32. 1969-02-04

7294 Omaha, NE 13:13

Main theme at 1:54, 2:33 and 3:06.
First verse at 3:38.
Verse melody at 7:17.
Sputnik at 7:53.
Bright Star at 10:07.
Main theme at 11:05.
Second verse at 11:45.
Goes into St. Stephen.


Weir seems a little louder than usual this time, which gives us a chance to examine his contributions a little more closely. There’s a nice bit from about 1:25 where all the instrumentalists are weaving together in a way that is quite busy but very euphonious, and what strikes me is how rapidly sections like this can come on, as the band is very mobile and light on their feet at this point. At 1:34 Garcia starts playing some licks that will appear again in future renditions, but for which we have no name. The first time the band hits the main theme, they play it for about 30 seconds and then Garcia spins off into something else; then they resume it at 2:33, and this time Garcia begins varying the theme itself before again taking off again; he then returns to the theme a third time before the verse. Garcia again follows the verse with the familiar lick from 1968. There follows a nice bit where Jerry is playing on the bass strings, and Weir’s chiming rhythm part is floating above him. For a good stretch Weir seems to be playing in a higher register than usual, although it’s possible he has been doing this more than I have noticed, as his guitar is notably audible and distinct on this recording. After the Sputnik, beginning at around 9:28, Weir joins Lesh, who has been flashing the main theme, in a percussive jam which gives this section a unique flavor, and this carries over into the bouncy Bright Star that follows. At 10:53 Garcia starts what will soon be indisputably the main theme; I’ve logged it as 11:05 above, but at times it’s ambiguous where the theme begins or ends, as their treatment of it is increasingly loose and discursive at the edges.

This feels like a fragment; at this point, they can really cram a 13 minute Dark Star full of ideas, and this one feels like it never fully develops into what it wants to be. Nevertheless, Dark Star is consistently engaging, and this is no exception.


What was said: 

31: 1969-02-02

123283 Minneapolis 15:38
Main theme at 2:03 and 3:10.
First verse at 4:44.
Verse melody at 9:05.
Sputnik at 10:06.
Bright Star (sort of) at 12:35.
Main theme at 13:02.
Second verse at 14:09.
Goes into St. Stephen.


Garcia again has a very bright tone and a pretty aggressive approach. Starting at :48 he ends a sequence of runs with a note that he holds for 16 seconds, letting it feed back. Weir and Lesh start the main theme at 2:01, and Garcia plays around with it a little. At 2:38 Garcia and Weir drop out briefly, and Lesh plays some legato lines before Garcia comes in and builds back up to the main theme. Instead of going to the verse they play around some more after this, and a nice crescendo is reached with a sort-of Bright Star theme at 4:02. At 4:13 Garcia drops the verse melody in (unofficially, as it were, as they don’t go to the E minor). After the verse, Garcia plays, once, the familiar verse outro from 1968. There’s an interesting bit at 6:09 where Garcia hangs on the minor third (C), before sliding up to the major third at 6:18 (C#, which is more usual here since Dark Star is most often based on A Mixolydian). At 7:09 Garcia plays a repeated figure on the bass strings that goes on for about 20 seconds before it starts spiraling upward; at 7:24 Weir starts trickling in with a co-lead, then at 7:40 he drops out as Garcia shoots up into a higher register. Things get pleasingly strange at 8:17 when everything grinds almost ot a halt, and then Garcia starts playing a repeated A that is like a bell tolling while Lesh plays lead for a while. The tension is discharged at 9:05 when Garcia plays the verse melody, this time with the familiar E minor payoff. They then build to a rousing crescendo, and you’d be forgiven for expecting Bright Star at 9:55, but instead they head into a Sputnik. TC seems to be on top of this, or maybe even an instigator, although it’s hard to tell as he is very low in the mix here. At 12:22 Lesh and Garcia are inverted for a moment, with the bass soaring above the guitar, and then at 12:35 there is a passage that’s about halfway between the main theme and Bright Star, and the main theme likewise arrives in a somewhat distorted form at 13:02 before settling in at 13:13. After this they start chugging away at the verse. But instead Garcia starts playing some chiming harmonics, very gently and beautifully, although it cannot be said that everyone is perfectly in tune at this point.


This is a fantastic rendition, and it seems to me to cover a lot of untrodden ground, although I suppose that is not entirely unusual at this point (and, as you will see, we don't have consensus about this!).




What was said:

30. 1969-01-26

109642 Avalon 9:38 (cut in the middle)

Main theme at 2:10.
Main theme at 3:15.
First verse at 4:03.
Second verse at 8:10.
Goes into St. Stephen.


The mix is more balanced this time, with TC more audible than usual, but not overbearing. Although he begins with the ROR, he’s not as wedded to it as Pigpen was, and again here he moves on from it after a few times through. Garcia comes out of the gate with some caffeinated, trebly lead work, and the band is very brisk and on top of the beat. Note from around 2:50, and again at 6:55 or so, how Weir mirrors and supports Garcia’s lead, as his playing continues to grow more imaginative and flexible, and this expands Dark Star’s horizon of possibilities dramatically. There is a nice peak at around 7:15, after a nimble build-up by Garcia, and note how from about 7:23 Garcia, Lesh, Weir and TC are all locked in together as they weave their way to another little peak, with some pleasingly off-key notes from Garcia to cap it off. There is a cut just before the second verse, but it seems like they were headed toward the verse already when it cuts. This one is very short, and probably not all that noteworthy overall, although there are certainly points of interest.


What was said:

29. 1969-01-25

109641 Avalon 14:06


Bright Star at 2:09.
Main theme at 3:00.
First verse at 3:35.
Verse melody at 6:32.
Sputnik at 7:42.
Main theme at 12:05.
Second verse at 12:38.
Goes into St. Stephen.

This one cuts in, it seems, shortly after the intro. Garcia has a particularly bright tone here. TC plays the ROR for a short while, and at :09 you can hear him suddenly cut through the mix for a second, which will happen for real two minutes later. Weir is playing a bouncy chord part that is fairly typical of what he played on this in 1968, but note how quickly he adjusts to Garcia’s shift at around 2:01. Shortly afterward, at 2:09, TC gets very loud, and this will continue, for the most part, for the rest of the show. It’s almost shocking how different his role seems at this volume, as we hear him blasting out the Bright Star theme that Garcia picks up at 2:16. TC also blasts a little Bright Star melody behind the verse at one point, and then spins out some loud lines that have the whole thing sounding a bit proggy. In the middle jam, the sound is dominated by a rich blend of guitar and keyboard, and at times it seems like Garcia is holding back a little for TC, but this seems likely to be an illusion, as it’s not clear that the sound in the monitors would have reflected the balance we find here. In any case, at times here Lesh seems to be a dominant factor, if not in volume, in the overall feel of the improvisation, as at 5:39 when he switches to a more legato approach and brings the song to a kind of oasis, with Garcia briefly laying out and TC’s keyboard swirling all over the mix. After the minor bit consequent to the verse melody, listen from about 7:04 to how locked together Lesh and Garcia are as they go into a rhythmic vamp with Garcia hammering on the high E, until he builds it up to the tonic just as TC takes it over the top, right before they lurch into a kind of askew Sputnik section. At 8:57, in a quiet passage, Garcia gently plays a variant of the main theme on the high strings, then shoots up and hovers on a B before ceding the field to TC for a moment, and then they lock together, Lesh in tow, and play through a remarkable busy but quiet passage that swells and then abates before everything comes apart a bit and then converges again as we head, at 11:55, into the first stirrings of the main theme that will coalesce at 12:05. During the second verse, TC revives the ROR for a couple of bars. At one point, after leaving the band, TC remarked that Garcia didn’t leave him much room to play, and it is interesting to hear how things would sound if he were given equal (or greater!) emphasis in the mix. Dark Star is pretty reliably magical at this point, and this one has some spellbinding passages of collective improvisation.


What was said:

28. 1969-01-24

110304 Avalon 19:53 (actual 19:38)


Main theme at 6:36.
First verse at 7:30.
Bright Star at 13:29.
Main theme at 16:17.
Second verse at 16:46 (muffed) and then at 17:45 (almost muffed again!).
Comes to a full stop before Turn on Your Lovelight.

TC is much louder this time, although he’s still pretty far back relative to the rest of the band (but wait until next time!). Weir is louder than he’s been lately, and we can hear that his playing has gotten more varied. As usual, Garcia and Lesh snake around each other throughout, and they both seem to have no end of ideas at this point. Starting at 4:00 Garcia plays a spectacular run, and then at 4:10 there’s a kind of quasi-Bright Star. Beginning at 4:26 there’s a little section we haven’t heard before, although it sounds kind of modular, where Garcia and Lesh play a repetitive thing for a while. Another rather modular sounding section, which hints at the advent of the main theme, begins at about 5:14. In fact, little sections that sound like they could be planned or relocated spontaneously pop up all over here. After the first verse, the little lick from 1968 returns instead of a spacey section, although it’s fairly subdued for a while. Listen to Weir’s little figure starting at 10:13, and at 10:30 Garcia is playing some remarkable double stop stuff as the band starts to kick up behind him, led by Lesh (who lets himself get fairly massive here), but TC puts it over the top; the section from 10:30 until 12:00, in fact, is utterly remarkable. By 12:45 Garcia starts hinting at Bright Star, and then Falling Star at 12:57…this all discharges in a series of licks not found in our lexicon, which finally turns into Bright Star at 13:29. Again Weir is key between 14:00 and 16:00, playing churning chords and then dropping way down as the band again shifts gears, then playing chiming triads; his role has certainly expanded on this number.

Another remarkable version, with engaging group interplay throughout. This one is very powerful and even a bit unruly at times, not in a sloppy way, but insofar as there is such a strong polyphonic attack.


What was said: