement tapes-y. great pocket. wish they’d kept it. electric in ’66, acoustic then electric in ’70, acoustic ’78-’80, occasionally electric again, but mostly a solo garcia acoustic staple. the big pocket continues through BIG RAILROAD BLUES & PROMISED LAND, the sound of the new era coming to life. the piano & godchaux’s conversational style are such organic & perfect additions to the “skullfuck” era sound & renders the new album slightly obsolescent already. godchaux plays organ on ATTICS OF MY LIFE, unplayed since 12/70 & only an onstage blip during the godchaux era in late ’72. a little rough around the edges but still perfect.
10/1/71 santa venetia armory: TENNESSEE JED is the only song on all 4 rehearsal recordings, a little slower, but still about 10 clicks faster than where it’d settle for “europe ’72.” after BROWN EYED WOMEN, the band asks robert hunter how the balance in the room is, shouting to get his attention (& implying they’re in a big space). “he was thinking about adverbs,” garcia says, sending lesh into giggles. a pair of intriguing & very short standalone jam fragments, the 1st sounding like part of a much larger piece. keith still playing organ on JACK STRAW, band slowing it down a bit. weir works on his falsetto on ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT. more godchaux B3 on LOSER. rare electric RIPPLE, appearing a few times in spring ’71, the whole song then disappearing until the 1980 acoustic sets & appearing electric only once more, in ’88. BIRD SONG gets cut just as jam is spinning out & disappears until next summer.
10/19/71 minneapolis: fall tour opener, debuting a half-dozen songs & new pianist keith godchaux piano & B3, pigpen home sick, the start of a new era. broadcast on KQRS. garcia begins his last tour leg with the new riders before ceding the pedal steel chair to buddy cage. style watch, the earliest i’ve seen garcia rockin’ sneakers. (anyone seen a new riders tape?) aided by the oversaturated radio recording, band is overloaded in best way, full of swingin’ pockets for godchaux’s casual but aggressive piano, a deep new dimension. a little rusty & missing occasional lyrics throughout night. godchaux switches over to organ for the debut of TENNESSEE JED, played at the early fast tempo. i like it a lot at this speed. hangs on B3 for BLACK PETER, too, fallen out of rotation this year to date. 19-beat BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE intro. back to piano for the grand debut of weir & hunter’s western epic JACK STRAW, the lyrics finished up since the rehearsal takes. mostly a duet with lesh, garcia won’t take over response vocals ’til the spring. rest of the 1st set has debuts of swaggering polka MEXICALI BLUES, weir’s 1st with @jpbarlow, garcia & hunter’s aching COMES A TIME (a little faster & with alternate verse), & weir’s ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT (titled “u.s. blues” ’til hunter took his name off it). arrangement-wise, BROWN EYED WOMEN slows down to a chiller tempo. PLAYING IN THE BAND debuts its jam, only a minute long here (as it will be all fall), with godchaux on B3 & garcia soaring. at setbreak, KQRS plays soundcheck interviews with garcia & lesh, as well as a bit of sci-fi/folk/radio serial weirdness by robert hunter, seemingly titled A MESSAGE FOR ROGER. 9-minute TRUCKIN’ is keith’s only chance to really stretch on piano tonight, sparkling. debut of RAMBLE ON ROSE. wondering if TENNESSEE JED got slowed down because of the similarity of their bounce at this tempo? 34-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT feels just slightly miscalibrated with godchaux on B3, though reaches proper bananattitude between the verses, chirping conversational organ, lighter & more natural than TC ever sounded. godchaux’s piano fits so incredible naturally into 15-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY. just before the 1st transition, garcia finds cool new variation that feels like a turn on MEXICALI BLUES.
10/21/71 chicago: during the new riders, marmaduke pops a string so david nelson leads the band through what is likely the irish reel PADDY ON THE TURNPIKE, played by garcia & nelson in the bluegrass era. or is it? got an opinion? these shows feel like a breath of fresh air, in part because of keith godchaux’s piano, in part just because the band & new songs feel exuberant, perfect for the band’s 1-drummer/lead bass sound. godchaux switches from organ to piano for TENNESSEE JED, the song dropping down another click tempo-wise, but still bouncing. still playing organ on PLAYING IN THE BAND & its 1-minute jam. my god, COMES A TIME. one of rawest garcia/hunter tunes. some testy vibes throughout the night, apparently totally harsh security, sometimes not even let people dance in their seats. garcia: “if you want professionalism, we’ll have to charge another buck…”
weir: pigpen couldn’t make it, he’s home sick, etc.
audience member: ALLIGATOR!!!
lesh: didn’t you hear? pigpen isn’t with us, we can’t do ALLIGATOR.
weir: snap out of it!
lesh: be here!
garcia: you don’t suppose we travel all this way for you to forget stuff like that!
keith godchaux meets DARK STAR with a righteous 27-minute DARK STAR > SITTIN’ ON TOP OF THE WORLD > DARK STAR > ME & BOBBY McGEE. he’s a force in the conversation before the 1st verse, bloomin’ into 1st FEELIN’ GROOVY jam since previous fall, setting up near-perfect segue. 1st SITTIN’ ON TOP OF THE WORLD since fall ’70, one of its longest gaps since the band started playing it in ’66. sometimes a rarity, but played with basically the same joyous arrangement as their debut LP, now beginning its final stand, through the spring. deadologists note: after someone in crowd shouts for LOUIE LOUIE, stray bit of weir banter confirms that it can be moved into the definite column of the warlocks’ early repertoire.
10/22/71 chicago: the B3 is almost gone tonight, only appearing on PLAYING IN THE BAND, which zaps out fully in the space of roughly 60 seconds. amazing that they kept it concise. moves to piano for BLACK PETER, giving the song even deeper grace. subtle but major line in dead history: with these shows, garcia & weir begin alternating evenly between lead vocals, weir finally having enough songs. (CUMBERLAND BLUES counts as a phil song somehow.) i see why it made sense in ’71-’72, but wish it didn’t become default. fantastic 34-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > DEAL, godchaux on piano for 1st time. new conversational dimensions & delicacies in the chaos. delightful accelerating segue from CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT into DEAL, sorta like the old move into COSMIC CHARLIE.
10/23/71 detroit: WABX DJ mentions that ram rod was busted before the show. drag! a fun but surprisingly jam-free saturday night, playing much of the new live album, much of a new album’s worth of songs written since then, & a few deeper cuts. “this here’s a song about more than one card game,” says phil before LOSER. godchaux goes back to B3. garcia scrambles some lyrics in RAMBLE ON ROSE, coming up with the funny variation “march you up & down the local party line,” which could be political or telephonic. another night, more hecklers:
garcia: shout encouragement! it ain’t hard.
lesh: we’ve got electricity on our side, man. it’s an unequal battle all the way.
garcia: right, we can rap louder.
1st ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT played on an actual saturday. TRUCKIN’ boogies & pulls over. only deep noodle happens during 19-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY finale, cool garcia/lesh conversation during last segue.
10/24/71 detroit: godchaux switches from B3 to piano for PLAYING IN THE BAND & immediately the song gets a new dimension, adding conversationally during the MAIN TEN breaks & then having at it, weaving atmospherically during the still very fixed 1-minute jam. monumental 26-minute DARK STAR > ME & BOBBY McGEE. kreutzmann starts on shaker, landing on kit after lesh breaks apart the pulse & jam briefly borders on free jazz, godchaux’s piano colors acting as a subtle glue, before floating homeward for 1st verse. after the verse, godchaux & lesh create gorgeous tension chasing new rhythmic center over kreutzmann’s ride cymbal, climbing into brightness while garcia stardusts over high-speed FEELIN’ GROOVY jam & band sustains a fast-moving jam, eventually dissolving for 2nd verse. cool late set CUMBERLAND BLUES, lately feeling like it’s found a subtly new feel with the piano & lesh’s big-sounding new bass, garcia latching into an almost GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD pocket in his solo. ST. STEPHEN feeling weirdly drab without 2 drummers.
10/26/71 rochester: godchaux back to B3 for PLAYING IN THE BAND. faring alright conversationally but not as natural. let keith jam! another rowdy crowd with multiple band pleas to step back, the beginnings of the dead’s rabid central NY fanbase. lesh slightly surly when somebody shouts for “something new” after COMES A TIME: “i don’t know where you’ve been, buddy, but that *was* something new.” band does half of “skull & roses” but even more newer tunes. 37-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > JOHNNY B. GOODE. big cheers for buffalo in TRUCKIN’. neat OTHER ONE dis- & re-assemblies with dual lead guitars, dropping to later-than-usual space-out. post-verse ending tag drops right into chuck berry.
10/27/71 syracuse: live on WAER. phil introduces the band “for the benefits of all you folks out in radio-land, we are the grateful dead,” which is cute. weir also introduces ME & MY UNCLE by name, some rare DJing. TENNESSEE JED starting to slow down a little bit, now just sounds brisk. godchaux thankfully returns to piano for PLAYING IN THE BAND, a striking part of the rhythm section during jam, just creeping over the 60-second mark. another wonderful COMES A TIME feels fully & naturally occupied. great vocals, almost a showcase for garcia. besides the tour opener, seems to have displaced WHARF RAT. TRUCKIN’ doesn’t go out, but finally starting to catch some momentum in the jam. only big action is 24-minute NOT FADE AWAY > DRUMZ > JAM > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, garcia getting brighter out of the drum break, with a fat CHINA CAT tease before landing & beautifully dynamic GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD slowdown outro.
10/29/71 cleveland: live on WNCR. recording of the new riders is slightly slowed down, making the pedal steel a little extra woozy & psychedelic & giving the whole thing a slight vaporwave edge. into it. opening TRUCKIN’ starts to flex & keeps jamming a bit after the last verse, ending almost reluctantly. keith forced back to B3 for PLAYING IN THE BAND, a little more bounce in his attack but still not as cool as piano. maybe because they’re on the radio, band continues occasionally introducing songs, a habit that didn’t last. garcia intros BIG RAILROAD BLUES by name. weir, before MEXICALI BLUES: “if you’ve ever been in mexico dodging bullets, then you know what i mean…” 42-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE > CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DEAL feels like a breakthrough of sorts in terms of deep jams & beautiful flow. THE OTHER ONE has jammed plenty before, but the godchaux era is a new world. OTHER ONE veers quickly, 16 minutes before 1st verse, gradually burying & jettisoning (& occasionally returning to) the triplet rhythm as conversations flow, finding new pockets & grooves, always anchored by bubbly & charming bass dialogues/trialogues & confident piano. segues are spot-on, too. garcia signals for ME & MY UNCLE with band coming in dynamically behind him, then all stomp right back into THE OTHER ONE. everybody floats up into DEAL, the 2nd & final version of the cool & very ’71 CRYPTICAL/DEAL transition. “we’re gonna play all that note-for-note backwards,” weir says after the big jam. “and it goes something like this,” says garcia as SUGAR MAGNOLIA starts. ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT closes a show for the 1st time.
10/30/71 cincinnati: live on WEBN. the last recording of jerry garcia with the new riders of the purple sage before turning over the pedal steel chair to buddy cage. especially great DIRTY BUSINESS, the band’s big jam, burning into dead-like peaks here. not a lot of jamming, but 17 of the dead’s 21 songs are new to the repertoire since their last trip to cincinnati, almost exactly a year-and-a-half earlier. but garcia’s new songs, BERTHA & SUGAREE & COMES A TIME, especially, sound powerful & confident. responding to persistent request, classic garcia ACABing, pretty biting at first: “c’mon man, you’re gonna be a *cop*? is that it? ‘playyy TRUCKIN’. playyy TRUCKIN’.’ we’ll play whatever we like… what about all those people that might not like TRUCKIN’?!” a few songs later, band does play TRUCKIN’, but the sweet jams are in delirious 22-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, largely driven by inventive weir chord changes & garcia weaving.
10/31/71 columbus: one of the 1st shows where the band’s later set structure comes into play, 1st set focused on songs, 2nd set jumping right into jam mode. PSA from lesh: “why don’t you, like, not jump up & down on the seats. jump up & down on the floor!” garcia, punchy: “next time don’t come to those concerts where you can’t jump up & down on the seats. there’s a lesson to be learned in this & maybe someday you’ll all learn it. or maybe not. they haven’t learned it in new york, god knows.” crackling CUMBERLAND BLUES with everybody dancing effortlessly around virtually nonstop garcia shreds. great solos, especially big break in the middle, but much of the joy is the all-‘round lightness. peak 1-drummer dead. wondrous 30-minute DARK STAR > SUGAR MAGNOLIA starts with subtle but big shift, kreutzmann swinging in on full kit instead of just shaker. in post-verse space, lesh thunders away. garcia & then kreutzmann follow & all are off into 10+ minutes of themes & conversations. weir hits blissed 2-chord jam from ’69-’70 (often labeled TIGHTEN UP/SOULFUL STRUT, but not quite either), 1st in nearly a year. band chases it gloriously into brightness one last time. after brief valley & noise cloud, weir steers into SUGAR MAGNOLIA, a great resolution. 28-minute ST. STEPHEN > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, last ST. STEPHEN ’til ’76. dramatic & lyrical NOT FADE AWAY spirals & sunbursts en route to GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD, ecstatic peak after BID YOU GOODNIGHT theme.
11/6/71 harding theater: bay area debut for new songs & new piano player. show-opening BERTHA gets an extra round of soloing. keith’s 1st SING ME BACK HOME, returning for 1st time since summer & disappearing again ’til europe (& donna). something amiss with the piano pickup, giving extra vibrations & sometimes making it sound like an mbira, as on BEAT IT ON DOWN THE LINE. in the 2nd set, that issue is semi-resolved, but then sounds like a tack piano. kinda cool, though. by 35-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > COMES A TIME, lesh’s bass is lopsidedly at the top of the mix, which is fine. pushed by lesh, OTHER ONE disassembles so deeply into shapes & a new slashing pulse before 1st verse that weir starts singing the 2nd.
11/7/71 harding theater: a self-promoted & mostly unadvertised show at the harding theater with heavy water lights. broadcast on KSFX, a beloved & well-circulated tape. during a break to fix the vocal monitors, band jams through freddie king’s instrumental HIDE AWAY, probably played in the early days but not on any tapes, turning up again in 1989, & almost certainly at soundchecks in between. lyric watch: last version of COMES A TIME with “words come out…” verse. 1st version of ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT with “i may be young & crazy…” replaced by “don’t worry ‘bout tomorrow, lord, we’ll know it when it comes…” loose night with many gear breaks, just off-mic interactions, & audience members telling jokes.
weir: for you radio listeners, this is what’s known as dead air.
garcia: *get it*?
pretty sure marmaduke reads the radio spot for matthew’s tv & stereo city before 2nd set. 38-minute DARK STAR > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE. again, kreutzmann starts on shaker, moving to kit as lesh pushes 1st jam. bright dances in DARK STAR post-verse & OTHER ONE pre-verse, only stopping ‘cuz of broken string, DARK STAR unfinished. another impassioned 19-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY set closer, this one with bright details, cool slo-mo rhythmic crossfade by garcia during segue, & drawn-out garcia/lesh space after the BID YOU GOODNIGHT coda.
11/11/71 atlanta: after opening BERTHA, as crew moves amps, a small shitstorm breaks out, security roughing up heads crowding up front. lesh intervenes: “hey, that’s *not really necessary*” & then taunts security?! “big maaaaaaan, big man.” does not help. at this point, security/police come on stage. lesh, ever-helpful & charmingly ACAB: “there ain’t gonna be no music as long as there’re cops on this stage.” naturally, an audible “PIGS OFF THE STAGE” chant ensues in crowd. the band’s power is cut by the fire marshal & tour manager sam cutler succeeds at cooling things out, but bad vibes & it’s a short show with pretty much no jamming. maybe one long set, even? garcia’s memory from a 1971 interview. testy garcia responds to hecklers presumably shouting “ROCK & ROLL!”: “go see grand funk. grand funk is the ones you want for rock & roll.” tasty ME & BOBBY McGEE, though. lite choogles in TRUCKIN’ & 18-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY. old school dead taper marty weinberg drove to this gig from nyc. his tapes don’t survive. he wasn’t feeling the new directions, specifically ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT, but he & his friends truck another 14 hours to the next show in san antonio anyway.
11/12/71 san antonio: band is late & local radio announces the show is cancelled, then uncancelled. taper marty weinberg & friends drive from atlanta, beat the band, & waltz into the venue. when someone asks if you’re with the band, you say “yes.” 8-minute show-opening TRUCKIN’ cooks, already better than anything from the debacle the previous night in atlanta. an empty-ish venue & lesh invites people in the balcony to come down to the floor. weir vs. hecklers: “we’ll get to the rock & roll but first we’re gonna play a polka number.” and it’s true, only one of several cancellable parts of MEXICALI BLUES. wonder if anybody’s ever actually played it on (non-MIDI) accordion? did hornsby? 35-minute THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE > BIG RAILROAD BLUES, the last complete version of the suite with the full CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT intro/outro ’til ’85, though the front part will keep appearing for a few more tours. dense OTHER ONE breaks into nothingness, kreutzmann finding new beat under garcia weirdisms, picked up by band, weir & godchaux slashing purposeful shapes en route to 1st verse. post-verse jams are more restless & free, occasionally focusing into peaks.
11/14/71 fort worth: a homecoming boogie at @TCU. garcia leaning into his vocals deliciously on this tour, really great LOSER verse reprise tonight, little asides in TENNESSEE JED, & even takes an extra singin’ slot to debut his cover of hank williams’s YOU WIN AGAIN, played for the next 10 months. wonder if there was any particular hank williams connection that inspired them to start playing YOU WIN AGAIN in texas. austin, where the dead played the next night, was the city of hank sr.’s final performance in 1952, could be that? 49-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. TRUCKIN’ choogle keeps widening. 1st OTHER ONE jam is driven by lead bass, propulsive pockets, dual squigglies, garcia/kreutzmann jam, & solid full-band segue into ME & MY UNCLE. scattered action comes in 2nd segment, when weir finally gets to singing a verse, then breaking down to DARK STAR-like arpeggios, a breath away from the FEELIN’ GROOVY jam, but instead falls into abstraction. 1st WHARF RAT since opening night of tour, keith moving from B3 to piano & creating bigger/deeper rhythmic gravitas & space for everybody else, the song’s powerful new self, followed briskly by SUGAR MAGNOLIA, a favored set-closing move through ’94.
11/15/71 austin: 25-minute DARK STAR > EL PASO > DARK STAR, last 1st set DARK STAR ’til ’91 & 1st pairing with EL PASO. kreutzmann rides drums from start, another lead bass extravaganza. post-verse piano ice-falls widen into structures that unfold easily into EL PASO. DARK STAR never properly returns, so maybe this is DARK STAR > EL PASO > JAM or just the deepest EL PASO ever. more ontological stupidity. either way, godchaux & kreutzmann lock into strident pattern & band charges into thrilling episode, trickling cleanly to CASEY JONES. at the end of the 1st set, as weir announces the intermission, garcia plays a famous cartoon/vaudeville tag, neither the merry melodies nor looney tunes theme. anybody know the name? like, wow: 24-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY cracks open during 1st segue into spectacular propulsive jam that passes through CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER but mostly just skitters & dances like a cartoon locomotive.
11/17/71 albuquerque: live on KRST. apparently snowing outside & band lets the fans waiting outside come in & watch the soundcheck. 37-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. lesh & kreutzmann absolutely dive-bomb into THE OTHER ONE at breakneck speed, with many inventive scene changes both before & after ME & MY UNCLE. breakneck intro jam pulls up into quiet space-blues & a quick FEELIN’ GROOVY theme before the 1st verse & ME & MY UNCLE. afterwards, lesh hits a groove that almost veers into SITTIN’ ON TOP OF THE WORLD but keeps wilding, winding down to nothingness & back. yet another incandescent 19-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, garcia gliding outwards with slide-like tones & full-force stomp into GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD, which keeps up the charge.
11/20/71 pauley pavilion: live on KMET. band pummels LA (& radio) audience with new songs & only a few older favorites, including another snarling CUMBERLAND BLUES, keith adding some fresh piano colors, blurring from solo to jam. weir watch: “we’re gonna start this set off with a song that went straight to the top of the charts in turlock, california & that’s a fact,” he says pre-TRUCKIN’, sending lesh into giggles (garcia: “mr. showbiz”), 1st appearance of banter that will make it to “europe ’72.” i am sad to report that i am currently unable to find a clipping of the local turlock pop charts to support this factoid, all leads welcome. sounds plausible enough. 40-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > RAMBLE ON ROSE. garcia leads a gallop away from the post-verse OTHER ONE spacing, jam skittering through uptempo ideas before a thin-out filled with big bass tones, then another sly groove & disintegration before 2nd verse. 17-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY takes the mellow country-blues route with a quick pass through CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER in the segue, a nice little GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD coda shake-out before returning.
12/1/71 boston music hall: pigpen’s back, B3 inaudible, maybe not set up? 1st MR. CHARLIE with “i can hear the drums…” verse & final version of lightnin’ hopkins’s AIN’T IT CRAZY, played in jug band era. rowdy boston crowd, but COMES A TIME cuts through on audience tape. an observant harvard crimson reviewer notes strange sounds at intermission. ned lagin confirms that this was an early seastones tape making its public debut, recorded that summer at mickey’s barn, but was backstage & had no knowledge of it being played. monster jamming across rich 30-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE. 1st OTHER ONE disintegrates into jam that coalesces around abstruse “blues for allah”-anticipating bass, peaks, settles to 1st verse, & melts again. after ME & MY UNCLE, band zips into OTHER ONE & lesh breaks it apart again with more aggressive & borderline thematic soloing, falling into space, weir flirting with WEATHER REPORT SUITE PRELUDE sketch, clicking back together & soaring up on gorgeous a garcia pattern. 13-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY is more concise than the november versions but lesh still flips into 3D mode as soon as the singing is done.
12/2/71 boston music hall: live on WBCN. sam cutler attempts to broker peace between venue security & the wooks trying to get into the orchestra pit, then gives a full band intro, introducing keith godchaux, welcoming pigpen back, almost forgetting lesh. i wouldn’t be sure if pig was playing if not for cutler’s intro & tuning breaks, surely much louder in the room. B3 there from opening BERTHA, a barely audible start to 2-keyboard micro-era. ghost of B3 on BLACK PETER & bouncing/filling more confidently in TENNESSEE JED. 1st SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING since the capitol theatre shows in february sounds awesome with godchaux’s piano, giving the song another rhythmic voice, & feeling a bit more like the jazzy 1-drummer versions of the ballroom era, especially once garcia gets soloing. 25-minute NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT starts promisingly, B3 sparkling with piano during segue, but pig & LOVELIGHT do not have their mojo working this evening. pause before GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY finale, pig joining in.
12/4/71 felt forum: good ol’ bill graham intro, “the food that feeds us all, the grateful dead.” at least on tape, the real beginning of the 2-keyboard dead, pigpen’s B3 adding nice padding for the 4 soloists. garcia jumps gun on “new york” line on opening TRUCKIN’. pigpen debuts the seasonal RUN RUDOLPH RUN, by chuck berry & marvin brodie, who apparently had to share royalties with RUDOLPH THE RED NOSED REINDEER author johnny marks because “rudolph” is copyrighted? either way, a greasy holiday classic for pig. still loving SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING with keith’s conversational piano behind the verses. cool guitar/harmonica jam by garcia & pigpen. on the other hand, pig also does some falsetto singing & yowling during finale of ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT, doesn’t quite have it down. 38-minute ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE > MEXICALI BLUES > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT is so unusual that i had to check & make sure files were in right order. 1st OTHER ONE goes drumless then dances between meltdowns & weirdo lesh/kreutzmann pockets, pigpen hanging, too. after OTHER ONE verse, weir hijacks a mutant groove into MEXICALI BLUES’s polka, its only time coming out of a jam. more space, more OTHER ONE, glittering WHARF RAT, & a great but tech-aborted segue to DEAL. garcia reminds heads to tune into radio tomorrow.
12/5/71 felt forum: live on WNEW. for the radio, a hammed-out band intro by bill graham. “on drums, a vote for male chauvinism, mr. bill kreutzmann. the youngest old-timer i’ve ever met, pigpen on organ… very youthful, ebullient, but a very dirty softball player, mr. robert weir…” another marathon show for the radio. most nights have been roughly 2 hours of music, sometimes pushing up to 3 on broadcast nights, & almost 3.5 at the self-promoted KSFX broadcast in november & tonight in nyc. only known dead version of I WASHED MY HANDS IN MUDDY WATER by cowboy joe babcock, though garcia only sings the chorus & replaces verse with the beginning of ancient folk tune EAST VIRGINIA. weird blip & would’ve fit well if garcia learned more words. wish i knew the story. weir watch: before MR. CHARLIE, “here’s yet another new song that I guess most of you haven’t heard. that’s a cue for you… pirate record recorders out there to get your tape machines spinning ’cause here it comes.” TRUCKIN’ doesn’t quite jam but it does stretch & peak ecstatically, early stirrings of the group crest that will be built in by ’73. 27-minute DARK STAR > ME & MY UNCLE > DARK STAR > SITTIN’ ON TOP OF THE WORLD, though garcia never quite gets around to singing DARK STAR. kreutzmann starts DARK STAR on full kit, floating in orbit until garcia accelerates & everybody follows. both halves are episodic & somewhat restless, coalescing into exciting, forceful improv & breaking apart again, floating back to song before garcia pushes segue hard. intro to 18-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY underscores how bad ‘70s audiences were at clapping along. garcia & weir pass through CHINA CAT cloud en route to GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD.
12/6/71 felt forum: bill graham, “beneath all the madness, a bundle of joy, the grateful dead.” piano/organ is just so great, B3 on more songs with each show, especially nice on moody BLACK PETER & ebullient BIG RAILROAD BLUES, but pig still staying away from his big tunes. PSA from garcia: “if you’re standing in front of a spotlight <chuckle> all the spotlight guys are gettin’ crazy cuz they can’t see anything, if you’re standing in front of a spotlight, move away from it… that’s if you care. you don’t have to.” weir watch: after being corrected backstage before the show by taper marty weinberg, weir finally sings the last line of EL PASO properly, “cradled by 2 loving arms that i’d die for.” the song became a throwaway eventually, but kreutzmann drumming like he means it here. 43-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE JAM > ME & BOBBY McGEE > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. kreutzmann comes into OTHER ONE drum break at refreshing new angle, but jams have trouble opening zone. 1st is slow move to quiet, 2nd finally finds weird flight. WHARF RAT does find a nice glitter, though. weir watch, cont.: “this one’s about dancin’ in the streets for all you but…” [big cheers] “but it ain’t that…” ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT. lol. sounding beefy with B3.
12/7/71 felt forum: fairly jam-free tuesday that’s largely just a great “europe ’72” preview. during these fall ’71 tours, kreutzmann has started drumming like a young god, as robert hunter once put it, making pretty much every song flare with life. i kinda credit keith. lesh pulls out the ol’ “dog-suckingest man in show biz, pigpen” intro before NEXT TIME YOU SEE ME. pig still not jumping into showstoppers, SMOKESTACK LIGHTNING best fitting his vibe, slow & moody. builds rap around apropos “everybody in town knows i’ve been gone so long.” another joyous TRUCKIN’ outro, pulling off before the open highway. 18-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY starting to condense again, though sweet garciaing during the 1st segue.
12/9/71 st. louis: charming soundcheck babble, more grand funk smack talk by lesh. “this is the only place we like to play around here & if we can’t come back here, we won’t come back to this town & you’ll have to go to kiel auditorium & listen to grand funk railroad.” when they’re done diddling, an excellent intro by weir, “and here they are, straight from madison square gardens in famous new york, the grateful dead…”, & they’re off into TRUCKIN’. though not a lot of jamming, nearly half the music would be new to local listeners & all feels fresh, including TENNESSEE JED, still slowly slowing to album tempo, with nice lesh harmonies. sweet slide by garcia & moody piano by godchaux on IT HURTS ME TOO. a rare window with very little chuck berry in the dead’s setlists, THE PROMISED LAND, AROUND & AROUND, JOHNNY B. GOODE all having disappeared until ’72. but pigpen does honor the hometown legend with his new holiday cover of the berry-popularized RUN RUDOLPH RUN. off-mic before deep BLACK PETER someone asks garcia about a rumored upcoming show with special guests? band goofs. someone says joni mitchell will be there. kreutzmann adds the beatles & the stones. “otis redding is coming back from heaven,” says lesh. economic 15-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, a little trace of CHINA CAT during the final transition, fingerprinting it to the era. #deadfreaksunite
12/10/71 st. louis: live on KADI. another rich night. keith godchaux is like a new member of the rhythm section, not quite a 2nd drummer, but sometimes not far off. definitely some musical bromance going on with kreutzmann. 22-minute 2nd set-opening GOOD LOVIN’. outstanding jam before 1st real pigpen rap since returning, with considerations of the “4-day creep,” advantages of being “built for comfort, not for speed,” “box back nitties” (usually in LOVELIGHT), & cadillacs v. t-model fords. a 2-ballad 2nd set with both BROKEDOWN PALACE & COMES A TIME, perhaps related to garcia’s rare praise for the monitors. can’t believe they’ve so far resisted the urge to keep going with the jam break in PLAYING IN THE BAND. godchaux really pushing them here, though. big 2nd set. along with GOOD LOVIN’ & deep COMES A TIME, a righteously suited 50-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > SITTIN’ ON TOP OF THE WORLD > THE OTHER ONE > NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, “for fans of the key of ‘e’,” says weir. after 1st pre-verse OTHER ONE space-out, kreutzmann leads band into quiet swing, keith’s piano at the front, garcia taking over & ceding a few times. space-out in 2nd OTHER ONE lands in alluring free jazzish jam before the song’s triplets take over again all too soon. OTHER ONE tag links to another delicious NOT FADE AWAY sequence, this one stepping on gas just before GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD with sweet allmans-y licks & a bit of CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER. nice contemplative garcia/lesh moment before reprise of NOT FADE AWAY.
12/12/71 st. louis: most of the dead, besides garcia & pigpen, crash richie gerber’s bar mitzvah at the airport hilton.
12/14/71 ann arbor: stunning betty cantor mix, beautiful stereo spread, though pig’s B3 turned down a bit too far after opening TRUCKIN’. i think sometimes they turned him up for that tune? another crystalline night of mostly new music. extra-vivid BIG RAILROAD BLUES solo. 33-minute CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > WHARF RAT. after post-verse OTHER ONE space-out, kreutzmann & godchaux pull a cool triumphant pocket from under an aggressive lesh bassline. powerful WHARF RAT has mystic jam coda with uncommonly graceful landing. sweet & joyful SUGAR MAGNOLIA harmonies. another wow-level 18-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, lesh flipping into jam mode ASAP, steering everybody into mellow, stretching, & quizzical conversation. report of jerry jamming earlier in the day with (checks notes) conga phil.
12/15/71 ann arbor: sam cutler gives stony road manager intros. garcia: “and on introductions, we have mr. sam cutler.” could be mix, but godchaux throwing in new & even abstract ideas/possibilities during rare-for-tour 11-minute CHINA CAT SUNFLOWER > I KNOW YOU RIDER. crowd calls for more piano in the mix & keith gets even louder, occasionally to the point of distraction, but there are always so many ideas/variations in his playing that it’s rarely bothersome (except when distorted) & gives new perspectives on a few tunes. after sounding less-than-peak for much of the tour, pigpen now back at almost full strength, 3 songs in 1st set & showstopper in the 2nd, including the last version of RUN RUDOLPH RUN. a little surprised weir has never revived it. pretty classic 26-minute DARK STAR > DEAL, kreutzmann now just swinging in confidently, the song starting more inside than its 1st few years. 1st jam dissolves, reforms, dissolves into drumless dialogue, goes nova, & bubbles into glorious bright peak before 1st verse. after DARK STAR’s lone verse, the jam develops a somewhat similar path of nothingness becoming somethingness & an even more glorious major peak that foretells some of the europe ’72 segues, but mostly dies out before garcia picks up the thread with DEAL. pigpen is lit on packed 19-minute TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT: pig’s last KING BEE (with quotes from muddy waters’ MANNISH BOY & STILL A FOOL), more on the “4-day creep,” tight reprise, & final “whip it on me!” (probably both pig & lou got it from jessie hill.)
12/31/71 winterland: the grateful dead ring in 1972 at winterland in san francisco, broadcast on KSAN, with the new riders of the purple sage & yogi phlegm (formerly sons of champlin). tape cuts in at midnight with DJ announcements, opening with 1st DANCING IN THE STREET since 11/70, last ’til disco revival in ’76, final “original” version. “it’s new year’s eve & i do believe…” weir sings, but he & band seem to half-remember song. KSAN DJ breaks in mid-DANCING with an important update: “just to complete the picture, there was a black 1972 & a white 1972 & they both just took off their diapers & are running around the stage nude, looks very fun.” weir PSA: “i hope to tell you is a fuckin’ mess up here. and if you’ve got bare feet, don’t get near it… i was just informed we were on the radio,” garcia: “and you too, mr. hoover!” weir spins conspiracy theory. “you people have all been duped & it’s really 1956.” bill graham interrupts 1st set with stage announcement: “if there’s a shelly storvis here, your father is driving back to new york, would like to say goodbye to you in the lobby… as for the rest of us, we will just carry on.” 1st CHINATOWN SHUFFLE, pigpen original & a just exactly perfect dead choogle, with a curlicue riff that’s an early draft of the U.S. BLUES lick. with no introduction, donna jean godchaux makes her dead debut, singing wordlessly during the ONE MORE SATURDAY NIGHT outro. before 2nd set, weir introduces bill graham, “the only person i’ve ever known who asks, in a room of 5 or 6,000 people, ‘where is everybody?’” graham swears on the air (KSAN DJ, shocked: “mr. graham!”) & praises the dead’s fall tour broadcasts before introducing the band. 32-minute TRUCKIN’ > DRUMZ > THE OTHER ONE > ME & MY UNCLE > THE OTHER ONE. TRUCKIN’ now just a breath from cracking into open jam. 1st OTHER ONE is mostly prelude, both verses & big jam coming in 2nd segment, snapping from void into swingin’ quintet space jazz. garcia leads a segue to BLACK PETER, but they stop to tune, & wander into a swelling prelude jam that leads back to BLACK PETER. probably would be possible to edit a smooth segue. comings/goings: dead debut of johnny cash’s BIG RIVER. garcia takes 2nd verse. it will become a weir staple starting next fall. 1st taped THE SAME THING since ’67 is last with pig, missing modal jam, revived by weir in ‘90s. and, because 1971, one more 16-minute NOT FADE AWAY > GOIN’ DOWN THE ROAD FEELING BAD > NOT FADE AWAY, with a big bass-enabled balloon drop of color just before the 1st segue.
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