62. 1969-05-07

6028 San Francisco 22:17
Main theme at :06.
Main theme at 4:17.
First verse at 5:49.
Bright Star (more or less) at 8:48 and 10:10.
Sputnik at 15:05.
Bright Star at 18:16.
Goes into Drums>Turn on Your Lovelight.


Garcia begins by playing the main theme a few times, with the ROR providing a counterpoint. They start to drift off the two chord pattern after that, and it’s gone by about the one minute mark. Garcia hits a high note at 1:55 and stays on it until 2:08, then starts playing a descending line and winds up on the bass strings. At around two and half minutes they are pedaling on a repeated quarter note beat and, after they get away from it, this little pulse will return at times, more subtly, as an undercurrent to the opening jam. (Note that at 3:07 Garcia is playing a figure we’ve heard before and will hear again, I almost feel like it should have a name…)


Garcia slides into the main theme at 4:17; by 4:39 this has mutated into a kind of blues lick! At 4:57, however, Garcia reëstablishes the theme. In the lead up to the verse, and then during the vocals, TC plays a little legato figure that functions almost like a violin part; then he plays some more staccato bits during the build-up after the verse, which is again very unique.


At 7:52 Garcia bursts out with a line that suggests perhaps they’re going to go full tilt into the jam, but then everything quiets down. At 8:33 Garcia starts playing a hazy lead in keeping with the dynamics, but then at 8:48 he suddenly bursts into some Bright Star licks and everything changes again. At 9:47 he starts playing a figure based around some repeating bass notes, and then he soars back into the Bright Star theme at 10:10. Then things get quieter and hazier again.


Just after 11 minutes Garcia is hinting at Sputnik. Instead, they hit another bluesy groove, as the whole band starts hammering on a riff they seem to have just devised. This changes a bit, turning into a chugging, driving section shortly after 12:00. At 12:40, Lesh starts playing a jazzy line that we have not heard in Dark Star before; this is similar to the line he had sometimes played in Clementine, which others have suggested is derived from the bass line Jimmy Garrison plays in Coltrane’s Greensleeves, but it is somewhat different. There might be something this matches more closely, and I’d be happy to have it pointed out. The jam gets kind of jazzy here, in any case., and as Mr. Rain points out, it's reminiscent of Clementine.


At 14:20 Garcia repeats a high note while Lesh repeats a low one, and things get rather squally for a bit, and then they suddenly quiet down and head toward Sputnik. This is an odd one, as everyone seems to keep going off in different directions. It’s interesting to see how widely Sputniks can vary, and they are certainly not committed to nailing it down one particular way; instead, they keep pulling and prodding at it. This goes into a series of jabs again, but they’re not entirely committed to it this time. At 16:59 Phil has had enough; he starts playing the main theme, while Garcia fiddles with the volume knobs for a while.


They build on this for a bit until Garcia bursts into Bright Star at 18:16. He soon leaves this behind, continuing to drive the band to a peak but choosing other notes; at 19:11 everyone is ready to come down again, and they ooze along for a bit. Garcia drops out, and there’s a strange, ooze little jam…At 19:43 Weir gets a little showcase, and then everyone weirds out for a bit again until Weir starts up a little riff that Lesh picks up on but this doesn’t last, either. Lesh comes to the fore at 21:25. This whole section is quite odd. Perhaps Garcia broke a string…in any case, this jam trickles out into drums without the second verse ever arriving.


Dark Star has come a long way; there are more unexpected and unprecedented things happening each time, it seems. At some point in the future, it will become standard to omit the second verse; I’m not sure it was entirely intentional this time, however. But this is a fascinating version, and it opens up new horizons once again.

I can't remember the last time Dark Star didn't go into St. Stephen....


What was said:

Mr. Rain:


An outdoors Dark Star, played in the park! On a sunny afternoon, no less. It's prefaced by the band making crowd announcements.....did that lost girl ever find her mother? Did the people in back ever clear the stage?
One thing that immediately strikes me is how different the mix is from Bear's recordings on tour. The guiro's louder, and TC is WAY louder....I don't think he's been this forward in the mix since January? Pigpen's on congas again, but really just occasional tapping this time. The guitars are basically in mono. As a result this mix is very dense, all the instruments fighting for dominance -- TC & Bob really blend together.

Fabulous opening jam! Once again, Jerry doesn't give his usual pause after the intro statement before starting the lead....he starts right off with the theme, then kind of trickles slowly into the lead, playing one note over & over for 20 seconds. Classic Jerryism! The jam starts off hesitantly, but he's got a great lovely tone and finds some nice repeating figures....one leads into another evocative repeated-note 2 minutes in. (I think the bass riff Jerry does around 3:07 is something he's done briefly in two other Dark Star openings lately, but I'm not sure he'll do it often enough to be worth naming?) Jerry starts a little drone-pulse around 2:40 that dies off before long, but Phil brings it back around 3:55 in an absolutely delightful stomp that transitions perfectly to the main theme. Around 4:40 the theme turns into this great, short-lived riff that I don't think we've heard in Dark Star before! But Jerry soon yanks them back to the theme; and after a full minute of coasting on the theme, he sings the verse.
This opening had a different feel than usual...more cautious, searching for something. But it works for me, it's full of memorable licks.

Loud gong in the verse! The post-verse space is going in a new direction, still with the gong-crashes but a more gentle feel, and Jerry isn't bell-tolling but instead striking a repeated chord in a higher register. (Bill joins the jam here, and stays in.) Jerry's lead starts off strong and then -- immediately dies down and gets quiet. (Mickey quickly switches from gong to guiro to suit the mood.) Interesting shift...Jerry's going for a slow build instead, playing a lot of repeating licks. (From around 9:30 to 10:00 it almost sounds like he's stuck in place.) After 10:30 Jerry starts a climbing riff that seems to be going places, and then at 11, he's playing a familiar figure....what's this?....a CLEMENTINE JAM!
Well that was unexpected. The others catch on quickly, but they don't really develop it; instead the jam gets kind of discordant for a minute, like they're clashing or pulling in different directions. (Phil hints at his old Clementine riff at 12:40 but quickly moves back to the Dark Star theme.) They kind of float around in the aftermath, not really going in any direction; uncertainty reigns. But Jerry pulls them together and takes them up to a flaming high peak around 14:20. Nicely done!
Jerry coasts down gently after that, with a smooth transition into Sputnik. This one has a different character -- less smooth swirl, more edgy grind. Mickey, who's been sitting out the past five minutes, comes back not on guiro as usual during Sputnik, but on his drumset. They sustain it for a minute and quiet down into a kind of percussive, discordant bomp-bomp-bomp around 16:40.
This is the point when normally the insect weirdness would come in, but things take a different direction this time. Phil starts up the theme at 17:00 while Jerry does his volume twirls....a very lovely, effective moment. Normally Jerry doesn't work the volume knob for long in Dark Stars, but this time he sustains the effect for over a minute over the band's lush backdrop (Phil!) until he climbs right up into a Bright Star. What a sequence!
Jerry's continuing the peak, it sounds like he's aiming for another climax....but then oops, a string breaks around 19:05, and he kind of angrily bows out with a final lick and a gust of feedback. Now it's time for Bob to shine! An interesting chordal jam follows, and the band shows what they can do without Jerry.... Turns out they just putter around pleasantly for two minutes, not taking it anywhere. Jerry isn't coming back in a hurry, so they decide on a long drum break. After that, understandably, they decide not to finish Dark Star but finish off the show with Lovelight.

Fascinating version for sure, with many great moments. Sometimes it has a droney, repetitive feel that gives it a mantra-like quality. I think this is the first one without the second verse? Not intentional, but a pointer to new possibilities. I couldn't tell what effect the sunshine and park surroundings had on their playing, but there's little sloppiness here -- they hit some spots of confusion where they don't know what to do next, but they always recover and pull out some rewarding surprise.


Adamos:


TC is really prominent in the mix at the start and it gives the organ kind of an unusual sound. Also lots of guiro scratching in the right channel. After some brief time with the main theme Jerry eases in with some nice, gentle lines. His playing sounds pretty and spooky from 1:00-1:25, buttressed by Phil. A little more fuzz at this point and he takes off a bit more although there's still a subtleness to it. Starting at 1:55 there's a high, repeating note that then combines with TC to create a dreamy feel. From there Jerry goes low for a bit and then they do another repetitive thing around 2:30 that gently builds and then at 3:07 there's a nice, lower, rumbling thing going on. Mini peak starting at 3:21; Jerry's doing some runs, Phil is weaving in and becomes more prominent around 3:50 with his own repetitive notes. Back to the main theme at 4:17 then around 4:40 it evolves into this nice riff that almost sounds like another band before returning to familiar territory at 4:56 and working their way to the first verse.

Post verse starts with a gentle vibe, gong washes, it's starting to build and swirl, it feels ready to launch and they almost do but then around 8:05 it settles back down and they enter a quiet passage. This leads to a Bright Star-esque moment at 8:48 and they work this area for a bit; chugging vibe at starting around 9:42 and then hitting a semi-Bright Star again at 10:05.

Things ease up briefly then at 10:35 Jerry starts ascending and they get into this cool sounding passage that sort of resolves by 11:00. From that point they transition into a repetitive thing, perhaps collecting themselves, lots of cymbal here, the intensity starts to build and they've committed to exploring this jam. By 11:23 it's being fleshed out more, there's a Clementine vibe that others have noted, you hear it more from Phil around 12:35-12:40 and then he it takes it back to Dark Star. However not everyone immediately follows and they continue to hover in this zone for a moment; Jerry's playing is gentle and melodic, complimented by Billy on drums. Then around 13:10 things start to build again, they're merging back into the familiar and they bring it to a powerful peak at 14:20. That plateaus by around 14:36 and then they ease their way into Sputnik at 15:00.

Sputnik feels more melodic and multi-layered with a certain gentleness even as it builds. It starts to dissolve around 16:35 but not into insect weirdness, instead there are these kind of poking sounds and when they run their course Phil steps forward with the bass line and Jerry makes these pretty and sort of spacey sounds (which I've learned from you guys he's doing with the volume knobs). He and Phil play off of each other for bit which sounds really nice and then Jerry shifts gears and takes them into another Bright Star. Beautiful.

They sustain the peak for a bit and then around 19:10 Jerry stops playing (re: it being a broken string I think he yells "string" off mic but I'm not sure). They gather themselves with Billy and TC prominent and then Bobby comes forward with his own variations on the theme, complimented by Phil, which turns into a nice passage. That builds for a little, eases off briefly and then they keep it going a bit more with Phil more prominent before eventually giving way to a drum solo.

Definitely a really interesting version with a lot going on.


JSegel:


The Bob and TC melding the ROR with the rhythm guitar makes so much sense. It’s like we never heard it right before. Loud guiro as the sole percussion in an outdoor show also! Phil seems ready to take it out almost immediately, he’s into some descending line thing as he was before.

A little intro jam settles into a pool of single notes and scrapes. Are we out of the intro jam…? I don’t think so, some more places to explore. TC this loud in the mix gives us a better insight into his place in the jam, it’s a good sound in there with all those guitars.

Mickey sounds like he alters what he plays after Jerry, and then TC follows that. They wind it up and then a strong thematic statement at 4:20. Which builds the theme into a riff with blues notes. Back down the other side of that, we’re heading toward verse 1.

Cymbal crashes with the vocal introduction. Some weird notes coming in the off-beat chords on line two, from both Bobby and Tom. The searchlight’s casting is mellow. Nice counterpoint for the outro of the verse and intro to the ‘transitive nightfall’.

A jam is building on Phil’s descending idea while the tolling is coming, but the chaos is taking over from a straight bell tolling idea. It almost falls apart entirely into noise but Jerry comes playing out of it, with some odd stretched notes, they go back into a groove, now with Bill on drums keeping the rhythm. TC switched to a reedier tone, but still keeps with his various pentatonic riffs. Phil and Jerry are grooving toward something, keeping the jam moving forward. A few little eddies on Jerry’s part, but for the most part it’s classic “Dark Star” mode. Bob with his extended chords, Jerry heading around in little circles toward a brighter star.

Some interesting stuff at 10 minutes, strong bass notes indicating roots, but no real chord progression. Out of this, JG has a sputnik-like arpeggio, but he’s on a new rhythmic idea for it, it’s coalescing everybody into a chordal jam, TC and BW on chord statements.

Into a little quieter part with a lilting rhythm. Jerry finally switches into a brighter tone, which is leading the jam back upwards in intensity, to a head at 14:30 or so. Then a die off, some light notes, Phil playing double stops. Sounds like a sputnik is going to emerge, but it’s got some odd notes, not the usual 5-6-7-6. Even when JG switched into a higher register, he’s playing the arpeggio differently. Finding new melodies in it and then jumping in patterns of 3s, the band hops on.

The song lulls. Phil takes up an intro riff type melody. He’s carrying it back toward the intro area, but the rest of the band is playing with volume swells and melodic play of specific notes. Eventually Jerry erupts with the bright theme …ish. Nothing is obviously written in stone, these are melodies to be played with and around. It dies off with weird bends like a dying bird! Into feedback and stasis, Phil on one note for a minute. Some small pools of new ideas in the 20th minute, seems like Bobby is holding a song together there somewhere, will it emerge? But Phil and Jerry are onto something new, and by 22 minutes, it seems like we won’t reach the other shore, they dissolve into drums by themselves. Never to come back to Dark Star.

Is this the first time we lose the second verse? (I hate that, I always want it to come back home from the journey.) Regardless, exciting outdoor improv in the Polo Field, a lovely place for outdoor rock shows. Must have been a hoot!