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:
Another very nice-sounding Avalon mix (aside from the organ), lots of room sound this time which gives the music more spatial presence. (It reminds me of the Carousel March '68 tapes.) Bear must be mixing the tape on the fly as the show starts....and then he jacks up TC higher than everybody, and keeps him there for the rest of the set. For sure it didn't sound like this on stage! (The balance gets fixed in the second set.)
My first reaction was how awful TC sounded, like some modern guy had overdubbed some synth doodlings at home onto a Dead show. But, that's how TC sounded....he was on the Vox organ at the time, and tone-wise it just couldn't compete with those lovely natural-sounding guitars. (TC wasn't too happy about it either.)
But one way to listen to the tape is like it's the show from TC's perspective, hearing it from the organ -- what's he going to do next? It makes his approach to the music very clear.
What stood out to me in Dark Star was that he's always supportive of Jerry. TC hardly ever plays a lead line (not that Jerry ever lets him take the lead anyway), he's usually following or responding to what Jerry's playing, or laying out a backdrop for him. As the keyboard role, he mostly remains in the background, decorative and unobtrusive.
One nice moment was around 6:00, Jerry quiets down and TC plays these organ washes that Jerry blends into. Jerry's listening to TC too, it's not just a one-way conversation. (TC's organ breaks up and then cuts out for a minute, but I can't tell if that was onstage or a recording problem. Jerry & Phil really shine in this portion where the organ isn't all over them, it shows what this tape would have sounded like without TC.) Another point where TC surprises is that swooping high-pitched re-entry around 11:30, he's changed his tone at last.
As for the Dark Star itself, it's hard to evaluate on such a lopsided recording. It's a pretty performance, but doesn't seem very dramatic...it doesn't come close to the 24th. It wanders around pleasantly in Dark Star Land without hitting any peaks. But it's still magnetic and fascinating. (Better on the second listen, I must say.) Jerry & Phil are magnificent as usual, and the musical dynamics are well-handled with rushing storms and drops to quietness. The highlight is the dialogue between Jerry, Phil & TC for a couple minutes after the Sputnik.
I agree that Jerry’s guitar sounds a bit bright and that combined with a loud Tom Constanten gets a little screechy at times, for example during the early Bright Star, but that’s the recording not the performance. The keyboards have a kind of sci-fi/Speak & Spell quality them as well but as a one-off it’s interesting to hear them so prominent in the mix. Based on what we have to work with this version is not as transformative (in terms of its impact) as some but it’s still pretty darn good, and I agree that the experience improves with multiple listens.
The opener! This version I’m listening to is the only one that had the first set, with Dark Star as the opener. Second night of the run, let us show you what we do. Lots of auditorium echo or vocal mic echo on JG here on a board tape, especially when he goes bright at like 2 minutes but also bass spacial sounds opposite where Phil is… then loud distorted organ! Sounds like mixing board at the wrong input level distortion, so it's gotta be board.
Theme at 3 minutes in, and down to verse 1. Organ again goes distorto, I guess that’s the issue with his levels, they must be taking a line out somewhere and had it too low and trying to put it in at mic level now. Or his signal is just ****ed up coming out of the organ. He’s more present in the mix, In a way, this overall sound is messy. Soundboard had a beer spilled on it last night. I can hear a TC sound from the stage before the middle theme statement at 6:45, he sounds fine from whatever the stage mics they have are. In the mix the whole thing has a lot of room sound.
Ah some clean loud organ comes in before the sputnik plateau. Super weird to hear TC loud on the second half of that, very synthy with the organ.
Nice theme statements, softly spoken at 9 minutes. You can really hear the pick noise high end bounce off the back wall, or vocal mic or whatever is mixed in here. I think it's just the open vocal mics. The plateau comes and goes in waves, different registers. This is still the opening song of the set!
TC drops out for a while, Phil’s been plugging away with lots of higher register stuff. By the ending themes of the jam, the mix is great. Nice verse 2 TC does the ROR on the first line, and still on that crescendo on “Shall we go” and “Through”.
No comments:
Post a Comment