78. 1969-08-21

13850 Seattle 6:33
First verse at :18.
Second verse at 5:08.
Goes into Cosmic Charlie.

This is like a throwback to early 1968, with the first verse coming in almost immediately. Garcia seriously flubs the third line of the verse…I couldn’t even begin to transcribe whatever he sings.

After the verse, Garcia starts playing a lead right away, but it’s kind of tentative; the rest of the band starts to build a bit of tension, as is their wont, but there’s no clear demarcation this time between post-verse build-up and middle jam. At 2:46 Garcia gets a little crazy with dissonant double stops, for a brief spell. The band sounds really uncertain here, and at 3:30 they start to clop along in a two chord pattern. Weir goes to an A Maj 7 (see pbuzby below), and at around 3:47 Garcia starts playing some major key stuff. This sounds a lot like a Soulful Strut (aka Tighten Up) jam for a little while (the first, although it doesn't quite get there); this is quickly aborted, however. At 4:28, Garcia starts to wind his way toward Bright Star. He never gets there, though; Lesh finally kicks in the main theme, and Garcia sings the second verse, and the Dark Star is over!

This is really strange. They just never seemed to get off the ground with this one; besides the almost-Soulful Strut jam, nothing much happens at all here…


What was said:

pbuzby:


Just listened to 8/21/69 - indeed a strange short version, as well as slow and sleepy (lots of alliteration possible there). In the first verse Garcia mashes up two lines and sings "glass hand dissolving for faults in the clouds of delusion." I think Weir introduces the Soulful Strut idea by landing on an A Major Seven chord at 3:33 and briefly getting Garcia interested, but at 4:03 Garcia returns to the usual A Mixolydian. At 4:34 right as Garcia introduces Bright Star someone (probably a band member) says something, maybe a faint clue about why this ended up so brief.


JSegel:


Lots of (actual, not organ stop) flute at this show, hippie vibe all around. Dark Star comes out of the second half of a slow Cryptical Envelopment, toward the end of the set, is relatively short and heads off to end the set with Cosmic Charlie. Out of Cryptical, they were already on hand drums, and there are many intro theme stabs before it seems to settle and they start. It’s slower than usual, seems like. Immediate verse 1 after the intro, no pre-verse jam! It seems all based on Jerry playing his vocal melody while singing very emotionally, subdued. And messing up. This is pretty neat, it reminds me of the versions from early in 1968. (as others have noted, I see!) Pretty straight middle jam, some people hint at the bell, but it never really tolls, instead a lot of wandering around on all parts. Some emotive bends from JG. Hand drums/guiro in the middle still. Jerry hits some chromatic notes to bring the scale into more weird territory, he’s very expressive this evening, but again, in a subdued way. The band settles into a DS chord sequence for a mellow little jam. JG comes in with a “star” lightly falling at about 4:40, it even quiets down more from there. And then verse 2 comes in. The song form is fairly exact, not much wandering on line 3. They don’t really hold the end notes of the chorus for very long like they usually do (such as on “shall we gooooo”), and it quietly goes through the outro notes and immediately start Cosmic Charlie.

Interesting version, short and subdued, very delicate.


Mr. Rain:


OK, it's a few days after Woodstock. Have they recovered yet?
What seems like a promising Cryptical>Dark Star transition isn't that great....Jerry just stops playing Cryptical fairly soon and starts teasing Dark Star repeatedly til everyone's ready to switch. Then Dark Star arrives....and he's already singing the verse 18 seconds in! And in a strange throwback to '68, TC plays the ROR during the verse. (And Jerry forgets a line.)

Once again they skip the post-verse space -- it's the speed tour tonight. Jerry wants to keep the jam quiet & mellow. But it's not like Woodstock where he could barely play....this time it sounds like he's intentionally soft-pedaling his approach, and despite its brevity his playing is kind of touching here. No drums in this jam, just guiro & congas. Yep, at 3:35 there's the glimmerings of a Soulful Strut from Bob but only for a moment, Jerry quickly moves on, and before you know it they're already back in the theme & verse again. The whole jam lasted a whopping three & a half minutes. Instead of playing the complete outro figure they do a short drone into Cosmic Charlie to end the show.

Very short & subdued version for sure. I'm not sure what happened here, but it doesn't come across as bad, just brief. There's a certain wistful mood here. In a way it harks back to '68 -- this is what Dark Star might be like if it had never progressed past early '68. But it's almost like a flash-forward too, to one of the short '90s versions where Dark Star is just briefly sketched & implied in a few minutes.


Adamos:


It was actually a little jarring to hear the first verse start so quickly even though I knew it was coming. And with the relatively low key accompaniment the opening portion feels more like a “song” than the start of a musical journey. I like the feeling created by Jerry’s gentle vocals even with the flubs.

After the verse the low key vibe continues and to this point it almost feels like a demo recording. Things start to get a bit more layered but still understated. They are sort of interweaving with each other but it’s tentative. Then suddenly Jerry screeches out some notes and it briefly gets a little weirder although still gentle.

From here the jam picks up a little and I hear the makings of Soulful Strut that have been pointed out. Collectively though they still seem to be lacking full engagement which I can only guess was a creative choice on this particular night. Jerry starts to gently work up Bright Star but it recedes back into the main theme and second verse.

It’s a curious performance. Taken on its own it’s a gentle, delicate, emotive song. But in the context of Dark Star as a whole and its evolution to this point it is certainly unusual.