5: 1968-02-02

6:36

Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco

This is part of the bonus material on Disc One of Road Trips 2.2.

Intro is still staggered. About a minute and a half of Garcia soloing before the verse, playing with the melody. First verse at 1:57. “Reason shatters,” “transitional nightfall…” Verse melody at 3:07. There seems to be a kick drum, and the music behind Garcia starts to get sort of aggressive around 3:18. Starting at 3:41, the first glimmering of what we are calling (after Light Into Ashes) the “Bright Star” theme. Around 3:50 full drums are evident. Falling Star at 4:14. Second verse at 4:52. Comes to a full stop.





What was said:

It's interesting getting some indication of what the song would come to be improvisationally, although it's still very rudimentary. You can hear Garcia messing around with some improv right off the bat; I heard a couple snare hits during the verse and then some bass drum moving up to full kit during the verse jam that came after, and you can also hear the dawn of some of the various 'set pieces' that they would develop throughout the following year until they recorded Live/Dead.




With the drums coming into this version, I'm noticing a tendency for "Dark Star" to get more aggressive over the course of this tour....probably as they get more familiar with playing it.
I like the full stop! It's kind of a restful conclusion....could have gone into Feedback or something but (as they announce at the end) it was the end of the show. "We'll be back here tomorrow night!" I can't think of any other Dark Stars that ended a show....except for 7/13/84, many years later.
The rest of 2/2/68 kicks ass, by the way. A 40-minute wonder.




Gotta love that full ending! Btw, is anyone else finding it impossible to listen to these Dark Stars in isolation? Every time I'm finding myself listening to the rest of the show.




Lots of shaker on this one but I didn’t notice any guiro. And there’s a bit of kick drum as has been pointed out, particularly in the second half. Also some cymbal or is that gong? The Bright Star glimmer that bzfgt noted at 3:41 sounds cool. I liked the full stop ending because it’s unusual. It kind of sounds like they got to the end and weren’t quite sure if they were going to stop or transition, or even how to conclude it for that matter. Or maybe not everybody got the memo that it was going to be a full stop.





I think this is the best one so far. It immediately sounds more spacious. Really digging the groove, it seems to unfold at a better pace than previous versions. The 2nd half really notches up with the (additional) sound of that kick-drum. It sounds like a gunshot going off! Nice jamming after that. Quite a unique ending, a little bit noodling then it comes to a complete full stop.