Wrong link. I sure wish Steve would increase the time limit to edit posts. A few minute isn't much. Thanks.
This is a great piece, sorry if posted before: http://www.shallwego.net/deadlists/darkstar.htm and a slightly different version: http://webspace.webring.com/people/nb/bsmall2/Articles/dark_star.txt
Yeah, probably this one. The "space" section is so stark and desolate - but worry not - clouds of pure joy eventually open up and drive this rendition to the stratosphere.
The John Carpenter film? Or possibly something like 24/2/69 though not quite sure of the date, it's something like that very creepy feeling or something or 27/8/72 but I bet a lot of people said that one and its all on film too. The Live Dead one's pretty good and was the only one I heard for years. & there's some good '68s too.
That is an excellent Dark Star. It’s not that well known but it should be. Sounds more '70 than '69 really
I know what you mean. A lot of those Family Dog shows have a more spaced out vibe. Similarly, on June 7 1969 at the Fillmore West you can hear a DS that's stretched out considerably even from the Live/Dead sources a few months earlier. As far as favorite, that's a tough one. At the moment a toss up between 5-23-72 Strand Lyceum and 12-6-73 Cleveland. BUT, it was played so differently from year to year, and there are even little microclimates in each year that it's kind of hard to compare. Thanks for reviving this thread, I'm certainly going to enjoy reading through it.
'Tell us why' is in the OP! So for me 5-23-72 is the best Euro DS, in spite of some very fine candidates. The jam goes all sorts of places, including some jazzy and some deep space territory before the verse, and afterwards is a hardcore space jam featuring one of the best European examples of Garcia's 'Heavy Metal' guitar breakdown, dissolving into total chaos before emerging into a lovely Morning Dew. And 12-6, plenty has been said in this thread about that. One of the spaciest, weirdest Dark Stars ever. And controversial to boot, but sounds good to these ears.
Woops! Yea, I didn't read any of the thread - I was on the main forum page and just clicked the thread title Reason for 10/31/71? Hmm, it's just pretty dang perfect all around for my personal tastes. Not too long, not too spacey, an awesome Tighten Up jam.... It's just a great little Star.
I have, I burned it to CD back when the Archive was 100% downloadable. I've listened to it 20 times at least, still not sure if I can hear crosby on it. Still a good 72 rendition and turns into Jack Straw, which I think only happened once. 6 years later...the one from 5-18 is great, you can't go wrong with any from 1972 - if you can get your hands on the bonus disc, that one from the Academy of Music is another must have, the last stand-alone Dark Star for many years.
A couple of quotes on Dark Star: When interviewed for the Grayfolded CD liner notes, Garcia was asked why the Dead stopped playing Dark Star after 1974. “We burnt out on it. What happens to me is all of a sudden I feel like I haven’t got a thing to say in this context. I really believe I have played as much of this as I possibly can and I feel very empty. I feel if I have to play this song one more time, I’m just gonna break something. I get bored. That’s what that was all about. I wish I didn’t; I wish I could stay on top of it forever. The thing is, it has to be good. That tune, it isn’t quite satisfying. If I were writing it now, I would go for something else in it. I would challenge myself a little more.” The interviewer pointed out that “it would seem as if the tune was just an excuse for the explorations.” “But it doesn’t include the imperative that you must explore beyond these places. In other words, you could screw around in the diatonic kind of space forever with that, and you can daisy-chain any number of modes through it, and it’ll still have perfect vigor. It will do that nicely. I want for it to plug in as successfully to things that are really out the door, things that are like tone poems or tone rows, something bizarre.” “Dark Star we could bring back, but—Dark Star is so little, you know? I mean, Dark Star is only like three or four lines. Really, Dark Star is a little of everything we do, all the time. So what happened to Dark Star was, it went into everything. Everything's got a little Dark Star in it. I've never missed it, because what we were doing with it is everywhere. I mean, our whole second half is Dark Star, you could say. But I have nothing against Dark Star, except that like I say, really it's a minimal tune. There's really no tune. There's just a couple of lines and that's it. So it's hard for me to relate to what is it about Dark Star that people like, apart from the part that we get weird in it. Because that's what we did with it, we got weird in it, we didn't dwell on the lyrical content, certainly... So Dark Star is an envelope for me, not really a song. But we may bring it back sometime. In fact, I won't say that we won't bring back St. Stephen, or Cosmic Charlie for that matter. But it's much more interesting to me now to think in terms of well, let's write new songs. I mean, if I have a choice between resurrecting old tunes and writing new songs, it's going to be new songs. Because it's essential that we stay interested. And there's only so much you can rub up against your own past, and keep loving it. It's fragile; finally it breaks down. Ultimately you can use it up.” Grateful Dead Guide: Dark Star 1978-1984: A Roundtable »
One favorite that I've heard recently is the one from Porch Crusher '69 - 2/22/69 Dream Bowl, Vallejo CA. Jerry's lead is intense and sounds perfect in the mix. This is almost Live Dead quality. (the album) The whole show is magnificent. Great idea for a thread.
I'll vote for 10/31/71, All Hallows' Eve. released on Dick's Picks 2. The play between Jerry, Bobby and Phil is superb. Especially starting around 13:20 through the meltdown. Their interplay is what we've come to expect from God's among musicians. Lots of little themes throughout. They kicked off the second set with Darkstar and played, for an hour without stopping, some of the best music we'd hear from them. Keith would have been pretty new but it matters not as I can hardly hear him. But the big boys make up for it.
It seems that Fall 1971 shows alternate between Keith being too low or too high in the mix. I remember receiving Dick's Picks 2 in the mail the day I left for Chicago to see my first and last Dead show (7/9/95). I made a cassette dub so we could listen in the car.
Yes, that one caught me by surprise. My favorite Dark Star for the last year or two have been the much talked about version from 70-09-19, the day after Hendrix died. The recording is great for that time and I like the matrix version where you get the added atmospere from the room. Jerry's tone is to die for(Gibson SG) and the jam that starts around 13 min is so good!
