The Grateful Thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by JRM, Apr 11, 2014.

  1. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    Lyceum night #3, May 25, 1972

    [​IMG]

    The first set has been average so far, which means excellent, of course, since they simply didn't play bad in any show on this legendary tour.

    I'm looking forward to Pigpen's final "Good Lovin' " which will be coming up soon.

    [​IMG]
     
  2. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    Update: "Jack Straw" is pretty hot. The set is improving as they go along. China>Rider is up next. Yay!

    Nice Phil on the China Cat solo section. "Rider" gets really good near the end. Bobby sings Kris (Kristofferson) next.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2018
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  3. wavethatflag

    wavethatflag God is love, but get it in writing.

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    The '91 show was better, as is the first set of '92, but I guess I'm not much of a Vince fan, and Bob sounds strangely gruff sometimes. I like that Vince revived "Here Comes Sunshine," but, but, but ....
     
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  4. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    '91, '94, and '95 are my favorites from the final five years in the box.

    I'm curious as to how you'll like the sound effects (especially on the vocals) during the '92 show's "The Other One". I liked it, but others didn't.
     
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  5. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    5/25/72 Good Lovin'

    Wow, a masterclass in rock n roll jazz by The Grateful Dead. This is basically a "rap"-less version. Pig is only there for the song part at the beginning and end - no rap.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2018
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  6. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler

    Cost Healy his job (according to at least two of the 63,000 theories about that)...
     
  7. bzfgt

    bzfgt The Grand High Exalted Mystic Ruler

    As a mere fish in the school of The Grateful Thread, recent chatter had me pulling out Dark Star from 4/17/72 tonight. It is the one from April I know the least, but I wonder why...it is definitely a top notch version, according to my listen tonight (headphones, dark room, no other sensory input). I wish I were better at describing things but there's some marvelous trickly busy tinkly madness kind of stuff going on for a while, Garcia's playing in the early, more straightforward parts is sublime, and of course there's Let It Grow...has anyone mentioned that Pigpen comes in shortly before the LiG stuff and stays to the end? It sounds like he's tearing it up too, but you can barely hear him, as he is mixed very low, at least on the Box version....

    Really, a pretty good Top 5 Dark Star list would be 4/8, 14, 17, 24, & 29/72....
     
  8. US Blues

    US Blues Undermining Consensus Reality

    Disc 3 is perfect if you skip the Bobby tunes. ;)
     
    Matthew Tate likes this.
  9. libertycaps

    libertycaps Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    08/06/74
    Roosevelt Stadium - Jersey City, NJ
    Set 1:

    Bertha
    Mexicali Blues
    Don't Ease Me In
    Beat It On Down The Line
    Sugaree
    Jack Straw
    Eyes Of The World
    Promised Land
    Deal
    Playin' In The Band
    Scarlet Begonias
    Playin' In The Band
    Set 2:
    Uncle John's Band
    Black Peter
    El Paso
    Loose Lucy
    Big River
    Ship Of Fools
    Me And My Uncle
    Row Jimmy
    Sugar Magnolia
    He's Gone
    Truckin'
    Spanish Jam
    The Other One
    Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad
    Sunshine Daydream
    Encore:
    U.S. Blues

    DICK'S 31 IS NOT NEARLY ENOUGH OF THIS MASSIF.
     
  10. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    This 5/25/72 Playing in the Band is a slow, floating, web of jazzy psychedelia. It definitely feels like a point of demarcation between the intense ten to twelve minute versions of earlier in the tour and the longer, more exploratory versions to come. I believe that this is the first version to go longer than 15 minutes.

    Bob Weir is a beast on this one.

    ...and then after two long jam tunes we get a rare "Brokedown Palace" - in the first set no less! What a treat.

    Oops, Jerry forgot some lyrics in the second verse. Oh well, it wouldn't be the GoGD without blown lyrics. He then makes up for it with a lovely solo.
     
    Last edited: Sep 25, 2018
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  11. rbbert

    rbbert Forum Resident

    Location:
    Reno, NV, USA
    9/30/76 (although there is not really a good recording of the whole show) and 10/15/76
     
  12. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    5/25/72

    "Ramble on Rose" is phenomenal! It must be the best version of the tour. Keith and Pig's keyboard work is especially tasty on this version, but the whole band is cooking.
     
  13. pbuzby

    pbuzby Senior Member

    Location:
    Chicago, IL, US
    The Weir effects may have been a factor, but he'd been doing that for nearly ten years before he was out.
     
  14. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    Interesting, this is certainly not the first time I've noticed this, but disc 3 is a lot louder and a bit more compressed than discs 1 and 2. Hmmm, I'm guessing that "peak extend" was not used on this disc for some reason. This happens on at least three or four of the shows in the box (one or more discs being a lot louder). It's too bad that the HDCD processing isn't uniform across the box.

    Ugh, why was the extra dynamic range offered by the peak extend feature not used on the disc that has:

    UJB>Wharf Rat>Dark Star>Sugar Magnolia

    Frustrating.

    Obviously, any listeners not using an HDCD player or decoding the HDCD to 20-bit will not notice the difference from disc to disc. If you are though, the volume change is obvious.
     
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  15. frightwigwam

    frightwigwam Talented Amateur

    Location:
    Oregon
    Phil suggested in his book, I think, that the last straw for Healy was when he sabotaged the sound for Sting's opening set one night, which embarrassed them and made the band take a hard look at his habitual shenanigans.
     
  16. libertycaps

    libertycaps Forum Resident

    Location:
    Portland, OR, USA
    Ohhh. Your post is making me crave even more putting my brand new to me HDCD encoded UK Rotel RCD-1072 CDP on deck primarily for my many many HDCD GoGD CDs. Sadly, gotta wait for a step up voltage converter to arrive in the mail first. Hopefully, by end of this week.
     
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  17. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    The final Dark Star of the 1972 European tour is now entering my eardrums and creating joyful explosions throughout my brain.

    [​IMG]


    The free-form "space" section comes quite early in this rendition - once past the 8-minute mark, we are awash in a sea of strange.
     
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  18. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    There's a really cool Bill/Phil/Keith jam around the 19-minute mark (after the first verse) with Kreutzmann using the toms and cymbals a lot. Bob joins in with a fast tremolo effect on his guitar and soon the whole band goes into Feelin' Groovy.

    Where it ranks among the top Dark Stars of the tour is debatable (it's not a top five for me), but it's hard to deny that this is one of the most unique. The jams sound nothing like the other versions and the structure of the piece is totally different.

    I honestly don't know how they did this stuff night after night.
     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2018
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  19. ianuaditis

    ianuaditis Matthew 21:17

    Location:
    Long River Place
    I'm a bit surprised 7-2-71 has never come out, I assume it's on multitrack as they recorded it for the movie, but it was also an FM broadcast at the time.

    There's a really good writeup, which discusses how the Grateful Dead invented the King Biscuit Flour Hour (well, not exactly, but close enough,) and also reveals the importance of bootleg LPs in the early days of the Grateful Dead.

    Lost Live Dead: July 2, 1971: Fillmore West, San Francisco Grateful Dead KSAN-fm Broadcast (FM IV)

    I especially identify with the above quote, this was how I felt in 11th grade every time I got a new tape

    Even in years like 69 and 70 when they relied more on repeated jams and motifs, they still never did it quite the same way night to night. One of these days I'll finish that 'top 10 1970 shows' list I've been working on...

    Meanwhile 9-20-74 tonight, the end of set 1. This version of Friend of the Devil is a bit more straightforward and fast, less funky and laid back than the previous. Still very good, and a lot of the first set tunes are gems, especially Cumberland, Scarlet Begonias etc. Weir is a bit low in the mix at times, but it just makes for more Keith.

    Earlier today I heard 4-22-79, Brent's first show. I'm pretty sure I've heard this one before, it was a solid show that still sounds very much like the K&D version of the band. But apart from a cool unison part in the transition from the Other One to Wharf Rat it was more notable for the occasion than the performance. Interesting to hear the contrast between this, the pre-Lost Sailor era, and the 1984 post-Lost Sailor band I've been listening to lately.
     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2018
  20. ianuaditis

    ianuaditis Matthew 21:17

    Location:
    Long River Place
    9-20-74 - this is my new favorite version of China Cat>I Know You Rider.

    Bill is playing a funkier than normal beat in the jam out of China Cat, they jam around for a while with Phil especially getting down. Then it comes to what seems like a natural stopping point, and for a second I really thought they would start I Know You Rider, but just in that instant, they remembered that Feeling Groovy jam and flow right into it.

    Garcia's playing on this show has been really full, more quiet with lots of picked notes than soaring lead guitar, and that's an effective approach on this I Know You Rider too.
     
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  21. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    Hmm, I'd like to amend my statement a bit. The Dark Star is great, but not phenomenal.

    :thumbsup:
     
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  22. notesofachord

    notesofachord Riding down the river in an old canoe

    Location:
    Mojave Desert
    More 5/25/72 notes by notes:

    Sugar Magnolia is sloppier than normal. Who cares.
    Comes a Time has a unique solo at the end this is worth a listen.

    Mr. Robert Weir then informs us that it's "oldies" time. Fun!

    El Paso is good
    Sitting on Top of the World is like a time-machine blast back to 1966 - plenty of Pigpen organ on this one
    GDTRFB starts out very chill, but builds in intensity
    OMSN cooks (as always). Keith and Jerry are off the charts great on this one.

    Are those firecrackers that I hear at the end? Naughty, naughty (but appropriate, considering the musical fireworks that just went off).
     
  23. ianuaditis

    ianuaditis Matthew 21:17

    Location:
    Long River Place
    LOL @ Bobby 4-27-84:

    "It's T right here in uh....Providence...etc"
     
  24. Crispy Rob

    Crispy Rob Cat Juggler

    Location:
    Oakland, CA
    Probably Ramrod setting off fireworks behind the amps as see in the GD Movie. Just a guess, but that seems more likely than a Lyceum crowd in '72. A New England crowd in '74 is another story.
     
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  25. Crispy Rob

    Crispy Rob Cat Juggler

    Location:
    Oakland, CA
    Bobby always cracks me up when he struggles with that line in certain towns. I went to college in Providence starting in '88, but some older friends had a story about running into Bobby who had gotten lost cycling in Providence during one of the runs in the mid-'80s and having to give him directions back to the Providence Civic Center. Sadly, I never saw a GD show there ("up and down [its] carpeted halls"), as the GD played its last show there the year before I moved there, but did see the JGB and Neil and Crazy Horse there.
     

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