32056 SUNY Delhi 18:05 (the beginning is cut).
Main theme at :45.
First verse at 1:14.
Sputnik at 7:30.
Soulful Strut at 11:10.
Feelin' Groovy at 16:00.
Goes into Dancing in the Streets.
This is a truly horrible recording. Much of it sounds like a piano accompanied by a tuba. Since the Grateful Dead at this point included neither of these instruments, one has to question the fidelity of this recording.
There is a certain amount of charm to the screeching, roaring and howling space section, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say the experience is enhanced by the nature of this recording. This does seem like it was probably one heck of a space, in any case. It ends with a Sputnik; this time, it seems like a little more of a traditional Sputnik than we’ve been getting lately.
At around 9 Minutes we seem to be back in a more traditional Dark Star type jam, as it seems like Weir and Lesh are playing a main theme kind of pattern. Garcia seems to be playing a kind of rolling pattern in various places that has an odd effect, as the tape picks up his high notes in a way that makes them sound much different from his lower sounds, so he sometimes sounds like two different people.
They work their way into a Soulful Strut jam. This gets kind of hypnotic if you bend your ear to the murk. 14:20 is a good example, if you listen for a few seconds, of how when Garcia changes registers the sound seems to come from somewhere else—an interesting artifact of the recording, I suppose.
At around 16:00 the jam changes. JSegel has been callin Feelin’ Groovy a UJB jam, but this time that is what it sounds like to me here. It is possible that the recording is fooling me and I can’t adequately discern the chord pattern, however. In any case, at least for now I’m going to call this a UJB jam.
A few seconds before the end of the track the band shifts into Dancing in the Streets, and Dark Star ends without a second verse.
I don’t have anything more to say about this—it was difficult to get through. Probably a good version, but anyone not doing a project like this one should not feel obliged to listen to this.
What was said:
JSegel:
Very distorted audience recording, which starts with Dark Star in the middle of an incredibly strong riff, it almost sounds like a different song altogether. It drops into the theme and verse 1 appears only a minute into this tape.
Hard to discern things in this recording, it sounds like everything is mushed into an underwater piano. Out of the verse, people clap, and it starts to go somewhere but falls away to the cymbal crashes and noise, into free improv space. Cymbals lead to feedback and odd sounds in an arhythmic space, volume swelled notes emerge, and bass feedback, it all sounds ring modulated by the tape distortion. More feedback, lots of weird and loud sounds. Sputnik emerging at 7:30, some notes a minute later, and chords, not sure where it’s going. Sounds like Bobby is playing that G7 so there’s some melodic things playing with the G-F#-Fnatural for a bit within the Dark Star chord progression. Claves are loud in the hall as well, as it builds into a jam, eventually with major chords. I think. Tighten up. Or something. Hard to tell. This jam goes on a long time. Break down at 17:30, people clap, the band disperses and the recording goes into Dancin’ in the Streets.
Whew, that one was rough.
Mr. Rain:
Wow, blastoff from the start: throbbing noise & juggling rhythms & grinding distortion! Now this is a Dark Star recording like no other, sounding like a lo-fi heavy metal band, like it was taped on lava. It's a shame the opening is cut so short -- they get right to the theme. The audience is clapping along by the time they start the verse; I feel like we just missed some great climax. And (this is really rare) joyous applause when Jerry finishes the verse! You can tell just from that, this was one of those shows where band & audience were in communion.
Big gong & chords after the verse, and space gets ushered in with feedback and hurricane tides. Totally distorted bass clipping the tape....guitars bellowing like whales....overdriven sitar tones after 5:50, banging percussion, feedback madness! Had to listen to this space a few times to take it in....this is not at all like the quiet & minimalist spaces we've been getting used to. (But who knows, maybe a soundboard tape would sound like that.) Awesome stuff!
At 7:30 Jerry's got his Sputnik going, the transitional border between space & the regular jam. Very weird & trippy for a minute; the rest of the band's still out in the noise realms. But by 8:30 Jerry's pointing the way to prettier, structured musical ground. One great thing about this is that the audience keeps responding through the space -- whenever there's a highlight they cheer the band on, "yay!"
Sounds like the band's getting into the kind of two-chord pattern they've usually been doing at this point, kind of close to the Dark Star theme. But instead of rockin' it out this time, they're keeping the tempo moderate -- this is more of a mellow slow-dance jam. Jerry's clearly playing some nice stuff though it doesn't come across so well on this recording. The claves show up (surprisingly clear) and it's obvious they're working their way to Soulful Strut, which appears around 11 minutes. By 12 minutes the drummers are getting active and the band's getting noisier in general, which means an already challenging tape is becoming a din of white noise & static. But wow, underneath that, there's some heavy peaking going on around 13:30, it sounds like they've shifted to double-time! And Soulful Strut rolls on & on....this would rival Harpur if there were a soundboard.
Another fine passage after 15:40 when they come out of Soulful Strut, slow down like they're entering the Dark Star theme again, but bam Feelin' Groovy turns up instead, very chill and stately! This one's very nice: Mickey's banging away & Jerry's doing a Caribbean-sounding lead. (It does sound a bit more like the UJB chords on this recording, which is possible, but I think Feelin' Groovy is much more likely.)
This theme comes to an end at 17:20 and the band puts out some feelers -- and the crowd goes "yay!" again, obviously very aware of what they're hearing. There's a cute moment when Jerry plays the opening lick of Dancin' in the Streets and the band's uncertain -- are we going to finish Dark Star or what? -- and Phil goes back into Dark Star but gets vetoed as the others start Dancin' on top of him.
Incredible version. Otherworldly noise and buried beauty. A must-hear if you can take it.
bzfgt:
Mr. Rain writes:
ReplyDelete"I was listening to 5/8/70 today, one of my favorite Dark Star recordings; in fact I was so blown away I had to put it on repeat.
It struck me that our reviews really shortchanged Dancin' in the Streets; we assumed that Dark Star just "ends" without a final section or verse. But Dancin' is the final passage: it basically works as a "Dark Star, part 2." Dark Star itself takes off like a rocket and becomes ever more amazing, progressing through stages til it reaches heights of sublimity. Dancin' takes that progression and continues it into even wilder rhythms til it climaxes in a maelstrom of glorious noise. Then Phil rounds out the suite by quoting the Dark Star riff as they return to the final verse of Dancin'."