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:

Bit late to the party here, & I still have to go back & read the whole thread, but a couple years ago I put together a playlist of all versions of Dark Star I could find on Spotify (including the Grayfolded “versions”)... 19 hours of it.
Dark Star, a playlist by neutralst8s on Spotify
funny thing is, I don’t even like the Dead.


Starts out really strong, no winding their way in, but even though TC starts with the ROR, he abandons it by a minute in. Jerry already going for strong statements in the introduction. Phil’s bass has some amp distortion, he’s playing it hard. Weird mix, stereo-wise, with the bass all the way left, Jerry, sort of middle-Right and Bobby all the way right. As if Tom C was gonna be in the middle-Left gap but he’s so low…

The static stuff leading into the weird 4 minute mark is cool, then JG’s got some new licks, the bass shifts to the right side! TC moving over left. I guess Bear’s having some fun?
New notes/modes sneaking in by 6 minutes, I can’t tell who heard it or played it first, they’re really getting in each other’s heads!
Now it’s been 7 minutes before the first verse! That’s some development. It’s like it’s taken them that long and then through the verse to calm down a bit, so now they get to stretch it, the thematic stuff being played around with, new leading tones into the normal mode, new almost arhythmic playing from Phil. Almost to a static space, more like the Sputnik pulsing its radar blips! 9 minutes is the lead into new stuff with Garcia’s double stops and Weir’s hammer ons, chords from TC. Jerry’s doing more of those pedal steel-like licks in there too. TC staying on his suspended chords, until he goes into full arpeggios up and down. Building into almost-thematic Bright Star, then up even more with licks around the Star. Some weird synth sounds from the Vox organ there around 14:40. Then Jerry and Phil taking it down, down, down. I like the little TC flourishes around 16 Minutes before the entry of the intro theme back into the verse. As such—****ed up first line at 16:45, sounds like hid “Mirror” gets caught in his throat. So skip it till it comes around again? A little jam and then back to the second verse a minute later.
Overall this is less like the beautiful solos from the players and more like one unit interested in the volume and tone, the overall gestalt going up and down in waves, Jerry’s tone is pretty bright all the way through and it takes the band to some high places. Longer and longer too, when they have the time on stage to do it! It's interesting that they took 20 minutes here, the next night no Dark Star, then 10 minutes on the 26th.


Magnificent version. The "average" for Dark Star is getting very high. The playing's ever more complex so it's harder to analyze. I'm struck that instead of repeating jam modules that the Dead use from one version to the next, that's actually been quite rare so far and each version is (so far) quite unpredictable and unlike the previous performances....aside from brief elements like the Bright Star, you never know where the jam's going to go. In this Dark Star, for instance, Jerry just skips the verse-melody jam that's always been a feature, and there's no Sputnik either...instead they head off into new explorations.
The intro is the longest yet, I think, they take their time getting to the verse and it almost has a middle-jam intensity. The post-verse section takes an interesting direction....after Jerry's usual little lick, they play quietly and delicately for a minute (nice radar beeps from Jerry!) before kicking it up into a long intense St Stephen-type wall of sound, then they peak with a loud piercing quasi-Falling Star/Bright Star climax. This winds down and tapers out to another quiet section (some funny low notes from Jerry)....really effective dynamics here. They drift in calmness a short while and Jerry almost breaks out the volume swells before the verse...but then, oops, Jerry chokes on "mirror" and gives us more instrumental work for a minute before returning to the verse for real.
Unusual ending, too: Jerry seems to hit some wrong notes and signals they're not going to do the segue, so instead of the regular ending they come to a droning full stop. Bobby tells the audience, "We're gonna sing the broken string blues for a couple minutes," so Jerry must have broken a string. (I think that's what interrupted the verse?) The rest of the band might be caught off-guard but cover for Jerry smoothly -- I wouldn't even have noticed he was missing a string.
Beautiful stereo mix. TC's more present in the mix now....louder than before, but he rarely stands out, he's more like background texture. But he's found his voice in the band, his playing is in the usual swirly baroque TC style. (It's an open question how much his style will develop, if at all, over the next year.)
Mickey's busy on the scratcher as usual (and adding a few other percussion slaps), and Bill's got the maracas going, and there's a little drum action during the climax as usual, but no congas in this version...they might not come back.
There's a lot of distracting static in one channel. It's a lot worse on Miller's copy than on Kaplan's older transfer (7922)....maybe the DAT copy is deteriorating over time so the newer transfer has more static?


I agree that 1/24's a very strong version, the band's a solid unit...Jerry's generally in the lead determining where things will go, but they're like an indivisible gestalt, always glued to him.
And at over 19 minutes, this is the longest version yet! The time just flew by too, it felt way shorter. (Looking ahead, they won't play another Dark Star this long for another month.)
But it's not because of the generous set times at the Avalon, far from it. The Dead were usually confined to short 45-minute sets at the Avalon (with other bands playing in between), and if they went overtime the management would rudely chop them short by cutting the power....which is what happens in this set at the end of Lovelight.


Jerry’s playing sounds a bit different as it starts off, maybe less fluid? Perhaps strange and interesting things were happening during the preceding set break. But then things get going and there is power and intensity to go with that rougher edge. Wow. At times it’s like an 18 wheeler coming right at you, full tilt, horns blaring. Even the quieter passages still have a certain edge to them. There’s a better mix to the recording too which makes for a more well-rounded listening experience.


That surprised me too -- it was like, "wait, Dark Star is a full-blast rock jam now?" One thing I had not expected was that each Dark Star lately in no way prepares you for what's coming next. In each version they find some new mode to play in that they hadn't tried before.