112. 1971-02-18

111793 Port Chester, NY 1. 7:02 2. 7:19
Main theme at :54, 1:56, and 3:02.
First verse at 3:26.
Second verse at 5:44.
Goes into Wharf Rat and Me and My Uncle.

The first Dark Star of 1971 gets off to a bold and snappy start. Garcia is now playing the Rick Turner “Peanut” guitar; although he did not play it for long (Jan. 21—April 29), he got a striking sound out of it, and it is a sound which became much-loved due to the self-titled live album from April 1971. The playing here is beautiful all around, and Garcia’s tone is magnificent. Jerry briefly dives into the theme at :54, then circles around a bit and comes back to it a minute later. He breaks out some double stops at 2:30 or so, at which point Weir really starts driving him, and a splendid peak is reached before they again double back to the theme, and on to the verse: “Dark star flashes.”

There is a brief reprise of the introductory jam after the verse. They never quite get to space; rather than descending into silence, Garcia keeps frittering around, and then they go into the first Wharf Rat. This is played solidly and confidently; this whole sequence so far is a tour de force, although one wonders whether they are beginning to feel a bit less motivated to draw out Dark Star, and if the energies that have made it such a consistently powerful element of their set are beginning to dissipate.

Wharf Rat dissolves into a bluesy take on the Dark Star theme. They start a vamp on A with a little kick to the D; then the band goes to a B minor to A pattern while Garcia starts playing a melody on a D major/B minor scale, and the famous “Beautiful Jam” comes shimmering out of the speakers. This really sounds like it was composed, especially since Garcia starts his line right when the others modulate.

At 2. 3:25 it turns into a vamp on the A, with hints of Sugar Magnolia, and they pedal along there for a while. The preceding jam has cast a powerful spell, and I kept expecting it to resolve back to B minor, even though A is the home chord of Dark Star. Instead, Jerry sings the second verse, and it’s all over.

What can I say about this jam? It is gorgeous, and all too brief. Not much of consequence happens afterward, but it doesn’t really need to—this has been a major statement, a stunner. This is an extremely pithy Dark Star, but a powerful one. It poured out of the amplifiers and into history, and we are fortunate to have these recordings.


What was said:

111. 1970-11-08

28609 Port Chester, NY 16:06 + Main Ten Jam 5:51 + Jam 2:58.
Main theme at 5:45.
First verse at 6:38.
Goes into Dancing in the Streets after the Main Ten Jam.

The last known Dark Star of 1970 begins with Garcia playing a repeating pattern that flirts with the main theme. Lesh steps out a little, but everyone is playing gently here, and there is no real lead line. They seem to be suggesting E minor quite a bit as they go on, and the music sort of broods along. Garcia plays a flourish of triplets at 4:12 that stands out as it skims over the top, but for the most part they are blending their instruments into a larger whole. At 5:45 Garcia starts to fire up the main theme, but they maintain a light weave right up to the verse, which is laid in gently.

Coming out of the verse, it seems they are keen to maintain the meditative feel of the piece. Space brings us down to almost nothing but some cymbals. Someone makes bird noises, eliciting a lot of laughter at 9:10; Weir jokingly admonishes the crowd, “This is serious!” The crowd seems rather fired up for the occasion, even as the band tries to play a quiet and spellbinding Dark Star. Space stays at a minimum for a good stretch here, and when the intensity increases it is more or less a deluge of sound, but not a barrage of notes. Again there is some bells or glockenspiel as we near the end of space, and then a repeated note that is almost like a beeping. Garcia finally starts playing The Main Ten, and the band picks it up.

This is also played rather gently, although as is to be expected it gathers some momentum as it goes along. By about 3:50 this turns into a one-chord vamp, and the band seems to consider moving on to something else, but they just sort of hover there for a while. A little bit after the 5 minute mark Garcia starts hinting at a return to Dark Star, but instead they get into another jam that drifts toward Dancing in the Streets. After a couple verses of this, they break into Soulful Strut, and this ends with what briefly sounds like a Dark Star jam, so this could also be seen as a continuation of Dark Star...

The main portion of this is understated but quite beautiful, with a very effective space after the verse. Once they come out of space the jamming seems a bit listless, though, although not without charm altogether. To me this is an ambiguous version: one could surmise that they are running out of ideas for Dark Star, but one could just as easily say that they are still uncovering new possibilities.


What was said:

110: 1970-11-05

17182 Port Chester, NY 21:07
Main theme at :32, 3:33, and 4:25.
First verse at 4:38.
Feelin’ Groovy at 16:31.
Bright Star at 18:37.
Second verse at 19:32.
Goes into St. Stephen.

Once again the audience recording is far from perfect. Weir lays down a chugging rhythm, and from Garcia there is a variation on the main theme at about :32. I’ve listed this above, although it’s not always easy to determine what is to count as an iteration of the theme. The introduction has a blithe, happy-go-lucky feel, and after three minutes there still is not a clear sense of direction. At this point Garcia starts to heat up a bit, but we soon arrive back at the theme. The band drifts away a little, comes back, and the first verse arrives.

Space emerges as a kind of gestalt this time, a surrounding ambience of foreboding that sort of oozes along. At 9:40 there are hints that a more familiar music might emerge, as we start to distinguish individual instruments and track their direction. However, there isn’t any recognizable movement away from space until 11:14, when hints of Sputnik are given. Weir does his shimmering thing, and then at 11:49 Garcia strikes up a melody. Somebody is out of tune. At about 12:22 Garcia does a rolling sort of thing which is not Sputnik, but may have some genealogical connection to the latter.

By about 13:10 we seem to be in a new jam, which doesn’t sound much like anything we’ve heard before—we are out of space, but the foreboding heaviness remains, and this is almost a kind of funeral music. Are there hints of Feelin’ Groovy poking through this dirge? Lesh seems to be making a suggestion in that direction, while Garcia seems to be pushing it toward a more Dark Star-oriented jam. He alludes to the theme at 15:25. Weir is quite assertive here, and a guitar duet takes shape. At 16:13 Garcia is worrying at the theme again, but then at 16:31 Lesh again pushes for Feelin’ Groovy, and this time it goes through.

This is a gentle rendition, with some very lyrical work by Garcia. The chord sequence dissolves shortly after the 18 minute point, and the band pedals along on one chord until 18:37 when Garcia brings out Bright Star. At 19:09 this transforms into the main theme pattern, although Garcia never plays the theme itself.

At times the introduction felt a bit aimless, but the rest of this is quite entrancing. Dark Star is becoming a much less central part of the Grateful Dead phenomenon, but it will see a renaissance when Keith Godchaux joins the band. For now, though, they still seem to have something to say with the form.


What was said:

109: 1970-10-17

119329 Cleveland 19:17 (cut)
Bright Star at 13:13.
Sputnik at 15:02.
Main theme at 17:13 at 17:41.
Second verse at
Goes into St. Stephen.

Here we have another imperfect audience recording. In fact, it sounds really bad. Garcia fiddles around with the verse melody in the beginning, but it does not go to the e minor, so it is unofficial. In any case, it is a very vigorous opening; they keep it close to home with the two chords going, but the playing is pretty intense. At 3:13 there is a sudden cut to the end of the verse, though, so we seem to have missed a bit of this very promising intro jam.

After another descent into near-silence, space elicits some boisterous cheers when the bass starts rumbling. There is a rather scary swell, and then as it recedes Garcia is there with some Sputnik-like licks, although he does not go into Sputnik; rather, space continues with some volume swells. On the other end of this Garcia again flashes Sputnik and Weir plays the shimmering accompaniment that has become familiar. An alternately swelling and receding melody with a minor feel emerges here.

As Garcia’s line becomes more pointed, someone is playing some bells (or a keyboard that sounds like bells?). A two chord jam coalesces here and gathers steam. Garcia takes the opportunity to build a stinging line, at times hinting at Bright Star, which is where it seems this will go, although it’s not time for it yet. Aha—there it is, coming together at about 13:13.

They regroup off the back of Bright Star, and soon reach another peak, with Garcia from about 14:14 really howling and raising the energy level again with a repeated lick. There’s a pretty unique peak heading into the 15 minute mark that unexpectedly turns into Sputnik, so we have another familiar element that seems out of place. More frenzied jamming ensues, and what sounds like it’s going to be an elegant transition into the main theme turns awkward before it gets there. At 17:43 there is another cut that takes us into the verse, where it seems that Garcia is doubling his vocal with the guitar (as he always does--see Mr. Rain below!).

This is a really gripping version, and we can only regret not having a better recording. The band seems eager to shake things up, and there is some outstanding jamming here.


What was said:

108. 1970-10-11

9500 Wayne, NJ 20:29 (cut)
Main theme at 2:14 and 3:22.
First verse at 4:08.
Sputnik at 11:32.
Main theme at 18:33.
Second verse at 18:56.
Goes into St. Stephen.

This horrible recording cuts in right in the middle of the action, and it sounds like they’re going at it rather splendidly—everyone is playing aggressively as they hit an early peak. They slow down and stagger the beat before broadly hinting at the main theme at 2:14; however, they blast off again without committing to the theme, which they return to a little over a minute later.

The post-verse space seems rather noisier than the last one as it gets underway. The song structure drops out, but there are cymbals and then a lot of whooshing and sproinging. At about 10:30 Lesh starts a really heavy riff and there is a remarkable segment that unfortunately doesn’t last very long. After some deliberation, Garcia turns to Sputnik to get us of space. We don’t get very far out, though, and things seem to collapse back into space again until Jerry starts playing a lead line that sort of gets them moving.

At 13:30, Weir tries a rock and roll riff for a bit, and Garcia seems to me to be anticipating Soulful Strut at times. A rock jam coalesces. It starts to sound a little more like Feelin’ Groovy, at least rhythmically, but tonally it seems more of a Dark Star jam. Finally at 15:45 Lesh plays Feelin’ Groovy, but then Garcia seems to start the verse melody and Lesh starts playing the main theme pattern, which they then gravitate toward.

By 16:50 they seem out of gas, and the whole thing stalls. Various directions are proposed, and Garcia starts hinting around at the main theme, and the band follows suit, but it takes Jerry a while to get all the way there. When the second verse starts, it doesn’t seem a moment too soon.

There is, as usual, plenty to enjoy and admire here, including a pretty wild space section. But the band seems scattered, and at times they seem to run out of ideas and fail to keep things going. It’s possible that the bad recording magnifies the effect and there is something more going on I couldn’t hear. In any case, this one is interesting but inessential, and kind of painful to listen to.




What was said:

The Two Chord Jam (Mr. Rain)

I think they do some simple two-chord theme coming after space in most (if not all) of the 1970 Dark Stars, but as far as I've noticed they never do it the same way. So it's kind of elusive, and I'm not sure if they're actually repeating the same chords each time.




While this thread has lots of in-depth reviews of individual, isolated Dark Stars, so far there's not so much comparison among groups of Dark Stars. So in the interests of scholarship, I put together a little timing list to make easy comparisons of at least this little section of 1970 Dark Stars -- the jam coming after space. Specifically, I was looking for the two-chord part that often kicks it off that year, or sometimes shows up a minute or two in the jam.

1970-01-02 at 17:00 (but the really unique theme starts after 18:00)
1970-01-17 at 10:40 (comes out of Sputnik, turns to Dark Star framework after 11:30)
1970-01-23 at 10:35 (comes out of Sputnik)
1970-02-02 at 10:20 (starts loose, gets more structured after 11:40)
1970-02-08 at 14:00 (very loose, gets more Dark Starry after 15:40)
1970-02-13 at 14:30
1970-02-14 at 10:55 (they lean hard on the 2-chord bit, as on 2-13)
1970-03-24 at 6:20 (theme gets going at 7:20)
1970-04-24 at 12:10 (comes out of Sputnik, Feelin' Groovy starts at 12:40 so not much here)
1970-05-08 at 8:30 (comes out of Sputnik, sounds like a slow Dark Star theme)
1970-05-15 at 8:30 (Sputniky phase at 9:20, 2-chord theme at 10:00)
1970-05-24 at 12:05 (comes out of Sputnik, Bob hits chords at 13:20, then new theme)
1970-06-24 pt. 2 (Dark Star theme after Attics, not really comparable)
1970-09-17 at 11:15 (comes out of Sputnik, slow theme similar to 5-08)
1970-09-19 at 13:15 (comes out of Sputnik, Bob hits chords at 13:45)

And looking ahead a bit....
1970-10-11 at 12:30 (comes out of Sputnik but takes different path, not very comparable...this sounds insane)
1970-10-17 at 8:10 (OMG! totally different! -- then Bob hits chords at 10:15, a slow take)
1970-11-05 at 11:30/12:15/12:50/13:40... (very slow start out of space....totally unlike previous jams til they get to Dark Star theme around 14:30, this is WTF amazing!)
1970-11-08 (Main Ten out of space, completely different)

So, unless it resurfaces in 1971, I'd say this two-chord theme pretty much reaches its culmination on 9-19-70....the Dark Stars later on in the year go other places. Mind-boggling places.

As far as when it started, I haven't really investigated late '69 for it yet, but I don't recall the December '69 Dark Stars locking into this two-chord theme at all. They do feature an important predecessor though, Bob's dreamy arpeggio that he often uses out of Sputnik -- like at 12:40 on 12-26-69, or 12:55 on 12-30-69. This is the riff that Bob often uses in 1970 to introduce the jam, leading into the chords. The Dark Stars of January '70 have the same kind of loose open-ended feel as in Dec '69 when the jam gets started, but some like 1-23 or 2-2 have that two-chord theme creeping in, and on 2-13 it's full-blown, and it stays put in Dark Star through September.

A couple caveats: I don't know if "theme" is the right word here. The chords seem to me to be kind of a funky variation on the Dark Star theme, kind of a cross with Soulful Strut (and often leading into it). I think it should be given a name, but...this is probably too late now that almost all its performances are behind us!
Also, it's played a bunch of different ways; the jams it was in could vary a lot, so it's not like a theme where everyone had a specific part to play. The main connecting thread here is just Bob's chords, which he could alter to suit the occasion...sometimes a slow Dark Star groove, sometimes a hard R&B style.
Anyway those are just my layman's observations; someone more musically astute could come up with a better analysis.

JSegel:

Specifically, I was looking for the two-chord part that often kicks it off that year, or sometimes shows up a minute or two in the jam.

This is the chord theme that goes A7 to G7, using the F natural as a contrast to the F# that usually exists in the Dark Star world, right? I tried to make note of it, usually yeah, going into the Major 7 version of the G (at the very least, if it goes full on"Soulful Strut" latin vibe, the A also gets the Maj7 and it has that proto-Eyes feel.)

This is great, doing whole-period summary stuff. Thank you!

107. 1970-09-19

31510 Fillmore East 25:30 (25:23)
Main theme at 1:47 and 5:06 and 6:09.
First verse at 6:23.
Sputnik at 13:16.
Feelin’ Groovy at 16:10.
Bright Star at 20:51.
Main theme at 21:15.
Bright Star at 22:16.
Main theme at 23:27.
Second verse at 23:51.
Goes into St. Stephen.

The feel is rather relaxed at the outset compared to recent versions. Garcia’s remarkable entrance begins with a note at :22 that comes in and out and finally swells in on a razor edge of feedback. Once he starts his line proper, it is subdued and meditative, seemingly elicited by the delicate playing of the rest of the band. They touch down on the theme early, and head back out.

At 2:35 Garcia again swells in and out on an extended note, this time with a little tremolo picking a la the beginning of Foxy Lady. At 2:50 Garcia does some of the bell tolling we sometimes hear after the first verse. The ruminative playing seems to suggest E minor, then at 4:13 Jerry strongly suggests A, but no move is made toward the theme for almost a minute. When they do hit it, they use it as a springboard to a more assertive jam, although the intensification is by degree and feels organic, leading back to the theme again and the verse. This is one of the most beautiful introductions we have yet heard.

Weir comes to the fore following the verse, with Lesh gently rumbling and Garcia throwing out a bell toll or two, and then there is a transition to silence to begin the space section. A few volume knob swells at an almost subliminal level keep a kind of momentum in play, and then Garcia gently tolls a bit and the cymbals swell. There is a sound like dripping water, and then some amplifier noise cuts in. At about 10:25 a transition seems to be occurring as an intense wash of sound starts bubbling up from the band.

At 11:14 Garcia and then Weir start making sounds that bear a recognizable relation to their origin in guitars; at 12:03, something resembling Sputnik starts coming out of Garcia’s guitar, but we don’t seem to be leaving space, which is if anything just getting more insistent. Then at 13:16 Garcia starts up Sputnik, which could be our line out. Weir’s counterpoint here is gorgeous. Suddenly Garcia is climbing and Weir is playing some funky chords, and, after a magisterial space segment, the middle jam is underway.

At 14:35 Weir sounds like he wants to start Feelin’ Groovy, but nothing comes of it yet; instead, a quite vigorous jam, basically on A with a little kick to the D, coalesces. At 16:08, everyone pauses and Weir kicks into Feelin’ Groovy. Garcia’s lead here is particularly effective; after such a subdued preface, he cuts loose at last. This does not last long, though, as the band shifts through various pedaling maneuvers, and at times seems to touch on Sugar Magnolia. This seems to be one of those segments where they allude to certain structured jams, but manage to stay out of all of them, creating something unique in the process.

A bit after the 20 minute mark Garcia seems to be pushing toward Bright Star, which would get us back into Dark Star territory. When he finally hits it at 20:51, he does it half time rather than taking the jam over the top with it, and they bring it down to the main theme. Rather than going to the verse, they cast about a bit and land in a beautiful jam into which Garcia drops a delicate hybrid of the main theme and Bright Star. This gathers steam, but they are not aiming for a crushing finish tonight—even the peaks feel meditative. Soon they return to the theme, and thence the second verse.

What a wonderful Dark Star. Calmness and a kind of majesty reign throughout, as the band never pushes too hard. This is a monumental rendition that belongs in every Dark Star fan’s rotation.


What was said:

106. 1970-09-17

145891 Fillmore East 26:40 (26:28)
Main theme at 3:03 and 4:01.
First verse at 4:22.
Sputnik at 10:29.
Bright Star at 16:45.
Soulful Strut at 17:42.
Main theme at 24:27.
Second verse at 25:05.
Goes into St Stephen.

A cry for Alligator is heard; many is the time that song will be mentioned prior to a Dark Star. Again we start briskly and with purpose, but the recording does not sound great at first. At 1:50 the band sidesteps into an alternate reality; they go off on a droney bit that takes the jam away down a side street. But at 2:47 Garcia starts in on a Bright Star bit that brings it around to the theme. They wander off a little but then come back to theme rather promptly, and so to the verse.

Space has been bleeding back into the bit between it and the verse lately; when they get to space proper, there are some elephant noises, then a cymbal crash, and the audience is appreciative; I’m not sure if there was a visual component to this that helped get their attention. For the most part, this space isn’t a continuous flow so much as a bunch of weirdness, it seems. But as we get to the ten minute mark it starts swelling in, with volume knob maneuvers starting to glue things together a bit more. By 10:29 Garcia’s Sputnik licks are audible and getting louder, which is a pretty standard route out of space at this point.

This time Sputnik settles into a harp-like pattern from Weir that we’ve heard before, and Garcia starts a high, piercing line that indicates the start of the middle jam. His playing gathers momentum as the band lays down a two chord pattern, and by 15:00 or so they are hitting a peak. They circle about a bit, and at 16:45 they hit again with Garcia playing Bright Star. Coming down the other side, they seem to be struggling a bit to get into Soulful Strut.

When they do hit it, the tempo is very brisk. Listen to Garcia’s licks at 20:00; he gets some good ones in. He seems to have exhausted the fund by around 20:45, though, but Weir keeps on with Soulful Strut a bit longer, and this section feels kind of aimless. Then when they seem to be getting out of it, Garcia prolongs it a little more (21:45) until they sort of crash; the audience gives them a solid cheer as they wind down into a spacey little jam that seems rather unique. By 24:00 they are pedaling and seem almost about to kick off another modular jam, but finally Garcia throws out the main theme and they latch on at a rather quick tempo with the audience clapping along. They don’t try to slow it down this time before bashing right into the verse.

The sound quality makes it difficult to evaluate this rendition, insofar as moments that seem aimless or tentative may just be partly buried. In any event, they get in lots of really good jamming along the way, and even your most discerning Head will find something to appreciate here.


What was said:

105. 1970-06-24

23062 Port Chester, NY 1. 10:01 (9:46) 2. 6:39 3. 30 (Feelin’ Groovy…first 30 seconds of track “Sugar Magnolia”) 4. 3:03
Main theme at 4:00 and 6:11.
First verse at 6:29.
Bright Star at 2. 2:30.
Soulful Strut at 2. 2:54.
Feelin’ Groovy at 3. :30.
Bright Star at 4. :30.
Main theme at 4. 1:14.
Second verse at 4. 1:29.
Goes into Attics of My Life, Sugar Magnolia and St. Stephen.

This is a renowned show despite the quality of the recording. This begins rather brashly, it seems, although audience recordings have a tendency to skew that way. Garcia and Weir lock into a funky little thing at around 1:30, and then Jerry goes spinning up into the stratosphere. Lesh and Weir keep up a perky counterpoint throughout the early innings, and when Garcia gets more ruminative Weir keeps him honest with some chunky riffing. There’s a stirring peak at 3:45 which leads into the main theme. It’s notable that the theme is not really even hinted at prior to then, in contrast to several recent Dark Stars.

They wander away from the theme, and as we cross the 5 minute Rubicon there is a little dip in intensity that sets them up for a wind-up that takes us back to the theme by 6:11. This time it leads into the verse. The post-verse space demonstrates that Mickey has found his gongs; at 8:42 someone in the audience is heard to remark “Oh, my God!” Relief is on the horizon, however, as the band goes into Attics of My Life after a couple minutes of space.

As Attics ends the band gets right back into Dark Star. They start out playing the main chord pattern, and it evolves into a vigorous jam, with Weir again playing chunky chords. It is possible to see Attics as a proxy for space here, and now we’re heading into the middle jam. It’s a rather full tilt affair, with Garcia howling and driving as he starts to whip up Bright Star already at 2. 2:30. Before he’s done, Weir is already cooking up Soulful Strut. By around 2. 5:00 this has gotten really intense, as they reach a polyphonic peak, and after a little dip they bring it back up again by 2: 5:50. Garcia unleashes some crazy runs at about 6:35 before they go into Feelin’ Groovy. This is tracked as Sugar Magnolia, and after 30 seconds they go into the latter.

Sugar Magnolia transforms into a jam which isn’t clearly Dark Star at first; once again, the change comes about 30 seconds into the track, when Garcia returns to Bright Star. This settles down into the main theme, and then the second verse takes us out.

This Port Chester show sees the band playing ferociously, and the Dark Star here, while it may not be very exploratory, spread as it is among various segues, is a hot one. The playing is downright vicious at times. Not to be missed.


What was said:

104: 1970-05-24

6481 Newcastle, UK 21:26
Main theme at 4:22.
First verse at 5:27.
Sputnik at 11:13.
Soulful Strut at 14:39.
Bright Star at 19:20.
Main theme at 19:36.
Second verse at 19:54.
Goes into St. Stephen.

This comes on fast and furious as they waste no time in getting into a groove, and by 1:25 Garcia has already ascended to the heights and unleashed a variant of Bright Star. From here the intro seems to be all peak. At 3:34, Garcia starts hammering on a dominant 7th (G) and Lesh, and then Weir, double him. The recording goes off a bit shortly thereafter, but everything is still audible in any case. The band swings into the theme, and then takes it way down for a while before Garcia finally sings the verse.

The band gets kind of crazy in the little section between the return of the intro theme and space, with some feedback squalls beginning before we get to the space proper, which proves to be a rather feedbacky affair overall. Weir, I think, yells “Hey, watch where you’re going, ****er!” as space gets underway; I wonder whom he is addressing. Someone has an amp humming, whether intentionally or not, which kind of ties the space together this time. The band seems to rediscover the possibilities of feedback here; in lieu of a keyboard player, they get a good variety of sounds going tonight.

At about 11:13 Garcia initiates something along the lines of Sputnik, and this gets more Sputnik-like as it goes. As this turns into a more quotidian Dark Star jam, Lesh sounds really fuzzy, and one wonders if an amp has been blown. At about 13:20 Weir is laying in some dreamy Sputnikish stuff under Garcia’s line, which soon turns to a funkier chop. Just before 14 minutes it seems like they’re angling toward a modular jam, and a two-chord pattern emerges which suggests Soulful Strut, although without the Soulful Strut cadence at first. It sounds a bit like the pattern used in the famous Beautiful Jam of 1971-02-18, which is itself probably some kind of variant of Soulful Strut.

At 14:39 they fully commit to Soulful Strut. This turns into a magnificent version. At about 17:40 they start moving into something else, but it’s not clear what that is; it becomes a bubbly jam, then pedals along between a I and a vii chord until at 18:50 Weir starts playing his Dancin’ in the Street lick. Finally, at 19:20 Garcia plays Bright Star, but he almost immediately switches to the main theme and brings us to the second verse.

This isn’t the best Dark Star I’ve ever heard, but it isn’t chopped liver. There is a rather magnificent Soulful Strut, and some interesting interstices where possibilities seem to gather, although they don’t get explored very patiently. In any case, there’s nothing here to complain about!


What was said:

103. 1970-05-15

youtube Fillmore East 19:40
Main theme at :05 and 2:46.
First verse at 3:05.
Feelin’ Groovy at 15:14.
Bright Star at 17:13.
Main theme at 17:45.
Second verse at 17:58.
Goes into St. Stephen.

The obvious step finally taken, this Dark Star begins with the main theme straight off. It has been interesting to watch the development of the intro jam—after the very early versions, it seemed to be straying farther out for a while; lately, however, it’s been increasingly pegged to the theme. This isn’t to say that it has gone back to basics; rather, I am tempted to say that the theme has returned in sublated form, as in the third stage of a Hegelian dialectic. I shall resist this temptation, however—while it would be an illuminating remark, all it would really bring to light is the fact that I have at least skimmed the Wikipedia entry on Hegel. What I really mean to say is that the intro has not been stripped back, but it seems to have been decided that the theme will serve as both the backbone and as a constant touchstone that keeps the band closer to home in the early going. They have not abandoned all exploration, but they don’t stray too far from home ground in most of the recent renditions.

The band sounds confident, and they are mostly content with the two-chord pattern here. This lovely intro is entirely a rumination on the song structure, and Garcia touches on the verse melody at :40, 1:57, and 2:30. Although they do not crash into the E minor, they strongly suggest it after the second of these. They go to the verse rather early here, without ever really wandering out, and yet if this jam is in a way basic, it is nevertheless masterful—sometimes it is sufficient to play beautifully and well (is it always sufficient? Maybe not, but it would be difficult to think of a counter-example!).

They have gotten extremely good at subtracting most of the music as they initiate the space section. Although they do not even keep a pulse going, they still manage to maintain an almost uncanny momentum during these quiet sections. Tonight, as more sounds start to enter space it feels like an organic progression. This segment is brief tonight, however; at 8:34, Garcia starts a rolling lead that serves as a de facto Sputnik, although this time what he plays is not the Sputnik pattern.

At 9:24 Garcia strongly asserts the A as though they’re going to the main theme, but he soon adverts to a more Sputnik-like series, although this also doesn’t last long, with the guitar moving back to a more classic Dark Star lead. Weir starts up a chunky but gentle palm muted rhythm that pushes into the middle jam. The drummers back this with insistent percussion at first, but they avoid the kits as the band chimes and bounces without quite breaking out.

At 12:34 Garcia lays in some Sputnik-y rolls; the theme of this jam seems to be a blend of Sputnik and a straightforward Dark Star jam. At 13:00 Jerry breaks out a double time Sputnik, but he then moves almost immediately to the stabbing that sometimes comes at the end of this section. Weir joins in, but they calm down again quickly; at 13:49 Garcia quotes the main theme, reminding us of the other pole of this jam. The drums start to assert themselves and the jam picks up steam, but as the music intensifies the light and airy mood is somehow maintained. At 15:14 Weir—taking a hint, I think, from Garcia—seamlessly moves them into Feelin’ Groovy.

Like last time (04-24), this starts to sound more like an UJB jam than Feelin’ Groovy—enough so that I am not sure how to tag it, since the band sidesteps out of it almost immediately thereafter. There is a moment of hovering, and then—beautifully, inevitably—Garcia climbs, and a Bright Star is born. The band sounds great throughout, and the ensuing tempo reduction seems to be a matter of consensus. Garcia sings wonderfully, and Dark Star comes to a close again.

Although in some ways this could be considered a conservative rendition, it is nevertheless a tour de force; to some extent, the impression of conservatism can be attributed to how skillfully they navigate the transitions, and to how seamlessly the parts fit together. Ideas don’t seem to be lacking, even if not many new ones are proposed; the band sounds inspired, reveling in the structures that at other times they take pleasure in subverting. The clarity of the recording certainly doesn’t hurt, as the splendor of the playing and singing is rendered in full color here. All in all, this is a beautiful Dark Star.


What was said:

102. 1970-05-08

32056 SUNY Delhi 18:05 (the beginning is cut).
Main theme at :45.
First verse at 1:14.
Sputnik at 7:30.
Soulful Strut at 11:10.
Feelin' Groovy at 16:00.
Goes into Dancing in the Streets.

This is a truly horrible recording. Much of it sounds like a piano accompanied by a tuba. Since the Grateful Dead at this point included neither of these instruments, one has to question the fidelity of this recording.

There is a certain amount of charm to the screeching, roaring and howling space section, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say the experience is enhanced by the nature of this recording. This does seem like it was probably one heck of a space, in any case. It ends with a Sputnik; this time, it seems like a little more of a traditional Sputnik than we’ve been getting lately.

At around 9 Minutes we seem to be back in a more traditional Dark Star type jam, as it seems like Weir and Lesh are playing a main theme kind of pattern. Garcia seems to be playing a kind of rolling pattern in various places that has an odd effect, as the tape picks up his high notes in a way that makes them sound much different from his lower sounds, so he sometimes sounds like two different people.

They work their way into a Soulful Strut jam. This gets kind of hypnotic if you bend your ear to the murk. 14:20 is a good example, if you listen for a few seconds, of how when Garcia changes registers the sound seems to come from somewhere else—an interesting artifact of the recording, I suppose.

At around 16:00 the jam changes. JSegel has been callin Feelin’ Groovy a UJB jam, but this time that is what it sounds like to me here. It is possible that the recording is fooling me and I can’t adequately discern the chord pattern, however. In any case, at least for now I’m going to call this a UJB jam.

A few seconds before the end of the track the band shifts into Dancing in the Streets, and Dark Star ends without a second verse.

I don’t have anything more to say about this—it was difficult to get through. Probably a good version, but anyone not doing a project like this one should not feel obliged to listen to this.


What was said:

101. 1970-04-24 (possibly 4-23)

19531 Denver 24:39
Main theme at :30, :50, 1:32, and 6:05.
First verse at 6:34.
Sputnik at 11:05.
Feelin’ Groovy at 13:01.
Soulful Strut at 13:54.
Bright Star at 22:05.
Main theme at 22:30.
Second verse at 23:03.
Goes into St. Stephen.

The sound quality of this aud leaves much to be desired. The band cranks along convincingly on the intro jam, with some visits to the main theme punctuating the proceedings. Garcia, who is once again playing an SG, sounds really great here. There is a quite majestic feel to the playing here, and there is a sense of bobbing along on some effective swells and peaks in a continuously flow of sound. There is a particularly rousing peak before the drop into the main theme just prior to the verse.

Once again there is a good patch of near-silence at the beginning of space, which is a particularly unique and effective strategy in the Dark Stars of this era. At 9:30, we find that the return of the SG also has brought us the return of the insect weirdness, which seems to lend credence to JSegel’s theory that he is playing behind the bridge in a way he cannot do on a Stratocaster. Space proceeds very quietly until, at 11:05, there are adumbrations of Sputnik. This is sort of a Sputnik and sort of not, as is often the case these days; I guess it can’t hurt to list it. It soon turns into a more ordinary line from Garcia; Lesh dips into Feelin’ Groovy at 12:40, and after a little dithering that’s where it winds up going, and then it works its way over to Soulful Strut.

They play the heck out of this one, and Garcia sounds magnificent on the SG (or at least, given the quality of the recording, he sounds like he sounds magnificent). By around the 16 point Soulful Strut seems to be winding down, but they crank it back up to a crescendo. Finally at around 17:20 Garcia lets out a flurry of notes that bring Soulful Strut to a close.

He then plays some double stop riffs, and it’s not clear exactly what’s going on here, but it seems like something different. It starts to take the rhythm of Feelin’ Groovy, more or less, but with different chords. At 19:05 Lesh starts playing Feelin’ Groovy, but Garcia keeps shifting up a fourth and throwing it into disarray. Lesh lets out a final flourish of Feelin’ Groovy chords when Garcia stops. At about 20 minutes, they shift back into a Dark Star pattern. This then changes into some 5-beat arpeggios, and then back into a hard charging jam that again dips into a Feelin’ Groovy kind of beat before veering into a Bright Star-like peak; then they take it over the top into Bright Star, drop down into the main theme and head to the verse.

This is a remarkable version. The jamming after Soulful Strut is rather unique, and at times it’s hard to discern what they’re doing. At times, once again, the cadence of this section reminded me of Run for the Roses. The final peak is brutal, devastating. The sound is terrible, though.


What was said:

100. 1970-03-24 (possibly 03-23)

32054 Florida 13:50 (13:42)
Main theme at 1:35.
Feelin’ Groovy at 9:32.
Bright Star at 10:45.
Goes into The Other One.

A snappy intro is played here with confidence. The main theme is visited early, and as usual they seem to be hovering around it in this section. From about 3:00 the band slides into a remarkable jam. Weir is playing some high counterpoint, which contributes to the unique flavor here. It comes to a head about a minute later, and then they dip into a kind of Sputnik-y region to regroup. Unfortunately, there is a cut at 4:55, and we are cast forward into the post-verse space.

Space, which again seems a little disjointed tonight, turns into a kind of gentle noodling as ordinary sonorities reassert themselves. When it comes together at around 7:30 it seems like Soulful Strut is in the offing. The band starts pedaling in a repetitious pattern, which sometimes suggests they’re getting ready to play a modular jam. However, they stay with what they’re doing for a while; Garcia starts a frenzied high solo at 9:00, and then he breaks into Bright Star at about 9:12, although it’s more of a quote, and he goes on to quote the main theme at 9:24 before the band kicks into Feelin’ Groovy at 9:32.

They don’t stay with Feelin’ Groovy for long, and soon Garcia is again weaving his solo around the Bright Star pattern. There is quite a peak here before the band brings it down again. As we reach the 12 minute mark it almost sounds like Garcia is pushing toward Cosmic Charlie for a moment or two, and there is a Sputnik pattern at the end before the band shifts into The Other One (without an intervening Cryptical Envelopment).

The playing is really great at times, and the jam after space is pretty vicious. Although the intro is cut what’s here of that is also really good. This is a nice piece of music that is sadly incomplete; in any case, it seems like the band is on a roll with Dark Star at this point.


What was said:

99. 1970-02-14

97644 Fillmore East 23:37
Main theme at 4:08.
First verse at 4:34.
Sputnik at 15:18.
Bright Star at 19:49.
Feelin’ Groovy tease at 17:33, jam at 20:50.
Main theme at 21:32.
Second verse at 21:50.
Goes into St. Stephen.

Whatever magic they conjured the day before still seems present here, from the beginning. The band really sounds fully operational as a polyphonic unit, and Garcia’s playing is gorgeous. It doesn’t hurt that the recording sounds really good, of course. While the theme is still the organizing principle of the opening jam, it seems more latent this time, until 4:08 when it slips right in without fanfare; from here, we move almost immediately to the verse.

There is a longer than usual pre-space build-up after the verse. This breaks down and various noises are assayed before the familiar descent into silence ushers us into the expected space section. There is some feedback, and Garcia starts gently tolling; then the string players allow themselves some real weirdness for a while. This winds its way toward a Garcia-Weir duet of twirling volume knobs. Space never builds to anything less fragmentary; rather, at around 11:00 they start to venture out of it, quickly throwing together cooking little two-chord jam.

At about 12:30 Garcia starts inserting some odd notes, and the jam is building in intensity. They cut back for a bit though, and then build it up again—although the dynamics aren’t as volatile as they were in mid-1969, they still seldom describe an entirely linear progression. so there are peaks and valleys throughout this section.

At 15:18 Garcia starts playing a Sputnik pattern, and they stay with it for a while, in what proves to be a beautiful segment of music. This winds up in a freer jam; Lesh states the Feelin’ Groovy theme at 17:33, but they do not follow through on this. Instead they keep building the jam until Garcia bursts into Bright Star at 19:49. Despite this, it still doesn’t really sound like a Dark Star jam, and they revert to the earlier two-chord pattern before finally (unexpectedly) striking up Feelin’ Groovy at 20:50. This twists out of Feelin’ Groovy and into a peak that gives way to an emphatic rendering of the main theme which brings us to the second verse.

This is another outstanding rendition. The jamming sort of revolves around several themes while rarely committing to any of them for long (Dark Star, Sputnik, Feelin’ Groovy). The band sounds great here, in full possession of Grateful Dead Power.


What was said:

98. 1970-02-13

youtube Fillmore East 29:31
Main theme at 3:40 and 8:38.
First verse at 9:00.
Feelin’ Groovy at 18:19.
Bright Star at 24:15 and 25:08.
Main theme at 27:08.
Second verse at 27:48.

The trend of playing an introduction rather closely based on the Dark Star theme continues. Garcia scatters allusions to the main theme and Bright Star throughout the early going. Every time the music strays away, it comes back in a way that seems to refer to the theme. The brighter, snappy tone is back from last time. Everything seems to pop tonight, and Garcia is particularly inspired, with a broader than usual palette.

At 5:54 Garcia bends a major 7th and launches into the verse melody—sort of. The main ingredients of Dark Star are alluded to, more than stated, until finally at 8:38 Garcia launches the theme. This is rightly treated as a denouement of sorts, as the first verse follows right on its heels. The verse is delivered very gently tonight, and we still have not heard very much in the way of drumming.

There is a nice little flourish after the verse that starts to veer into E minor, which sends us into space. This time the band exploits to the fullest their ability to take it down to almost nothing without destroying the consistency of the piece. As it builds back up, it gets melodic almost immediately this time, then decoheres into another minimalist backwater. Then at 14:52, Garcia starts spinning the line that will lead them into the middle jam, and Lesh and Weir soon join him. Now there are drums. Weir starts playing a funky rhythm and the jam emerges.

By around 17:00 another pattern has emerged, something vaguely Latin, and maybe a little menacing. Unexpectedly, Lesh lays in a bouncy line as Garcia and Weir turn up the intensity. Jerry’s line starting at 18:03 is harsh and keening…but suddenly Feelin’ Groovy is in the offing, and Weir officially starts it at 18:19. At 19:30 this gets oozy and hazy, and the Feelin’ Groovy pattern is lost as another distinctive jam takes its place, with Garcia as the instigator this time. This is one of the greatest instances of a thematic jam that is not (apparently) based on a pre-given theme, and they hang on to it until it’s no longer needed.

A little after the 22 minute line we find the band seemingly driving back toward Dark Star, with Weir trilling along beside Garcia as it comes to a peak. Then at 22:29, they step back and Garcia starts playing a Sputnik-type pattern, although it is sufficiently altered that I haven’t listed it as Sputnik. This comes to a head at 23:27 when Garcia starts pushing in the direction of Bright Star, bringing the band back into a Dark Star pattern. The music marches triumphantly toward its conclusion, and there is a little peak, then a retrenchment, a little more Bright Star, and a theme section where Garcia plays an ever intensifying pattern and we are brought to another peak. At 26:35, Garcia flips to the bridge pickup and spins some astonishing lines as the band takes it over the top. When the theme comes at 27:08 it is played ferociously a few times, then they bring it down and head to the verse.

It is not hard to understand why this is seen as a career highlight. The band is completely masterful here, without a wrong or even tentative step to be found at any point. As Dark Star develops, it (perhaps necessarily) goes through periods of exploration where the execution is not always entirely convincing. This is not one of those—everything they’ve learned to do is on full display, and executed with confident abandon. Certainly a watershed Dark Star.


What was said:

97. 1970-02-11

99154 Fillmore East 25:59 (Dark Star 16:19>Spanish Jam 9:40)
Main theme at 7:05.
Goes into Turn On Your Lovelight.


Peter Green and Duane Allman reportedly sat in here. Garcia sounds different at the beginning here, with a new, very forward bright and trebly sound to his playing. Weir is very active in the early going, and Lesh is likewise aggressive—the band is bubbling like crazy. At 2:20 it sounds like at least one other guitar starts to join in, which I am guessing is Duane Allman, although it’s hard to tell for sure. This doesn’t go entirely smoothly, so Lesh soon adverts to the main theme, and they start to get it together.

A little while after the 4 minute mark it seems like there’s another guitarist getting involved, although three is probably the maximum number of guitarists I can keep track of, so it’s hard to say for sure. By 5:30 things come down to almost nothing, and again Phil starts playing the theme to bring everyone back together. At 6:25 someone (Peter Green?) is playing a haunting, bluesy lead while the rest of the band runs though the theme. At about 6:47 the source switches to an audience recording, which doesn’t sound nearly as good as the soundboard, but the latter is back by 7:52.

Between 8 and 9 minutes the music eases into a kind of slow shuffle. It doesn’t seem like it’s really going anywhere in particular, everyone just grooves along. A new pattern emerges at about 9:30, as Lesh starts playing a bluesy thing on the bass and the band responds. As this subsides, all the guitar players seem tentative, as if feeling each other out. Garcia plays a lot of high chordal stuff, leaving room for others to assert themselves, but they don’t really do so until at about 12:15 another pattern starts to emerge which sounds like a stereotypically 1960s blues-rock jam. This builds in intensity, as everyone seems focused on building grooves rather than the kind of exploration we might encounter if this were just the usual lineup.

This part gets really good, though; one of the guitar players, who seems not to be adequately amplified, starts trading fours with Garcia, and seems to be doing a rather good, if insufficiently audible, job. Pigpen starts to lay on some really nice organ, and the whole thing really gets pumping, at which point Weir steps out a bit, as this sort of groove music is certainly his forte.

Spanish Jam, led by Weir, comes in so suddenly that it seems there might be a cut. The extra hands are an asset in this bit, as they get the idea and put their shoulders to the wheel. Much of the lead playing, apart from Garcia, seems mostly ornamental. Again, the latter trades lines with someone who should be louder, and the band kicks up a fuss. At about 3:20 things are really pumping along, and everyone is being rather assertive.

As we approach the four minute mark, Lesh starts to get fancy, and then Weir takes the lead, with one of the guests doubling him. Garcia is not really audible here, so it gives us a chance to hear some of the other stuff that’s going on. Then there’s a pretty extended stretch with this other guitarist in the lead. At 6:58 Pigpen takes over for a little while, and once again it is nice to hear him back in the organ seat. Then at about 7:40 Garcia gets back in the driver’s seat and they build toward a peak. At about 8:30, someone in the left channel who is not Garcia takes the lead, and this is rather loud and effective. After about a minute the band starts to fall apart around him, though, and then they go into Lovelight.

All of this is very enjoyable, although the addition of guests is less than revelatory. Although the comparison is not really fair here, since they don’t have a lot of Dark Star experience under their belts, the other guitarists are notably reliant on grooves—in contrast to Garcia, their playing doesn’t really tell a story, and that is dispositive in the way this Dark Star plays out. It is a fun jam, but not essential, I don’t think.


What was said:

96. 1970-02-08

19152 Fillmore West 26:13
Bright Star at :48.
Main theme at 2:49, 3:32, and 6:07.
First verse at 6:25.
Bright Star at 21:10.
Main theme at 21:59.
Feelin’ Groovy/UJB at 22:40.
Main theme at 24:00/24:18.
Second verse at 24:30.
Goes into St. Stephen.

The recording here sounds kind of rough, but we can hear everything that’s going on. Garcia plucks around a little and almost immediately goes into a Bright Star variation, which seems close enough to the real thing to mark above. He then repeats the pattern on the bass strings, and then gets into some chordal lead stuff. There seems to be a clear trend lately of building the intro more explicitly around theme-like stuff, which can at times make the identification of waypoints a bit difficult. This one hews pretty closely to the basic song pattern until about 5 minutes in, when it starts to wander a little, but as usually happens lately, it’s reined in pretty quickly again.

When the band hits the theme again at 6:07, they take it almost immediately to the verse. This is a gong-heavy affair this time. Afterward, they seem to take a little longer than usual getting to space, but that’s where it heads, of course. Space is a rather percussive, noisy thing tonight, with lots of feedback. They forgo the descent into silence that often begins this section, making a lot of noise throughout. At 13:18, Garcia seems ready to start his line, and this time there is no hint of Sputnik. By 14:00, he is asserting himself more strongly, and the band starts coming out of it.

A moody, broody jam comes together, with hints at the Dark Star theme in the guitar throughout. We find ourselves at a bit after 16 minutes in a rather rocking jam that has at some point coalesced; again, there is no modular jam here, but a quite structured thing nonetheless. At around 17:45 there is a bit of pedaling which often suggests the advent of a module, but they continue on with a kind of boogie thing that seems to have no recognizable pedigree. At 18:45 it starts to sound like Dark Star again; recent history would suggest we are heading toward the denouement, but here we have 7 minute to go.

Garcia starts winding up Bright Star and the band kicks up behind him. Instead of Bright Star, though, a little after 20 minutes the band sounds like its firing up The Other One. This continues until 21:10, when they swing back into an obvious Dark Star groove, with Garcia again suggesting Bright Star, which this time he follows through on, until it takes us into the main theme. The band gets funkier with this and then, unexpectedly, they swing into a Feelin’ Groovy jam that this time starts to sound more like Uncle John’s Band before Garcia starts to superpose the main theme on it, to which the band soon acquiesces. This brings us to the second verse, and the end of the song.

This is a really interesting version. The jamming here is fluid, and the band seems locked in and capable of unexpected permutations. A lot happens in this one.


What was said:

95. 1970-02-02

121042 St. Louis 21:52
Main theme at 1:13, 1:47, 4:10 and 5:10.
First verse at 5:22.
Feelin’ Groovy at 12:48.
Main theme at 18:57.
Second verse at 20:09.
Goes into St. Stephen.

The first Dark Star without TC starts rather smoothly, with Weir playing some chiming chords while Lesh asserts himself. Garcia comes in with some lovely lines to get the whole ensemble going, quoting the theme at 1:13 and 1:47, which continues the trend lately of building the intro jam around the theme. A little after two minutes sees the band changing the tonality, as they go into a jam that seems to have a major 7 feel. Garcia is magisterial here, playing with a lot of authority, although it may have been Weir who was responsible for determining this jam’s direction. Garcia revisits the theme at the end of this section, then they briefly set off again before returning to the theme and the verse.

After a brief flourish, they take the customary journey to space to follow the verse. Once again they bring the music down to almost nothing, and start to build from there. At 9:02, the sound of an organ emerges, as it seems that Pigpen has reclaimed his seat. Space seems an odd place for him to assert himself, given all that’s been said about his aversion to free form stuff.

At 10:24 Garcia starts fiddling away on a line that seems to be leading out of space. Here is where we would have had Sputnik lately, but he adopts a different strategy this time. The jam takes on a hovering, ostinato quality that sometimes presages the appearance of a modular jam (usually Feelin’ Groovy), but then they start to build it up, and at 12:45 Garcia starts flashing Sputnik; shortly thereafter, they start up Feelin’ Groovy after all. As is often the case, they don’t hew too closely to the structure, so that it’s not entirely clear at what point they leave the jam behind, but in all it’s relatively brief, and we wind up in a wonderful polyphonic jam of utter Grateful Deadness.

At 15:23 Sputnik again seems to loom on the horizon for a few moments; then at 15:45 Garcia goes into something quite like Sputnik, but it’s going somewhere else. Pigpen again is piping in at about 16:15…he’s not a huge factor, but he’s making sure to get his 2 cents in. The band sounds patient but fully engaged, as the playing is dynamic and creative. The jam starts to build from about 18:00, and soon Garcia is strongly hinting at Bright Star, but he’s got too much to say to go there, and at 18:57 he kicks off a series that plays off the theme with lots of variations along the way. When he finally commits to the theme, the band drives to a peak which barely starts to settle down when Garcia drops in the verse.

This could have gone on longer, but every moment is magic. In my estimation, this is absolutely a top drawer Dark Star of this era. The band really has it here.


What was said:


JSegel:


Nice recording. Directly into a rolling jam right after the intro riff, Jerry and Phil cruising over a sharp chordal set from Bobby. Leisurely entry into the theme and after-theme jamming and back to it stronger to crest the wave and get somewhere else, landing on a new chord area after a couple minutes, coming back with some open strings to emphasize the A again. At 3 min, some bright tone, Stratocaster lead pickup. You can hear bleed from the amps into the vocal mics, like a reverb. I hear the organ! Gotta be Pigpen again now? He’s playing some long tones.

Nice little tidepools before getting to the theme again and lining it up for the verse. But a little waterfall pool gets in the way before the long slide up to the A and theme and into the verse

Verse 1 at about 5:30, beautiful rendering. It gets very delicate over lines two and three, minor noodling on line three. Counterpoint outro, then a climb to outside notes, the cymbals and Bob’s chords come in and fade into a cymbal bell tolling and soft feedbacks and hits begin. Space is vast. Phil has some odd struck notes, the feedback is atonal. An organ riff into a brief note! Rubbing strings with things, rocking something on the strings, probably a slide. Pedal tones from the bass.

Jerry comes in with some lead playing instead of a sputnik plucking, delicately at first, with no steady rhythm section, they start to build it up from nothing, eventually side stick drums come in to give it a pulse. Bob is playing around with the F# and how it fits in the chords, and then changing that to an F natural before hitting the Feeling Groovy chord progression at 13 minutes, but they have a very relaxed groove for it this evening. It only last a minute or so, then breaks down and out of the break Phil starts a slow Dark Star groove area. This goes on toward a new minor key sounding area that has some arpeggiating similar to sputnik but not quite. Relaxed jamming follows with occasional references to the theme starts. Jerry is playing some nice runs this evening and the band has their ears on doing some on-the-spot creative improvising. Brand new music creation. By the time it builds to a Bright Star-like area at 18:30, the groove is very different than normal, and slowed down, almost latin-groove, the actual Bright Star theme statement at 19 is really drawn out, and then when that wave breaks and they get back to the theme it’s really slowly stated but with an underlying intensity, then suddenly an immediate verse 2, with the side stick drums still playing for the first line, dropping to cymbals for a stately Line 2, drums come back in for line three at this tempo, it’s very sort of “swingin’” in a mellow sort of way. The chorus comes in with not the greatest harmonies, outro counterpoint goes on to the chords before St Stephen and people clap at its first notes.


Nice playing all around, I (still) like Pigpen on organ! The Soulful Strut groove it gets into in the second half is funny, it always reminds me of swingin’ 60s bachelor pad Latin music with the sidestick drums and especially with this evening’s rather slower pulse. It’s almost the same groove as the really early iterations, when it was almost proto-Eyes of the World, but it seems like lately he’s only using one Maj7 chord instead of two.


Dahabenzapple:


One of my all-time favorite Stars - and the whole show (albeit very short as for a number of reasons the boys didn’t start until well after 10:00) is incredible. Found on Dave’s 6.


Mr. Rain:


Gets off to a light & limber start. Just the guitars & guiro...I wonder if they felt more freedom without TC chirping around on the organ. But wait...there is an organ here! Pigpen's playing faint drones in the back.... I suppose the Dead didn't even bother recording the organ at this show, so Pigpen usually only shows up in quiet moments in this Dark Star; it would be nice to hear what he's doing.
Anyway, they're digging into this opening jam, great trance-Dead. They're doing their normal opening pattern of theme > drift away > theme > etc. At 4:10 they fake us into thinking the verse is coming, but Jerry wants to float around a little more before he commits to it a minute later.

Space opens up with the rumbling bass, and the customary journey through silence & emptiness. Little noises become big noises; there's a lot of feedback presence but it doesn't get very loud, just droney. Pigpen's doing his best creepy-TC imitation. Phil seems maybe a little impatient to get going, boom-BOOM!
Jerry introduces the jam with a new line....usually he's been doing Sputnik in this spot, but not here. Phil & Bob join him but they're keeping it loose & wide-open, not heading in a specific direction. Bill adds a beat and Bob's chords get more firm as the jam builds up and gets more rhythmic. A surprising moment at 12:40 when Jerry teases Sputnik on top of an organ drone, but it passes immediately when Bob pushes Feelin' Groovy instead. So they do a nice, groovy version, which doesn't last long, they end it pretty clearly after 13:50.

The next 30 seconds remind me strongly of 2/18/71's Beautiful Jam, but Jerry takes them through some other twists & turns. Quite a winding journey follows, not really heading anywhere, kind of mellow & intense at the same time. Around 18:10 Jerry starts keening for Bright Star but they're already at full peak; it kind of arrives at 18:40 but quickly switches to a very intense playing of the theme. (A last flash of the organ at 19:15.) Then they quiet down and boom, a beautiful performance of the theme which shades briefly into Bright Star and a final run that Jerry uses as a runway to a quick final theme & verse. Very smooth timing!
It sounds like Pigpen's trying to play along with the climbing outro. Big cheer for St. Stephen; by now audiences were familiar with the Live/Dead album.
A good one, friendly and fast-moving -- they're flowing together & in the zone.


adamos:


Nice vibe right from the start. Phil is prominent and going to work; Jerry’s tone has a bit of edge and Bob is strumming some jangly chords. Jerry heads out on a dreamy line and there’s a floating feel to the collective playing. They get some momentum going into the theme but then ease up right after which sounds really nice. They’re cruising along again and there’s a certain beauty to the jam. Jerry’s varying between edgier and dreamier lines. There’s sharpness and rev and yet also delicateness. It’s really a lovely opening. Parts of it feel a little Beautiful Jam-ish and I see that Mr. Rain mentioned that about a later moment. They return to the theme at 4:10 and slow it down again and the dreamy quality is back. After a minute they come back to it again and then move on to the first verse.

After the verse there’s a bit of a flourish and then they dissolve it into space. A little feedback, some jangly chimes and subtle bell tolls and general weirdness. Things get pretty quiet which allows for some freaky sounds to rise up. Some vibrating guitar, a touch of organ (hello Pig!) and scraping and other insect-y stuff. Phil hits some low vibrating notes. It quiets down again and Jerry starts a pretty line out, initially accompanied by a cricket-like keyboard sound that fades away.

Jerry works the wandering line and a collective jam starts to form; it’s loose and noncommittal but with a pretty feel. It starts to gently build and works into a more energetic groove with forceful rhythm from Bob. There are touches of Sputnik but they opt to shift into Feelin’ Groovy instead. It is indeed groovy and melodic and a little ragged and raspy too. It’s also fairly brief as they transition back into a more open jam before too long. The jam has a pretty feel and starts to get a bit more Dark Star-ish but still its own thing. Some Sputnik-esque sounds enter the picture again but it too is its own thing, becoming lower and deeper and revving and then higher and biting and also kind of dreamy. Really nice passage.

The jam continues on, taking its time. Bill is adding some nice subtle work in the background. Jerry winds through corridors with Phil and Bob interweaving and by 17:50 things are building and it feels like Bright Star is imminent. But the ascent goes another way and it’s sort of Bright Star-ish but not exactly and then they burst forth into variations of the main theme, screaming out into the night with fuzz and ferocity. Powerful stuff! They ease up and work around the theme a bit more with some nice climbing flourishes before quickly shifting into the second verse.

A wonderful Dark Star with some uniqueness in places.

94. 1970-01-23

youtube Honolulu 18:43
Main theme at 1:02 and 3:31.
First verse at 4:31.
Sputnik at 9:27.
Bright Star at 15:20.
Main theme at 16:14.
Second verse at 17:06.
Goes into St. Stephen.

TC's final Dark Star. This sounds good, save that TC is rather low in the mix. Garcia again visits the main theme very early here, after about a minute, and once again the introductory jam seems to be organized around the theme. After around 2:30 there’s an interesting bit where the band plays the theme while Jerry hovers around with the volume knob; he then plays a few lines before joining in. This gets us to the verse.

There is a minute or two of sort of intense brooding after the verse, but by 6:29 the band brings it down to almost nothing, as is their wont of late. After a minute or so a surf of cymbals approaches high tide and then recedes. The band seems to pull some new spacey sounds out of their toolbox this time, and space gets wonderfully bizarre. At 9:27 you can hear Garcia firing up Sputnik, as is to be expected at this point. This sort of organically transforms into a jam in such a way that the boundaries of Sputnik are not entirely clear—the band winds up in a two chord pattern that is a little bit like what would become Fire on the Mountain (or see the Watkins Glen “soundcheck”). There seems to be a small cut somewhere in here, but it doesn’t seem that much is missing.

A little after the 13 minute point it seems like they might be pushing toward Feelin’ Groovy, but instead we wind up with a pretty structured jam that remains its own thing. Toward the 15 minute mark it’s turning back into something that sounds like Dark Star, and the band is driving toward a peak as Garcia breaks into Bright Star. This plays out for a while and Garcia goes right into a very emphatic iteration of the theme. They slow it down appreciably before going to the verse, complete with off-key harmonies from Weir.

Once again Dark Star feels quite brief at 20 minutes. This is a nice version; it is probably not that noteworthy in the grand scheme of things, but there are far worse ways to spend 20 minutes of your life. With this, TC goes out on a reasonably high note.


What was said:

93. 1970-01-17

19283 Oregon 20:00
Main theme at :20 and 3:06
First verse at 3:41.
Sputnik at 9:35.
Feelin’ Groovy at 12:55.
Bright Star at 16:35.
Main theme at 17:50.
Second verse at 18:25.
Goes into St. Stephen.

After some brief preliminaries Garcia mentions the main theme very early here, at :20. The jamming sort of circles this for a while, in what will be a common strategy in the early part of Dark Star. Garcia’s lines seem especially classical in this introduction, and the band seems particularly mindful of the structure of the song; they take advantage of this strategy and build to a little peak at 1:59, with Garcia touching on Bright Star. From about 2:40 they depart from the structure, but this is brief and they come back to the main theme by 3:06. Surprisingly, they go right to the verse here after a relatively brief intro.

The post-verse descent into space is quite the expected thing at this point. Again tonight they take it down to almost nothing, and then weirdness starts to poke through. They fluctuate dynamically between intense swells and quieter sections. It strikes me that they are getting very good at this, and the post-verse space is often one of the most engaging parts of the performance.

The egress from space again begins when Garcia starts playing Sputnik at 9:35. Like last time, this again departs from Sputnik as we’ve known it, but it holds its structure long enough that I’ve counted it this time. It is relatively brief, however, as Garcia starts playing an insistent line that leads them into the middle jam proper. By 12:45 this seems to be angling toward Feelin’ Groovy and it gets there a few seconds later, but it doesn’t stay there long, as the band soon varies the pattern again, never fully committing to the jam this time. Instead Lesh plays a figure that at times seems more related to the Dark Star theme but also kind of seems like it’s own thing. They leave it behind and circle back to it a few times, and Garcia also occasionally alludes to the theme in the course of this section and then, at 15:42, bursts into a kind of modified Bright Star.

At about 16:10 the band hits a nice peak, and they sustain it for a while, taking it even higher when Garcia finally commits to Bright Star at 16:35. They come down the other side into the main theme, and soon they are wrapping it up with the second verse.

This feels pretty succinct; 20 minutes isn’t that short by historical or even contemporary standards, but it all seems to go by in a flash. The jamming here is excellent—there are no weak points or moments of confusion; rather, the band seems confident and in command from beginning to end. The jam after space is particularly good here; they dip their toe into Feelin’ Groovy, but for the most part this isn’t organized around a modular section, but improvised on the spot. This is also the most fully realized part of the rendition, as they explore the possibilities of this particular jam at some length. In some ways this reminds me of a version from late Spring of 1969—confident and at times aggressive playing coupled with a willingness to move on quickly to the next idea. But when the dust has settled this one has not ranged that widely, since they hunker down into the last jam and let it play out. In summation, this is perhaps not an all-timer, but it is a truly excellent version nonetheless.


What was said:

92. 1970-01-02

youtube Fillmore East 29:57 (starts at 1:51:00 at link) (cuts at end of second verse)
Main theme at 1:57:34 (6:34).
First verse at 1:57:55 (6:55).
Feelin’ Groovy at 2:10:16 (19:16).
Sugar Magnolia jam at 2:12:00 (21:00).
Soulful Strut at 2:13:42 (22:42).
Main theme at 2:19:30 (28:30).
Falling Star at 2:19:47 (28:47).
Main theme at 2:20:04 (29:04).
Second verse at 2:20:33 (29:33).
Goes into St. Stephen.

Weir introduces this with “We’ll give you some easy listening music.” TS is still playing his new riff at the beginning, and he seems to have extra tremolo in his sound tonight. All the instrumentalists sound very clear and distinct on this recording. After hovering around the edge of the main theme for a while, at 1:54:14 (3:14) Lesh and Weir weave together, producing a spellbinding section of music which is regrettably brief. At 1:55:58 (4:58) Weir mirrors Garcia’s line and gives us another thrilling moment. Throughout there are hints of the theme and, at times, Sputnik. The band starts easing into the theme at 1:56:43 (5:43), although Garcia doesn’t play the main line, instead taking off again; he gestures toward Bright Star at 1:57:28 (6:28), and then finally swoops into the theme.

The band takes it down to almost nothing after the verse this time, with the wind chimes sounding alone at times. There is a little tolling from Garcia, a few swells from Lesh, TC noodles a little…but silence mostly reigns for a while; the band shows a lot of restraint and lets the space develop out of nothingness. More intense weirdness eventually bubbles out of this pool of silence, but it subsides again. This is a strange and awesome space. At 2:04:31 (13:31) Garcia starts quietly playing Sputnik licks; this has become the standard way to end this space segment lately, but he heads off in another direction with it this time, playing Sputnik-like rolls around a drone. It ends a lot like Sputnik, with a little crescendo, but this was not really a Sputnik.

At 2:07:35 (16:35) the band seems like they’re on their way back to mundane territory, but they’re still playing gently and with a lot of mutual sensitivity. By about 2:08:20 (17:20) they’ve gone back down to almost nothing. Garcia starts riffing as Weir quietly drones, and they start to come together. At 2:09:10 (18:10) the music is almost gone again; this time Lesh enters the breach, and they start hinting at the two-chord song pattern. At 2:09:42 (18:42) Lesh starts different two-chord pattern (IV-I) which seems designed to take us to Feelin’ Groovy, and the band responds. Feelin’ Groovy pops out at 2:10:16 (19:16), and as the band leans into it the contrast with what came before is striking.

At times Weir seems ready to launch into a lead again, although he doesn’t quite get the chance. Feelin’ Groovy seems to launch into a proto-Sugar Magnolia jam at 2:12:00 (21:00) (at times this almost sounds like Run for the Roses!). This winds down and at 2:13:42 (22:42) Weir strums a major 7th chord, signaling the start of Soulful Strut. This works itself into something quite glorious. By about 2:16:45 (25:45) or so it’s clear Garcia is going to cede the lead role to Weir again (see 1969-12-26), and the latter takes off; as he reaches the climax, Garcia joins him for a double lead. This is a section that has to be heard!

At about 2:18:50 (27:50) they down shift back into Dark Star territory proper. There is a nice little jam that hints at Bright Star, visits the main theme, culminates in the rare Falling Star, and then drops into the main theme again before heading to the verse.

This is a great version, there is no doubt. At times the band seems to founder a little, but there are so many thrilling moments that it has to be ranked very highly. And, once again, Bob Weir steps out on lead guitar!


What was said:

91: 1969-12-30

28469 Boston 19:23
Main theme at 6:39.
First verse at 7:04.
Sputnik at 12:40.
Main theme at
Second verse at
Tape cuts back in at Alligator.

Gong crashes send this off in a bracing manner. There is a kind of polyphonic madness that sets in early here. Garcia sounds extra trebly on the Strat, and there’s a little edge to everything. When we reach the three minute mark, there is a sudden downshift that could herald the theme, but it doesn’t this time; instead, we find ourselves on the edge of space. This is a rather nice section which never gets too far out, and it eventually congeals into a pretty jam before it finally arrives at the main theme at 6:39. This quickly goes to the verse, in which there is a small cut.

It doesn’t feel, after the preceding, like a big step into space tonight. This time there are some tinkling wind chimes, or anyway that is what they sound like, and TC swirls around a bit for good measure. This one is heavy on the weird-out factor in general, until some tendrils appear at around 11:30 that seem to herald a way out of the fog. The space intensifies, however, until Garcia starts a syncopated and delicate Sputnik at about 12:40.

Sputnik tonight builds into a bit of a clamor, and I found myself expecting the insect weirdness and verse melody to come through, but instead Jerry starts up a line that intersects with Lesh’s and leads us into the middle jam. Weir starts hinting at Feelin’ Groovy, but it is not going to happen yet; instead, there is a rather pretty and gentle jam that keeps itself fairly well reigned in. At 16:55, when things seem to be stalling, a light and lovely Feelin’ Groovy emerges. It isn’t long before this kind of disperses into a halfway state of sort-of Feelin’ Grooviness, and then they’re pushing toward some kind of transition to somewhere, but it cuts before we discover where…whether they ever sing the second verse cannot be now known. There is a pretty severe cut here which deposits us at the end of the sung part of Alligator.

This is nice, delicate, and pretty for much of its length. It’s always nice when Dark Star goes a bit off the beaten track. This is here not so much a matter of playing anything radically different; rather, it just has a kind of different feel this night. The band seems restrained, but they are playing well for the most part.


What was said:

90. 1969-12-26

28448 Dallas 24:00 (cut)
Main theme at 1:44, 4:14, and 5:51.
Verse melody at 4:56.
First verse at 6:10.
Sputnik at 10:43.
Feelin’ Groovy at 14:13.
Soulful Strut at 15:32.
Main theme at 22:00.
Second verse at 23:11.
Tape cuts back in at New Speedway Boogie.

The introduction is very pretty at the beginning here. Garcia is again hinting at a major key in tonight’s intro. There is a big windup for a while before they go to the theme at 1:44, and then they wander off again. At 3:00, Garcia, who is in top form tonight, checks in on Bright Star during a glorious passage that begins with some repetition, which he keeps returning to in between various flights of fancy. The music briefly veers toward space before we go back to the theme at 4:14. It really seems like it’s going to the verse, but instead Garcia quotes the melody while twiddling his volume knob; he kicks down to the e minor after, so I suppose it’s official. It just gets spacier from there before heading back to a very gently played theme and verse.

Lesh gets rather rambunctious coming out of the verse; he dominates the scene for a little while, but everything duly quietens into the by now expected space section. Tonight this is eerie and subdued; again, this section culminates in Sputnik. At 11:56 we’re heading out of Sputnik into the main jam, and it’s a pretty clean break, but the band is still feeling rather calm and patient.

At around 12:43 Lesh starts pedaling on one note, which sometimes means Feelin’ Groovy is coming. Instead, they increase the intensity of the jam a little and keep it going. Finally, at 14:13 Weir kicks into Feelin’ Groovy, Garcia follows, and Lesh eventually acquiesces. They return to a kind of pedaling thing intermittently throughout the jam, and it’s not clear that it has a set length; tonight, they don’t seem like they’re going back; by 14:50 there are intimations of Soulful Strut, which takes its time arriving but finally comes in at 15:32.

At 17:24 Weir takes the lead, and he really takes off! And it sounds pretty good! I don’t think Weir has ever played anything quite like this on a Dark Star. Garcia takes back over at around 18:32 with some chiming notes, and Soulful Strut putters out soon thereafter. At 19:14 Garcia starts flashing Bright Star, but this is not happening yet. They downshift, and then they are still streaming clouds of Soulful Strut after the 20 minute mark as they start to increase the intensity again. This time Garcia seems determined to take it into Bright Star or the main theme; it seems like the latter at 21:30 as he jerks back on the tempo—then, at 22:00, he fires it up again for the main theme, and then soon after the band pulls the tempo back again. Garcia throws in some flourishes here rather than going to the verse right away, but we get there.

There is a cut right at the end—it doesn’t take much off of Dark Star, but I’m not sure how quickly it returns, or if New Speedway Boogie was the next song.

Here we have a rendition that is often rather subdued, which is not a knock on it at all—it works very well. There is no really big crescendo, although they get it going a few times. The modular jams really dominate the second jam insofar as even when they’re not playing them, they seem to be heading toward or away from them in a recognizable way. All in all, a very strong outing. And, of course, I don’t mean to bury the lede: Bob Weir, Guitar Hero.


What was said: