25. 1968-12-07

88674 Louisville, KY 13:26

TC’s first Dark Star, although he’s hard to hear.
Main theme at :019, 0:46 (briefly), and 2:52.
First verse at 3:20.
Verse melody at 6:32.
Sputnik at 8:55.
Main theme at 11:06 (briefly) and 11:26.
Second verse at 11:55.
Goes into St. Stephen.


This cuts in after the intro. Garcia covers a lot of ground in the first section, and seems to employ a wider array of strategies than usual. There are some beautiful melodic passages here. After the first verse, Garcia eschews the usual figure and plays some gentle spacey lines instead, allowing us to hear TC a little. At 5:18 he starts playing with the volume knob, and things get even spacier. Then at 5:41 Garcia hints at Bright Star as he swings into action. The melody at 7:49 seems like something we hear again, maybe it should have a name…it gets very intense, and hints at Bright Star a few times before becoming Sputnik at 8:55. There’s a big buildup after Sputnik, with Garcia playing a series of chiming tones and then harmonics as Phil patters around until it swings around to the main theme. This seems a little anti-climactic at this point, as a Bright Star or something more dramatic would have really brought it all home. Nevertheless, even though this first Dark Star with TC is at times a little tentative, overall it is a really excellent rendition, as they all seem to be at this point.


What was said:

This is possibly the opening song of the set again, as far as I can tell, though it’s missing a chunk of the band starting. I imagine the tapers were seriously hustling trying to get it rolling, but the “dark star” riff comes soon after the recoding starts, with ornaments or alternative readings of it. Allusions to it anyway. I thought I heard somebody say “one” pointing out where the downbeat was? With some instrumental wandering in different registers until Jerry comes down to the low strings and shifts to the backed-off wah or tone knob sound by a minute into the recording. This leads up to higher jamming with some weird spaces before it gets solid, and then the riff comes back very strong on the low strings, into the verse at 3:20. The orchestration of the guitars and bass for the verse is so well played now. I think everybody knows their stuff, it’s a tight reading of the verse sections, JG singing and playing the vocal melody, BW doing his sequences of suspended chords, PL doing the swung with the melody style on the first line, then halving the triplets into a straight rhythm for the second line, so it goes poly rhythmic, then combining into a riffy swung run for the third line.
A real drop to shakers and rhythm guitar bass before Jerry slowly and quietly comes in moving toward a weird volume-swelled notes thing at 5:18, spacing out the timing. Out into a bright star grab, but still experimenting with the flat5 he was using in the riff earlier. Some Stephen Still sounding riffs before a pause, then a vocal melody statement at 6:40, directly into more jam where Phil goes through sequences using his verse pattern rhythms but by “line 3” they’re off again into a repetitive melodic fragment sort of sputnik-but-linear growing in volume and tone, then the wave crests at 8:35 and you’re back in a calmer sea where you can barely hear TC going into a Sputnik that leads the band there. I guess he felt comfortable in that minimalist type trance stuff. By 9:45 we’re in a static chordal area into a swinging little harmonics jam with the noodly bass, then to the main riff at 11:10, hi, we’re back!
I keep wondering about how well known the band was at this point, especially at gigs like this at a university and the one on 1968-11-22 in Ohio that we darkstarred last month. It must have been ear-opening—starting with Dark Star, hmm, where is this band going, then into the suite etc… Man.


This performance has an ethereal quality that is enchanting and beautiful. I like the gentler, wandering vibe and sometimes fuzzy edges. There have been better versions to this point but I like this one and find it interesting.
As a side note the overall vibe of this version seems to fit well with the only known live Rosemary that comes later in the show.


Wow, what a Dark Star! At this point in the fall '68 tour there must be a lot of missing Dark Stars...the Dead seem to be taking this in a whole new direction now. Or maybe it was just one of those nights. It's hard to tell how much of the intro is missing....but I would bet there was another missing song or two in the show before the tape starts, this Dark Star starts off totally relaxed and in the zone. Unfortunately the mix isn't so great, it's in mono, Jerry and Phil dominate, TC's basically subliminal, but Mickey's got his scratcher and gong action going.
Jerry's playing is unearthly throughout. I agree with adamos about the gentle, ethereal quality here. This is like the 2/13/70 of 1968 Dark Stars...a quiet restrained power here, when you think they're turning it up they back down to a moody simmer again. (When Jerry repeats that gong-like chord after 9:50 it really reminded me of 2/13/70.)
It's striking after the verse, Jerry doesn't waste a second, they dive right into a quiet minimalist spacey part that's more like a free improv than a Dark Star. Like the spacey part on 11/22/68, it's a new section that looks forward more to future Dark Stars than to past versions. After they get the standard verse jam out of the way, Jerry glides right into the clouds again and does that lovely little melody (just a riff on the Dark Star theme, I think?) and squeezes and deconstructs it. The post-Sputnik aftermath is so great, you might consider it anticlimactic but instead of doing their usual big Bright Star climax they're being more inventive here, playing with chimes and harmonics like shards of a broken mirror, and Phil guides them so smoothly back into the main theme. It's more like a sound sculpture than a regular '68 jam. The audience must have been in a trance, this is one of the first Dark Stars where we can hear them respond as they applaud during the verse. (On 11/22/68 in contrast, there hadn't been a single clap.) A spine-tingling performance!