63. 1969-05-10

132812 Pasadena 20:56

Main theme at 2:29 and 4:41.
First verse at 5:04.
Sputnik at 12:55.
Bright Star at 17:38.
Main theme at 18:39.
Second verse at 19:19.
Goes into St Stephen.


Garcia jumps right in with a sprightly lead, and the initial vibe is bouncy and bright. Lately, the band starts looking for an excuse early on to get away from the two chord pattern, and Garcia starts hammering an E at 1:18 that provides the pretext this time. They have become adept at a kind of one chord (or no chord) swirl, and this will enable them to travel to some magical realms over the next few years (as will their ability to play in a kind of one-beat time signature).


At 2:27 Garcia takes an acrobatic tumble into the main theme, but it’s just a brief visit as they quickly slide into a rather majestic little jam. At 3:34, Garcia again plays the acrobat, and then he brings the jam into a higher register; this all sounds like a big wind-up for the main theme, but not before we get to a thrilling peak at 4:14. As this settles down, Weir and Lesh are pushing for the theme, and Garcia complies at 4:42, taking us to the verse.


The aftermath of the verse is very calm this time, until tension starts creeping in at about 6:38, and the at 6:43 Garcia starts tolling and raising the volume level. This section still seems a little subdued next to recent versions, but after a little feedback, TC starts playing a wild fanfare at around 7:20, and Garcia mimics him at 7:30—7:36 before launching into a solo.


The band is going full throttle right away this time. Garcia keeps repeating patterns and raising the energy level still further, culminating at 7:29 in a little Bright Star-like flourish. They do not relent here, however; they just keep pounding away until suddenly, at 9:23, there is a lull and they start to rebuild. Garcia stays quite busy, and by 9:53 the energy is surging back; another lull comes at 10:06. Most of the dynamics here are coming from the rest of the band while Garcia madly fiddles away, until he starts to rein it in at around 10:45.


At 11:06 Lesh initiates an off-kilter bounce with a cadence that is somewhat reminiscent (or rather prefigurative?) of Cumberland Blues, until he pulls it out of shape and then slides back down into some drawn out tones. At 11:30 the band seems to be pushing toward Sputnik; they come so close they’re almost playing it, but they back out again. At 12:25 Garcia starts bouncing around, and then Lesh latches on, and we get into a remarkable little squall at 12:37 that has blown over by 12:43. At 12:51, Garcia all but says “It is time for Sputnik” into his microphone, and a few seconds later it begins.


This is a very restrained Sputnik, especially compared to the last few. Again we get some jabbing from Garcia, and they start kicking up a little bit of a fuss, but it is all very civilized, and at 14:25 Jerry starts playing a new line and the Sputnik is over. Everyone else is hanging back here, and then Lesh starts laying in some counterpoint. At around the 15 minute mark, however, they seem to start thinking “Hey, that wasn’t weird enough!” Or maybe it was me that was thinking that; Phil’s line pushes into some strange tonal territory for a second or two, then he leaves Garcia alone for a moment, and then they start to duet again, and Weir comes in, and now it seems like we’re going for power rather than subtlety as Bright Star pokes its head out at 15:27. It doesn’t come out, however, and then we’re on to something else.


Weir pulls up and it gets back to Jerry and Phil at 16:03, until at 16:24 Weir starts playing a counterpoint solo. This is very interesting for a little while, and marks a departure from the Garcia/Lesh dynamic that keeps reëmerging tonight. The band starts working toward another peak that starts at 16:56, and by 17:10 they’re really banging away, but it’s just getting started here. But I have to back up for a moment: first there is another nod toward Bright Star at 16:30 or so, and then at 16:39 Garcia starts playing a repeated ascending figure which leads them to another peak which he crowns at 17:10 with a repeated, screaming high A below which, right at the apex at 17:27, Weir now plays Garcia’s ascending wind-up figure, before moving into some twanging double stops at 17:32. This all culminates in Bright Star at 17:38, each iteration of which Garcia spaces with more of his hanging A. Garcia continues to throw in the Bright Star lick as we come down the mountain, and he opts to go right to the main theme before things fizzle out. Lesh, however, has not had enough strangeness, and he subverts the theme rather than falling into line until, at 19:12, he finally succumbs and falls into line. Garcia quickly jumps in with the verse, a little off key, before Lesh can get away again.


And so we have another remarkable Dark Star. The section between Sputnik and the second verse is so rich it’s hard to do it justice. While it culminates in one of the most intense peaks we have yet heard, it is at the same time packed with moments of interest throughout. After the last few versions, it’s hard to believe that there is much more they can wring out of Dark Star, much less acknowledge that we are still at a relatively early point in its development. What a time to be alive!


What was said:

Mr. Rain:


This is one of the most loose and aggressive Dark Stars yet.
The tape quality is not good, unfortunately....the band is mostly in mono, and the drummers are very muted. Tape problems also make the second half of Dark Star very scratchy-sounding, which is irritating. On the plus side, TC is part of the blend again, and Bob is higher in the mix than he's been lately so it's easier to hear some interesting things he's doing.

The Dead faced a number of power outages and tech problems in the first part of this show, so you'd think they'd approach Dark Star a little nervously -- but no, they jump right into it, hot and eager. Jerry starts soloing right away again, and the band gets busy. An early stop at the main theme around 2:30 turns out to be just a feint, and the band barrels ahead like a locomotive. Around 4:00, my goodness what's going on, they're hitting a full-blown climax like it's the end of Dark Star already! But they smoothly climb down to the main theme again. That was quite an active opening jam, promising exciting things ahead.

Oddly the post-verse space is relatively calm & subdued as you said -- some bell-tolling and feedback, but it comes across more gentle than tense, maybe because of the squished mix. But hey, then TC jumps in with a wild swirl, kicking Jerry into action....TC's getting better at this! Everybody piles into a stormy hard-driving jam, Bill on drums now, and we're in full-blown rock'n'roll territory. This could almost be the middle of a Dancing in the Streets jam here. Gradually Jerry quiets it down until they're more bubbling than full boiling. (Cute pre-Cumberland tease from Phil.) Jerry steers the jam in a Sputnik direction, but veers away in another digression with Phil for a minute before returning to Sputnik.

Sputnik seems to be changing character lately....the swirly arpeggio part is dispensed with quickly & absent-mindedly, since Jerry would much rather peck at his discordant jabs for a minute. It's kind of fun to hear the band match his demented squawks. Once this fades, the expected insect weirdness is forgotten once again when Jerry carries on a more normal line. What's neat here is that Bob is backing him in a brief little duet over Bill's drumbeats -- it's rare to hear just Bob & Jerry playing together for long. Phil & TC come back in, trying to anticipate Jerry's next move. But he's not so obvious, he pauses to poke around rather than heading straight for a climax. (I hear some congas back there too.) The jam takes some odd stops & starts, any sense of momentum leaking away, until finally Jerry sneaks his way to a long-deferred Bright Star in a hot little final burst. They linger on the climax -- when Jerry returns to the main theme they sound uncoordinated like they're having trouble slowing in step with him, so it's a discordant return. Bob resolves his difficulty with a little feedback, after which things snap into place.

It's unusual to hear a Dark Star end so sloppily. I can't say I was really satisfied with this one. But it is different, energetic, and takes unexpected steps. Stretches of it are basically a free-form jam in Dark Star disguise.


JSegel:


Warm up jam has some nice odd twists and turns from Jerry, bending the strings in and out of phrases. I love how he gets caught up in little note groups like they’re gems to be examined. Lovely long descending run into the theme at 2:30, but the jam flows onward. Some really soaring statements in the mode, it’s a very (relatively) uptempo jam, reaching for new heights. The whole band gets caught up in an eddy at 4” and continues onwards. Dipping down to the intro theme, heading to verse 1.

Decent vocal delivery, but pitchy, maybe not the greatest monitors and he’s listening from the hall bounce-back. TC has added new chords to resolve an extension in the second line. "Searchlight" has an extra vocal reach, and he uses a vocal ornament on the “Through”. Really nice light and dark verse/"chorus".

The transitive nightfall starts with the band floating about for quite a while before a tolling bell comes in. Then it starts blowing this world away as another takes its place, TC wildly arpeggiating. JG comes in and Bill joins in with him, strong jam ahead! Riffs galore as much as lead lines. TC is bright and loud in the mix, in fact the balance is pretty good frequency-wise between all players (except low drums overall).

At 9:30, they seem to start a rhythmic jam that is plowing ahead for awhile before sort of settling into the swing of the Dark Star style jam. JG is now in his lead pickup, but he’s testing out some tone variants. It gets to a tidepool of tonal clarity, Phil settles down for a while, playing with off beats as they head off into a sputnik-y thing, JG on the previously-normal notes this time. But out of this short sputnik-y area into new forward-moving jam, the multi-headed single instrument style of band playing, until it goes into a “real” Sputnik with the e minor arpeggio, high note moving the B to a C# to D to C# (5-6-7-6 against the 1 and 3, e and G). Then they take it off into a rhythmically cropped version of these chordal stabs.

At 14:30, we’re heading into a new modal jam, nasal tones from JG. He gets stuck on a particular riff, but swings out of it while Bobby splays out some chords. They’re heading to a brighter star, all moving apace, but it dies down. Quietness. Not gone, but low. Small statements from everybody. Phil is moving it along a bit, JG has an idea of upwards runs, but then goes the other direction into a chromatic downward thing, before they all bring it up again and at 17” we’re into the actual bright star territory, with a long melodic version of the thematic material before some more literal thematic statements. And back to the intro riffs.

Verse 2 preceded by some Phil chromatic oddness. He wants to go somewhere else? But Jerry and Bobby lead it to verse 2.

Line 2 has solidified again into its offbeat rhythm, now with more chords up and down the spy-movie rhythm. It’s interesting, it had solidified in late ’68 versions into the strong rhythmic statement against the vocal line, Phil and Bobby got it together, then when TC joined in he was right on top of that, but then subsequently they fell off playing it as a strong rhythmic counter to the long vocal lines. Phil seems to be the instigator of the strength of line 2’s rhythm. Now it’s been building back, with TC using specific extended notes on the tops of the chords (9ths and 7ths), and here he’s even using more separated chords, different notes per hit in the offbeat rhythm, while Bobby and Phil are both back on the strong rhythm for that line. Line 3 (searchlight/lady in velvet) allows the wandering against the bubbling rhythms.

Another characteristic is that sometimes they go through these lines within a jam section, the song-form jam of the three lines: 1st is usually with the vocal melodic theme, simple rhythm, second line with the spy-theme offbeat rhythm, third going wandering off into melodic jam, though of course, sometimes they just get to line two of the song-form and it wanders away. Anyway, no song-form in the jams lately. I expect it will come back…

Nice madrigal vocal outro, and lovely counterpoint instrumentally, off to St Stephen.


Adamos:


Brisk and a little raspy right out of the gate. Bobby is more present in the mix which is nice. Good repetitive, fuzzy lead starting around 1:18 which shifts higher at 1:54. A touch of the main theme at 2:30; Jerry is climbing and powerful, reaching upwards, strong swirling peak around 4:15 and then they ease back at bit and take it to the first verse.

Jerry has a particularly extended “Searrrrrrrr-rrrch light casting” vocal. Post verse starts rather mellow; plenty of TC and Bobby then some brief bell tolling as the energy builds. TC is really going for it from around 7:10-7:30 and Jerry launches out of that. The jam builds, everyone’s putting power into it; intense in a rocking way. They ease up at 9:20 and Jerry continues forth, slowly picking up speed with Phil weaving underneath and Bill prominent too. Another semi-pause at 10:05 but Jerry’s got momentum and keeps rolling on. He eases up a bit around 10:35 but still keeps going. By 11:45 it sounds like Sputnik is coming but Jerry comes around again with another run and there’s a nice little peak before they head into at 12:45.

Sputnik is relatively gentle although it still builds briefly with some TC flourishes. Jerry starts a choppy thing at 13:33 and they work that for a bit before moving on at 14:20. Jerry has some nice fuzzy, building lines; he’s covering a lot of ground tonight. By 14:47 it’s mostly just him for a bit with the others adding some textures. That builds and the others join in and we get a hint of Bright Star at 15:25 but it doesn’t full materialize. At 15:55 there’s a lull and they regroup and slowly start working it again, tentatively at first but then quickly building and by 17:34 they’re bursting into Bright Star. It’s not the full-on triumphant type but Jerry plays with variations of it for a little while even as they’re coming down. Things settle and at 18:35 it’s back to the main theme and then second verse.