Oooooo... see that 93 30 trips has a tasty Eyes>Estimated>Comes a Time>Corrina>Drums Will poke around
I listened to 10/18/74 - Winterland - with my daughter who was wearing her "Peggy-O" t-shirt. Yes, I skipped "Seastones," but I did pick back up at the "Jam." As the "Dark Star" locked me into a mindful trance (mindfulness - it's all the rage these days!) that even a Buddhist monk would envy, I wondered is there any Winterland show that is not great?
Eyes>Estimated>Comes a Time is good. Corrina, not so much. For a nice Corrina, check out 10/14/94 which also has a fabulous Scarlet>Fire
Love you guys ! Yes, was at both and always raved over 4/2/73, wanting its release forever. That said, interesting enough, I tend to listen to 3/28/73 at least as often, if not more. What incredible shows. What an utterly delicious year. Cheers, Zafu
I'm absolutely on board with 4/14/72 being an excellent Dark Star, although I don't have it quite in the same breath as 4/8/72 and 4/24/72. I also like that Weir starts Sugar Mag when he does, as it creates this sense of Dark Magnolia (or Sugar Star, if you prefer), with Jerry dragging his false harmonic pings into the first 0:18 of Sugar Mag. This is one of the better transitions of the tour. As for ranking the 4/14/72 Dark Star, it's long been in my top 20 and I think it can slot somewhere in the top 10. I've only ranked seven of my top 20 and admittedly, I haven't listen to many of the unreleased versions. But for now, here's where I'm at (* = not officially released): 4/24/72 4/8/72 9/19/70* 9/21/72 3/23/72 11/11/73 5/11/72 The remaining include, in chronological order: 2/27/69 2/13/70 10/31/71 12/5/71 (jam only with MAMU as meat and cheese) 4/14/72 5/23/72 8/27/72 9/24/72 2/15/73* 6/24/73* (asterisk will self-destruct in approximately six weeks) 10/19/73 12/6/73 9/10/74 I have some notes to check out 11/13/72, 11/19/72, 11/26/72, 12/11/72 and 12/15/72, so change may be in the wind.
As I mentioned once recently, I need to relisten to 7/26/72. I remember that one being good. I am a big fan of 8/21/72 as well.
I'll put 7/26/72 on the list, thanks. I've had the 8/21/72 Star (SBD) on cassette for over 30 years and it's very good, with a massive meltdown, but I don't know that it's top 20 material to me.
Need to listen to 11/2/69 & 5/31/69 among other 1969 versions. Mostly I also prefer the massive 72 Stars but the earlier generation performances need love as well.
Regarding 'months of Dark Star' August of 1969 has a claim as one of the more interesting months for that tune: It starts with 8-3-69, the Family Dog on the Great Highway, a show featuring David Nelson and two unknown guests on Saxophone (possibly Charles Lloyd) and Violin (David LaFlamme (?)) Dark Star has kind of a 'lounge lizard' feel to me at the beginning, but gets to some crazy places with the guests (Caution is the highlight of the show though.) Then there's the fairly standard (but underrated) version from Woodstock on 8-16. The next show after Woodstock featured the shortest 2 verse Dark Star after early 68, IIRC only about 7 minutes total, performed at the last concert ever at Seattle's Aqua Theater, which featured a floating stage. Then it was 8-23, a more standard mid-69 performance (except they may not have performed the first verse (that may just be a tape cut.) The month ends where it began, with a run of shows at the Family Dog: 8-28 was a 'Jerry Garceeah and Friends' or 'Mickey and the Hartbeats' show with Howard Wales. The recording suffers from Wales being very high in the mix, but features a long jam on Dark Star. 8-30 is 'back to normal,' with another standard reading (though of course, standard in this sense means 'not very short or without guests.') I don't have much in my notes on this one, it's probably worth revisiting if its anything like other Family Dog shows. mid-69 is a good time for Dark Star because they had abandoned a lot of the 'set pieces' they used in late 68-early 69 that are immortalized in the Live/Dead version, and hadn't yet 'discovered' the thematic jams that would become standard in late 69 and 70, and their approach seems to be more random and improvisatory.
This morning I listened to 12-12-73. The first set was really good, ending with a long Playin in the band (some cool space noises featuring the Philters near the end.) Set 2 is decent, opening up with an excellent pair of Half Step>Bobby McGee and China Cat>I Know You Rider (Which I always write as 'Cat>I' now, thanks a lot whoever came up with that one ) and then a rocking Greatest Story. There's no big jam though, a standalone WRS, Wharf Rat>Me and My Uncle (a pretty slick transition there) and Eyes>Morning Dew all back to back, but even the jam at the end of Eyes is slight, against type for the year, and for this part of the year. They were just conserving their jams for 12-18 and 19 it seems. All very well played, though seeming a bit reserved.
Your review is interesting, because they played the Omni on 20 June 1974, and while well-played, that show also feels reserved. And fairly short in the context of the rest of that tour. Both are good shows, although the '74 show needs a serious upgrade.
I have a few reflections brewing but for the moment I want to assert that the Dark Star from 1973-03-16 is utterly transfixing!
17 November 1972- Wichita. Went back in time a year from last night's Pauley Pavillion show. Now Jerry is playing chicken scratchin' music during Cumberland Blues. Such a fine show from Kansas.
1987 has a pretty special place for me as well given it was brought up for a bit pretty recently; perhaps more than anything given what a special impact the spring shows I saw had. Maybe that is more the experience than going back to the tapes and really analyzing it, but regardless it'll always stand out to me near the top of what I saw. @lucan_g just turned me on to a great ultramatrix of 10-3-87 in this question The Grateful Dead Live Sound and Recording Legacy Thread It is both fun listening to the question but more important I am finding this very recent Miller Beta as a fantastic Ultramatix recording and I am really digging the playing; no cobwebs on Jerry, listening to the Birdsong now and he is exploring nicely. As was said earlier in the thread, you have to love the all analog rigs still in effect, and Tiger sounds especially well balanced and outside of itself. Edit: I will always gladly hang with a Stella Blue, it is an experience beginning to end that pretty invariably delivers for me; giving this one a crack, great Jerry voice, Brent has the harpsichord going with some organ undertones later. Jerry goes all pedal effect on the first jam which kind of undercuts his argument, but it probably worked on the night; Jerry's echo effects on the outro work a bit better; okay not a GOAT but a pretty darn tasteful version.
I've been listening to a lot of 87, precisely because of those Ultramatrices CM has been putting out. The shows have been pretty good - great energy, lots of enthusiasm from Garcia, and an occasional surprise when they get a bit weirder than expected.
Thanks to @rbbert we can enjoy a fine recording of 21 July 1974- Hollywood Bowl, on the occasion of it's anniversary.
OK, today I set my alarm for 5 so I could get my brain and nervous system sorted and spend a long day listening to music. I began with one of the most stalwart of my standby versions, Dark Star from 11/11/73. As I mentioned in regard to 3/28/73, I love 1973 Dark Stars as I am very much enthralled with the sound of the band this year. I love how the Dark Stars begin at a slower tempo than the year prior, and the 1973 band, particularly (but not exclusively) in the Wolf era, sounds all sparkly and jewel-like whereas 1972 is comparatively rougher-edged. The sound of the ensemble alone from a 1973 recording can transport me, even before any consideration of content. I have always loved this Dark Star and it has for years been firmly in my top 5. Indeed, I think at the moment I would have to say this is my favorite Dark Star, if pressed. Here are a few thoughts from this morning; it is possible that not all of it is 100% accurate, I'm not sure, however here's what and how I was struck today... This is one where the opening theme is thoroughly explored, and it has long been my conviction that this can be a very good thing, which may be one thing that accounts for why Archtop and I part ways on this version, as I think he is more firmly attached than I to an ethos of exploration in this number (not that I don't value exploration, of course). But love it as much as I do, I wouldn't call this one particularly exploratory, or anyway if we had a scale for such a thing it would rank low-ish, as more or less all Dark Stars explore, but there is, at least notionally, a kind of continuum along which they might be placed. However, the subtle peak to which they ascend along a gentle incline from about 11 to 14 minutes in is a thing of beauty, and is one of my favorite deployments of the aforementioned sparkly 1973 ensemble sound. There are basically two movements in this one, not counting the relatively brief post-verse Space or the MLB. The beginning really all belongs to the opening theme, they ease out of it to an extent but it's all more or less of a piece, while the post-Verse stuff is a bit more brisk and has some nice percolating stuff between Keith and Weir. From about 25 minutes it gets into what might be called "jazzy" stuff a bit, although Kreutzmann plays pretty straight 8s until about 32 minutes in, sometimes hinting at a more swung approach on the skins but keeping pretty straight on the cymbals, while Weir and Keith aren't nearly so square (and, interestingly enough, in the first half, when the rest of the band is playing much straighter, Kreutzmann has more of a swung beat going, as I guess he usually does there). It finally, and briefly, gets a little weird around 28 and a half minutes in before sliding into the killer MLB jam at 32-ish, but weirdness is not really what this one is about. Adjectives I'd think of include stately, beautiful, and majestic. (note: I have no idea why this one is sometimes called "The thinking man's Dark Star," or who came up with that) After playing the remainder of this disc with its wonderful Eyes and China Doll, I put on the only April Dark Star I don't remember having heard at all until earlier this week when Dahabenzapple proclaimed about it, 1972-04-29. This is an odd one. It is kind of moody or even brooding, and they don't play it straight very much at all (note, I'm not talking about 8th notes now). The opening music starts to dissipate after about 5 minutes, and they briefly embark on a kind of frenetic, note-y Garcia-led burst like one gets pre-verse on 4/8, but this quickly congeals into a Feelin' Groovy section which doesn't last all that long, and by 8:45 they start getting weird. That's as far as I got in my description last week but it's hard to know what to add, especially without trying to take notes as I listen (which I'm trying to do now but I don't want to go through the whole thing again), and I struggle with trying to describe music in any case; probably there's someone who would do a better job than I. I would say that if we were to make a distinction between improvising along pre-established lines and something else that feels more improvisatory still, where it's not clear why everyone is doing what they do when they do it, there is more of the second type of improvisation here than there is in the majority of Dark Stars, from this tour and otherwise. I'm not sure if that is too strong a proclamation, but this feels very much more off the cuff than many renditions, with everyone listening to each other and assaying lines that aren't familiar tropes or variations on a theme. Things are right wacky by 13:20, when Garcia starts to hint at the verse theme, then at 13:41 Phil starts to bring them in and from 13:51 Kreutzmann and then Weir fall into line, with the whole transition, despite the staggered times above, feeling very assured and smooth. Briefly--from ~16:00, right after the vocals, to around 17:00--they play the main theme, and then it starts to head outward again. At around the 20 minute mark Garcia begins playing a Tiger-like lead, or perhaps a lead that portends a Tiger (which eventually appears, but not for a while) with that dirty wah sound, and the band gets kind of nutty back of that, with Keith playing some really splonky stuff and Weir allowing himself to get kind of nutty at times too. Before the Tiger actually springs from the bushes, however, Lesh starts a jazzy riff that gets them all doing something more cohesive for a while; he abandons this riff pretty quickly, but by then the band is boiling, and it remains on the boil, which I think is a real testimony to their jamming skills. The last two minutes see Garcia finally busting out the Tiger, and when Weir slips into Sugar Magnolia he is doing something rather freaky and staccato that he manages to keep going over the SM riff before dropping into something more SM-appropriate. I wouldn't say that it is 100% certain that starting Sugar Magnolia exactly then was the right decision, but they do end this Dark Star at a high point which is good in a way, anyhow. I mean I guess "wait until we start sucking to start the next song" is a silly idea... I will say that this is certainly a top notch Dark Star, and it is worthy of being put up against any other from this tour. It's quite different from 4/14, which is a more rocking proposition, and has less group swells and crests than something like 4/8, but its exploratory nature makes it at least as interesting as any of the others, and as impossible as it may be to rank them, if one were to do so this would definitely have to rank very high. Finally, and I realize this got long, but the Dark Star from 1973-03-16 is absolutely killer; again, I love the way they sound this year, and this Dark Star gets more out there than some from the era. I don't have a coherent set of thoughts about it yet, luckily for you...
I don't think I've ever heard 7/26/72. I've had 8/21/72 for ages as well, and really like it. Better than 8/27 Ventura, and somewhat similar to the 3/23/72 Academy of Music version from the Rockin' the Rhein bonus disc, in terms of having Keith take the lead on a jazzy excursion for a while. It's been quite a while since I've listened to 8/21, but I think the 3/23/72 version is probably the better of two (great) versions.
I mostly agree with you in general with your remarks above, but I really dig the Dark Star from 3/28. But 3/16 is surely one of the most underrated versions of the song! I've been listening to that today, and it is indeed fantastic!
