136683 NYC 22:46
Main theme at :07, 1:28, 3:09, 3:50, and 4:18.
Sputnik at 2:10.
First verse at 4:45.
Feelin’ Groovy at 17:05.
Main theme at 20:52.
Second verse at 21:16.
Now it is 1972, probably the best year for Dark Star. Perhaps looking ahead to the European tour where it would be played 11 times, the band played Dark Star once during the Academy of Music run. They start right off with the theme, and at :22 Garcia announces that he’s not messing around when he plays a wrong note that he quickly bends into a right one, and his playing in the early going features numerous little bends and swoops like this. Jerry returns to the theme at 1:28, although it is blended into his line and the band doesn’t follow suit.
At 2:10 Garcia starts what is more or less a Sputnik line, although it doesn’t have all the features we heard in 1969. This comes back to the theme at 3:09. He gets into some tremolo and things go somewhere else until he brings back a disjointed iteration of the theme at 3:50. The band seems about to go into space, but at 4:18 Jerry again strikes up the theme, and this time everyone follows. This brings us to the verse (“reason shatters”), played with a laid-back swing.
Lesh seems a little out of joint tonight, although I’d have a hard time elaborating on this. The verse leads to a sort of half-hearted jam that flutters off into a kind of space segment. At 7:20 Garcia is playing one of the one-note morse code runs we have encountered so often lately, and Godchaux is noodling away. They come together for the kind of spacey run that will often build into a meltdown. The band seems reluctant to build this up, though.
At 9:30 Garcia is playing the kind of stuff that will soon lead to a Tiger jam. Keith is with him again, and Lesh and Weir are in and out. Starting at 10:30 it starts to sound like it’s finally going to build to something, and a rather remarkable little counterpoint starts with Garcia and Lesh being the main protagonists. By 11:15 this is dissipating again, and then it starts to again sound like the beginnings of a meltdown. Some pleasingly atonal wailing is underway by 12:05 or so, but again instead of building it up they pull back.
As we head to the 13 minute mark it’s building again, though, and again there is some nice noisemaking going on. By 13:35 this is just about in meltdown territory, and then at 13:47 Garcia is a hairsbreadth from a full-on Tiger. He recedes though, and Lesh gets some nice sounds in to compensate. Lots of intriguing stuff is happening, but as we have seen often lately there seems to be a reluctance to commit to anything.
Some kind of jam is afoot at 15:08, and this starts to come together into something funky, with Weir doing something that vaguely suggests Soulful Strut. Lesh gets a nice riff going to this, but then he backs off and it all seems like it’s coming apart again. Then at 16:08 Lesh starts playing what seems like a variant of Feelin’ Groovy, and the band suddenly snaps together. At 17:05 Lesh makes Feelin’ Groovy official, but they were already hitting it.
At 18:13 Lesh mutates the lick into a funky ascending thing that seems to serve them just fine here, as they keep pushing along. At 18:53 it goes back to Feelin’ Groovy, and then they start pedaling and it seems like we’re coming out of it. What happens next is remarkable….Lesh goes back to the Feelin’ Groovy lick while Garcia keeps pedaling, and then the latter bursts into some impossibly wonderful Bakersfield licks at 19:43 while the bass does what only Phil Lesh can do with it. Finally at 20:25 Weir comes to the fore with something like his China Cat licks, which Garcia quickly picks up on for a few seconds before he brings it back to the main theme at 20:52. We won’t get the second verse very often in 1972, but we get it tonight to put this to bed.
This is a really difficult version to evaluate. There are moments of startling brilliance, and once things snap together in the second half there is outright glory here. Although some of the atonal jamming is compelling, on the other hand, here again (as with several of the late 1971 versions) it is possible to feel like there is a certain amount of meandering where the band seems too hesitant to commit to any particular direction. But when it’s good, it’s really good.
What was said:
JSegel:
Upbeat start and they roll into it, Jerry takes an odd upward lick to begin his soling. Bill is in on drums right off the top, they’re sort of in a rolling groove form the outset. Jerry plays more with his G# stretch that he hit earlier, but eventually comes back to the G of the mixolydian and plays some thematic bits. He goes into a Sputnik after a couple minutes, though, an eddy in the flow. It lasts for a while, but breaks out into more theme material with improvising on it. I guess it’s the first time in a while they’ve played the song and they’re exploring bits and pieces of it, breaking down the elements, building them back up, it tremolos out and dies off for a bit into a quiet landscape, JG comes back in with the theme at 4:30 and the band backs him up into the verse.
Lots of drum rolling into line two and through it, Phil on an octave lick on line three so no real wandering. Breaking it down for the refrain, and to the outro licks,
JG starts the middle with that same G# to A stretch. They continue in a dissipating groove that falls apart to mostly Phil notes, some trilling bits from the guitars and piano. A nice quiet area is reached, piano tinkling around, the guitars go in for soundscape ideas.
At 8:00 they go into chromatic riffs, but quietly, not in horror movies fashion. It proceeds in little waves of sounds, trills, a few notes at a time, building slowly in intensity and a more atonal nature to the chromatic licks, Jerry uses a backed off nasal tone sound, wah wah pedal maybe. It comes to a rest at about 10:30, and then builds with more diatonic minor key riffing from Phil and Jerry. It’s just a wave of this, then back to chromaticism, drums building up now. Phil goes for a repetitive low note (he’s loud in the mix). They build in volume staying outside key-wise, some wide augmented arpeggios from Jerry, scrubbing from Bob, they are getting loud and noisy, atonal, Phil is wiping his strings, it’s all gestural sounds, Jerry with the wah wah. Bill comes in with some weird beat on the ride cymbal, but they don’t really get into a groove and it fades off, Jerry comes in with some prettier notes, while Phil is still making uglier ones. Again, Bill comes in with a groove idea at about 15 minutes and Bobby picks up on it, eventually Phil does. Bobby is sort of playing the Feeling Groovy rhythm but not the same chords. They are slowly heading back into playing in a key, using that syncopated underlying rhythm. At 16:30 it breaks into a major key thing and the band starts swinging, into Feeling Groovy, they finally hit the descending bassline and chords at 17:20. They continue with the major key groove. It may go somewhere else? At 19 it starts to sound like Sugar Magnolia licks. And Bob is playing China Cat riff! What…? It breaks apart and out of the rubble, Jerry starts the Dark Star riff again, yay!
Verse 2 suddenly at 21:20, Phil still riffing on an octave thing, he goes for an ascending walk on line two and then holds high E notes across line 3. Well, then. The refrain comes along and all vocals on the madrigal outro, a nice reading except then Phil breaks it and the normal outro riffs fall apart.
Looks like the set moves on to Big Boss Man and Not Fade Away after this. This was a nice reading of Dark Star, lots of weirdness and a bit of groove, not super much forward momentum in the jams except for the major key stuff toward the end, but the atonal space was interesting, though heavily punctuated by Phil making a lot of noise on his bass.
adamos:
Quick paced out of the gate with Phil and Jerry most prominent; Bill is active too. Jerry hits the off note and then slides into a wandering line. Things slow down a bit with more of a gliding feel. There's a touch of the theme at 1:28 but they continue to wander forth. Bob's textures start to come forth a bit more but are still fairly subtle. Starting at 2:10 there's a gentle Sputnik with contributions from everyone; it sounds pretty. After it runs its course they pivot into the theme and roll along with it nicely. They pick up the pace a little and Jerry comes in with strong tremolo that Bob follows. They come back down into the theme and float along for a bit seemingly considering their next move. But before long Jerry circles back to the theme more prominently and they head into the verse.
After the verse they reset and Jerry comes out with some high, sharp notes that fade back into a low-key wandering line. They do some laid back exploration seemingly heading to a dissolution. Things quiet down with Keith more prominent (albeit from a distance on the recording) and they get a bit more spacey. After 9:00 Jerry starts to go a bit deeper and things get a little weirder. It sounds like it could be the start of a meltdown but they keep it relatively mellow.
Around 10:30 things start to pick up and Jerry has some building wah action accented by Bob and Phil comes in more strongly. Then just when it feels like the jam might take off they pull back and head into a spacier zone. Some of the intensity carries over though and it feels like a meltdown is imminent. Phil hits some rumbling low notes and Jerry winds up but then they ease up again around 12:10. This proves to be a temporary ebb however as Jerry and Phil start working up some weirdness again and the volume and intensity increase. Things veer out strongly; the top doesn't fully blow off but it is powerful and compelling.
After 14:00 they get into this slightly jerky repetitive thing that Phil embraces with gusto. By 14:35 that has run its course and they pivot with a few sharp, trailing punches from Phil. Then around 15:00 you can feel a jam starting to come together. Bob lays down a melodic rhythm that Jerry and Phil play off of and they get into a nice, semi-mellow groove. It starts to lose momentum but they shore it up and take it into Feelin' Groovy territory. They rock it out with an Allman-esque feel and then flesh it out more fully.
They ride this uplifting wave for a good spell and then around 18:15 Jerry eases up but Phil keeps rolling along and they smoothly shift into neighboring territory. They keep rocking and riding the groove with Jerry reaching progressively upwards. And then from this peak they slip back into Feelin' Groovy which ties it all together. After 19:00 they start to bring it down and glide along at lower altitudes. They gather themselves and move into some twangy Sugar Magnolia-esque goodness that keeps the uplifting vibe going. Eventually Jerry eases up and Bob comes forth with a bit of China Cat and they touch on that just briefly before shifting out so they can make a return to the theme. They wind down and briefly glide through the theme and then opt to do the second verse.
The whole thing is good but the second half, maybe from 10:30 on, is what makes this a notable and compelling version.
Mr. Rain:
Once again, a long tuning break before Dark Star....seems to be a pattern! (Pigpen, of course, plays more in the tuning than he does in the Dark Star.)
The opening already seems to have a more cold, abstract feel than it did in '71...lots of space in the playing. Loud drums, but Keith is barely there, very low in the mix. Bob's also a bit too quiet. Good tape for Phil lovers though, since he's the loudest! The playing feels cautious, the band less unified than they were in '71. There is kind of a disjointed feel in the opening jam, with Jerry sometimes wandering out of time with the others (like whenever he brings back the theme between 3-4 minutes). The band's rusty: this is what Dark Star sounds like when you haven't played it in months. Jerry quickly retreats to the verse for safety after some failed attempts at getting a jam going. But they get through the verse reasonably, with a few flubs. The score so far: a pathetic start.
They aimlessly drift around after the verse, getting spacey -- Keith's starting to stand out more, this is his element, and from 7-8 minutes he & Jerry sprinkle pretty notes around. The playing gets sparse & minimalist, with Bob almost vanishing. (More stereo Phil playing after 8:20!) Jerry gets on his wah and the playing starts getting more evocative....starting to head toward a Tiger with Jerry's familiar spiral around 9:20. (Most of this is Jerry, Keith & Phil, with a few thumps from Bill.) This starts to dissipate without building to anything, but then Jerry starts to play kind of a stepping riff after 10:30 (is this a quote from somewhere?), and Phil bounces off him, and it seems like this may be a launching-pad. The playing gets more intense, Phil getting louder & weirder & more assertive as they wander into atonal territory. This all sounds like a very long, slow buildup to a meltdown that arrives around 13:45 as they madly scrape away, with Phil in particular going nuts. Oddly, the meltdown itself is brief, but Phil takes over as he's ready to unleash some mayhem, and he keeps the madness going when the others retreat. Very enjoyable!
Jerry starts to tease a more melodic line underneath Phil's barrage, Bill establishes a loose beat, and by 15:10 they're cohering round a new jam. At 15:20 Phil starts a descending Feelin' Groovy-type line, they float for a bit (usually a sign that they're about to dive into a theme), then at 16:08 Phil hits a new cheerful lick. This strikes a spark with Jerry & the others and they suddenly take off into a flying jam; Phil affirms it's Feelin' Groovy at 17:00. The contrast with the previous 16 minutes is huge -- all of a sudden this is a band of fierce driving beauty. Phil switches his line again after 18 minutes and they keep flying over heavy drumbeats and a return to Feelin' Groovy after 18:50. This fades on some repeated notes from Jerry, and it seems like they're wrapping it up; but then Jerry hits some rhythmic low notes and strikes out in a new twangy country-pickin' style. Very cool short passage,with a definite Sugar Magnolia resemblance; then there's a China Cat tease from Bob at 20:30, which Jerry briefly considers taking up, but at 20:50 he decides to go back to the main theme instead, yanking back a reluctant Phil. (He might have made the call too soon.)
The return to the theme is endearingly awkward as it takes them about 20 seconds to get on the same page. The second verse is confident -- they remember it! Phil & Bill play it a little differently -- but then they make a hash of the ending, gracelessly splatting to a stop.
This version runs hot & cold! Very unpromising start; builds up to noisy madness in the middle, where Phil can shine; then as adamos puts it, they "ride an uplifting wave" in the last few minutes. A good example of the band spinning straw into gold, being able to turn an unpracticed going-nowhere jam into a memorable rush as inspiration hits them. Maybe because they haven't played it in a while, structurally they play it safe (the whole space-Feelin' Groovy-2nd verse pattern is straight out of 1970). Compared to '71, the atonal-meltdown bit is stretching out farther than before; Phil devotes himself to making strange sounds more than in any previous Dark Star. Instead of the country-song segues they were doing in '71, here we get a little country-style ditty within the Dark Star jam. In the first half the playing isn't as together or as confident as it was in '71, so it seems like they've taken a step back, but the long stretch of atonal weirdness, and the way they hit the uplifting jam at the end, hint at what's coming in Europe.
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