90. 1969-12-26

28448 Dallas 24:00 (cut)
Main theme at 1:44, 4:14, and 5:51.
Verse melody at 4:56.
First verse at 6:10.
Sputnik at 10:43.
Feelin’ Groovy at 14:13.
Soulful Strut at 15:32.
Main theme at 22:00.
Second verse at 23:11.
Tape cuts back in at New Speedway Boogie.

The introduction is very pretty at the beginning here. Garcia is again hinting at a major key in tonight’s intro. There is a big windup for a while before they go to the theme at 1:44, and then they wander off again. At 3:00, Garcia, who is in top form tonight, checks in on Bright Star during a glorious passage that begins with some repetition, which he keeps returning to in between various flights of fancy. The music briefly veers toward space before we go back to the theme at 4:14. It really seems like it’s going to the verse, but instead Garcia quotes the melody while twiddling his volume knob; he kicks down to the e minor after, so I suppose it’s official. It just gets spacier from there before heading back to a very gently played theme and verse.

Lesh gets rather rambunctious coming out of the verse; he dominates the scene for a little while, but everything duly quietens into the by now expected space section. Tonight this is eerie and subdued; again, this section culminates in Sputnik. At 11:56 we’re heading out of Sputnik into the main jam, and it’s a pretty clean break, but the band is still feeling rather calm and patient.

At around 12:43 Lesh starts pedaling on one note, which sometimes means Feelin’ Groovy is coming. Instead, they increase the intensity of the jam a little and keep it going. Finally, at 14:13 Weir kicks into Feelin’ Groovy, Garcia follows, and Lesh eventually acquiesces. They return to a kind of pedaling thing intermittently throughout the jam, and it’s not clear that it has a set length; tonight, they don’t seem like they’re going back; by 14:50 there are intimations of Soulful Strut, which takes its time arriving but finally comes in at 15:32.

At 17:24 Weir takes the lead, and he really takes off! And it sounds pretty good! I don’t think Weir has ever played anything quite like this on a Dark Star. Garcia takes back over at around 18:32 with some chiming notes, and Soulful Strut putters out soon thereafter. At 19:14 Garcia starts flashing Bright Star, but this is not happening yet. They downshift, and then they are still streaming clouds of Soulful Strut after the 20 minute mark as they start to increase the intensity again. This time Garcia seems determined to take it into Bright Star or the main theme; it seems like the latter at 21:30 as he jerks back on the tempo—then, at 22:00, he fires it up again for the main theme, and then soon after the band pulls the tempo back again. Garcia throws in some flourishes here rather than going to the verse right away, but we get there.

There is a cut right at the end—it doesn’t take much off of Dark Star, but I’m not sure how quickly it returns, or if New Speedway Boogie was the next song.

Here we have a rendition that is often rather subdued, which is not a knock on it at all—it works very well. There is no really big crescendo, although they get it going a few times. The modular jams really dominate the second jam insofar as even when they’re not playing them, they seem to be heading toward or away from them in a recognizable way. All in all, a very strong outing. And, of course, I don’t mean to bury the lede: Bob Weir, Guitar Hero.


What was said:

adamos:


After the opening notes Jerry jumps right in and heads out with good textures from Bob and Phil working underneath. The collective sound is really nice and somewhat energetic with just a bit of edge too. Things build and they briefly hit the main theme and then start working variations. Jerry is climbing upwards and hitting repetitive notes and then winding about. He seems very active and Phil is playing off him and the whole thing is really nice. It quiets down a bit and they hit the theme again and things get more spacey and volume knobby and there’s a gentle and pretty quality to it. They return to the theme and start the verse.

After the verse Bob is jangly and Phil is thunderous and there’s some gong washes swirling around them. Things start to quiet and some bell tolling comes in; they hover for a bit and stir up some spacey weirdness. There are scraping strings that sound kind of like opening a big, heavy, creepy door. They get weird for a bit and then Sputnik emerges. Jerry starts it off energetically with Bob complimenting the line and then they ease up and shift into another jam that quickly builds some momentum.

They pursue this for a while and then start considering other ideas, eventually heading into Feelin’ Groovy around 14:15. An uplifting passage as usual and they rev it up with Phil really working it and then start to shift into Soulful Strut which sounds lovely and they stick with it for a good spell. Then as bzfgt pointed out Bobby jumps in and rocks it with an extended solo. Go Bob! After a minute or so they ease up and gather themselves and there are hints of Bright Star but they stay in a revving groove and keep that going. Around 20:00 they pull up briefly and then start building and it feels like they could burst into Bright Star but instead they start working off the main theme which fully lands around 22:00 and then they ease up and gently work their way to the second verse.

I found this version pretty compelling although they didn’t stay in space for too long and it would’ve been cool if the Bright Star wasn’t narrowly averted. But a good one with lots of collective activity.


JSegel:


Bobby string breakage during Me ’n My Uncle right before Dark Star, so a couple minutes of stage banter where Jerry says the audience is really quiet “You all sitting in the dark watching us?” There’s been a lot of talking to the audience at this show already, especially between the acoustic songs at the first part explaining that Bill was still in the air flying to meet them!

String changed, Phil starts the intro riff, JG joins in and they take it into a medium-slow Dark Star chords jam with a lot of melodic feints from Phil and it enters the theme after a couple minutes and stays on it a bit. Jerry is playing back and forth with some leading tones and they get caught in a couple of small whirlpools of riffing notes, with occasional outsiders. Long builds of threes to the 4 minute mark where Bobby holds a harmony, then they come out again into the theme and toward a verse. JG is really into this glissando swoop to the high A beginning of the theme phrase these days.

However, it doesn’t get to a verse this time, and they get quiet and play around with very delicate bits of the theme material and chromatic three-note pull-offs. A serious thematic statement starts again at 6 minutes and this time they start the verse. Weird delivery, strong first vocal note, then backed off and rest is meeker. Maybe he caught a bug in his throat. Almost a full stop before a quiet ‘chorus’.

The Transitive Nightfall intro counterpoint is shaken, not stirred, and they enter into it at 7 1/2 minutes with a groove from Phil while the cymbals start to blow it away. Phil sticks with it a while, the band sort of disappears into the mist, eventually he fades out and we have a static space. (Is there a colloquial name for this section besides ‘space’?) Little feedbacks and occasional long organ notes or chords fading in and out with the cymbal splashing. Some super weird electronic-y sounds popping up amidst string scrapes and general quietude, though sounds like Bill is at his set and tapping away at points. Swells, Phil finding some bass feedback, TC goes for his arpeggios which lead to a quiet Sputnik entrance, side stick drums accompany. It goes up and down, inside and outside of the old em chord. JG breaks out with a mellow tone (for a Strat especially, he’s discovered which tone know controls which pickup). Some blossoms of lead and rhythm guitar together, building in tempo and intensity. A jam with minor key overtones (C natural in there) building up and down and into a major key version toward the Feeling Groovy/Uncle John’s Band descending bassline groove, which heads toward the Soulful Strut thing with full on A Major (even the minor 7th G is a G# now). JG sounds like he has some really specific melodic ideas this evening for these parts, like he’s heading toward something he wants to remember.

They reign it in at 17, but the drummers are still into the groove (ish. Mickey sounds like he’s randomly throwing things at his drums still) but they keep at the groove with Bobby rocking it and Jerry heads toward the high tonic note and stretches up and into it, like a falling star bit, but they are still in the maj7 chords.

At 19, JG does that gliss up to the A that signals the start of the Dark Star phrase, but again, we’re still on Maj mode, so he starts insisting on the G natural and they get back into the DS chord idea, but fast and not really in DS territory still. At 20 Phil decides he’s gonna solo for a while instead. After this, it’s back to the Dark Star chords, still fast and it takes to 21:30 for JG to play the Bright Star, very slowly stating it over the quick rhythm section to try to slow them down? But when they all fall in after a half a minute, they take the tempo back down and play the theme, and Jerry takes off with up and down riffing scales, then down again to the theme toward verse 2 at 23:12.

First line has TC on chords very specifically, downbeats all the way, then they do the full spy theme rhythm for line 2 but with no accents, so it’s very plain groups of 3s with shorter 2s at the end of each bar (spondees and dactyls, y’all, if you remember your poetry iambs.) Phil does his hammer ons on on the first half of line 3 and then stays still, so all in all a very controlled verse reading.

Not great outro vocals, but then the tape cuts so who knows what happens!

I think the band is getting used to a method of doing the middle section jam with space segueing into the major key jams in that order (Feeling Groovy/UJB jam/whatever this one is, and then Soulful Strut/Tighten Up/Whatever it is) but it’s still a little forced to bring it back to Dark Star territory, and involves very blatant tempo reduction like winding it all down in a short space rather than moving naturally or cutting directly to it. It sounds a little unnatural to me, though it feels like the major key jam areas are more in line with the new style they’re working toward with the folky Americana stuff. This feels like juxtaposition of the two within these last few Dark Stars.