131. 1972-05-07

9193 Wigan 19:32

Sputnik at 4:15.
Main theme at 14:20.
First verse at 15:04.
Goes into The Other One.


This is from a festival set. Every show on this tour has either Dark Star or The Other One as the main late set feature, and this one has both. This one is a little shorter than the current average, probably for that reason. It begins in a pretty standard way, with the theme chords and some beautiful lines from Garcia. At 1:18 he ascends to the high A, invoking Bright Star, which is mostly gone at this point apart from allusions like this one.


Keith Godchaux’s contributions are typically subtle here, and Weir seems to be Garcia’s main foil at first. At 2:38 Jerry lands on a C, and the band coalesces around him for a few moments with the kind of rapid reaction that is becoming a matter of course for them. A similar section emerges around F# at about 3:20. Nothing sounds forced, but the improvisations have a kind of articulation and variety that comes from musicians listening closely to one another.


At 4:15, Garcia initiates a Sputnik section, which is not exactly Sputnik as it was in 1969, but clearly seems to be a descendant of that. At 5:51 he starts some percussive riffing that seems to anticipate The Other One; the latter seems to infiltrate the jamming a little bit from this point, being taken up by Weir in particular, which gives the music some forward momentum, and they get into some improvising which isn’t clearly beholden to one parent song in particular.


Weir wants to chug along, and at 7:43 he starts a three-chord descending pattern which is quickly adopted by the rest. Garcia’s line from about 8:23 is blistering, and there are several little peaks and valleys until a little after the nine minute mark when they seem to be settling down and heading toward a transition. At 9:29 Jerry flashes Sputnik again as the momentum fades, and they wind up sliding into a minor-sounding trough. By 11:30 they’ve settled right in, and one expects the main theme at this point. The moment seems to arrive at 12:13, with Garcia making trumpety statements on the bass strings, but there is as yet no hint of the theme. Instead, they keep noodling around, which seems to be their preference tonight.


At 13:10 Garcia decides it’s going to get spacier, going for the volume knob effect. Weir tremolos away as they stretch this transitional moment that has been going on for almost four minutes even further. Finally, at 13:53, Lesh (who hasn’t been particularly assertive so far) lets it be known that he’s ready for the theme. They heard him, I guess, because at 14:20 they fall into line. The verse arrives soon after.


Here we would expect more brooding and noodling, based on what’s gone before, and that is precisely what we get, sliding right down into space. At 17:05 Jerry seems to be briefly tuning (at least, I hope he is). Phil unleashes some rumbly sounds from the bass amp, and Weir’s guitar belches a little. At 17:56 it seems like Keith is going to step out a little, but it’s a false alarm. Kreutzmann is active on the toms a lot tonight, in a way that doesn’t seem to either drive or interfere with the rest of the band. At some point they decide to give him his head, and there is a drum break (there is a guitar noise or two during the part tracked as “Drums,” but the tracking seems fair enough). When they come back, they will play The Other One.


This is not one of the better Dark Stars of the tour but, as I’m sure you knew I was going to say, it’s not entirely lacking in interest. From about 9:30 on this seems quite determined not to go anywhere. It’s always nice to hear them improvising together, though, and it is a 1972 Dark Star, so how bad can it be?


What was said:

130. 1972-05-04

77294 Paris 39:25 (DS 19:22, Drums 2:31, DS 17:32)

Main theme at :05 and 11:38.
First verse at 12:10.
Bright Star at 8:03.
Feelin’ Groovy at 9:52.
Main theme at 15:24.
Second verse at 15:53.
Goes into Sugar Magnolia.


After a single statement of the theme line by Garcia, we have a rather euphonious introductory section here, with Jerry melodically musing and Lesh rising up to gently weave in his lines. At 1:15, with Garcia repeating a note for the nonce and Lesh providing melodic counterpoint, the bass hits a strange off-note that somehow works perfectly and serves to draw the ear away from Jerry for a moment, where we find melodies sprouting everywhere.


At 1:48 there is a little eddy of sound where it sounds like they’re about to get strange with it, and then it gently snaps back into the main pattern again at 2:05. The band is rather elastic here, eddying again at 2:15; this sort of playing I particularly associate with the Europe tour. This time they don’t snap back into shape quite so tightly, and there seems to be a more longitudinal tendency toward the weird. At around 3:30 it starts to head out a little farther, with swirling piano melodies mirroring the guitar. Lesh hints at the jazzy riffs he is fond of in this era, but they’re going in a different direction, toward something spacey. By around 4:45 this tendency has become pronounced.


At about 5:20 Garcia starts gesturing toward a frenetic jam. The band obliges, but kind of gently. At 5:58 Lesh starts pushing a little with a bluesy pattern. Weir and Godchaux seem willing to get funky here, and with everyone getting into it they start rocking a bit (still kind of gently, but gathering momentum). By 8:25 Weir is playing some sort of dissonant chords, and Godchaux picks it up—depending on the mix, I sometimes get the two of them muddled in this era, as they are often on a similar wavelength both tonally and rhythmically. The music is sliding toward D major; Lesh emphasizes the D at 9:19 and Weir and Garcia feed into it.


At 10:05 Garcia starts a section where he hammers the C and G (the dominant 7th of D and A, respectively). This still has a D feel, and Jerry winds up on a D at 10:27 and bashes on it for a while. Godchaux and Weir provide a rhythmic and somewhat dissonant chordal accompaniment, and Keith pushes Garcia up to an E at 10:50, where the repetition continues. Now things start to fall apart, and at 11:06 Jerry lets it be known that he’s ready for the main theme; this arrives at 11:38. This leads very quickly to the verse, with our man coming in with a rather off-key wail. The accompaniment here is rather loose, in keeping with the mood throughout thus far.


After the theme has been restated, after some ponderous throat clearing, the music comes down to almost nothing for a moment as we descend into a space section à la 1970. As it gains intensity, Lesh scritches and Weir wails with some feedback and volume swells, and I think Keith is playing through a Leslie speaker or otherwise employing some manner of effects, although I think he’s still playing the piano (I’m sure someone will correct me if I have it twisted). This leads to a two and half minute drum segment.


As the Archive recording opens the third track of this Dark Star, Phil starts to flutter a little, and Garcia very quietly comes in as well. At 1:47, Lesh starts up with some chordal stuff, with Garcia quietly mirroring his line, and then Weir returns, also quietly. This is still more or less a space jam and, in fact, as far as Kreutzmann’s concerned it’s still a drum solo. I wouldn’t say it’s entirely disjointed, but it’s not very distinctive either. At 3:40 Lesh seems to want to bring the band into the action more, as he starts riffing. Weir starts to join him a few times and then thinks better of it, and Garcia gets a little louder and kicks on the wah, signaling a meltdown.


I hadn’t discerned much from Keith yet when at 5:08 he adds some chords to the mix. Again, my ear keeps getting drawn from Keith to Weir and vice versa here. By about 6:10 we seem to be veering away from a meltdown and toward a jam, and the band hovers for a bit. Jerry pokes around melodically and Keith follows (as a side note, I notice Keith shadowing Garcia’s lines way more on recordings from this era than I ever do in ones that date from after the 1975 hiatus, when Jerry cited it as an increasing factor, and indeed one of the reasons he had for concluding that Keith’s tenure in the band had run its course).


At 7:00 it sounds like Garcia and Lesh are pushing toward a jam. This starts coming together at 7:20, and at times it sounds like an off-kilter extrapolation of the main Dark Star melody. This time they come together more intensely and cohesively than they have to this point. At 8:03 Garcia uncorks Bright Star, albeit briefly, and he sort of hits it again in slow motion at 8:54 before a vicious repeated pull-off from 8:57 to 9:11 really kicks them into high gear. By 9:20 the intensity eases a little the way it does when they’re gearing up for another peak; another repeated pull-off brings them there and they back off again. There are hints of a thematic jam in the works, and at 9:52 Lesh drops Feelin’ Groovy into the breach.


They don’t swing into it right away, as it seems like they’re having a hard time getting together on it; a more concerted run-through begins at 10:41, this time with a certain bouncey delicacy, although I don’t know if I’d say this one ever fully coheres. At 11:52 they are pedaling and I have no idea if they’re still doing Feelin’ Groovy or not; it turns out that they aren’t, and Garcia again adverts to variations on Bright Star to get things moving in a different direction. At the 13 minute mark something funky is going on; Weir is playing his quasi-JBs stuff, and then at 13:15 Garcia starts a rolling Sputnik line that oozes over the top, with Keith adding a dissonant variation on Weir’s funky guitar.


Meanwhile, Phil seems to be concocting a funky bass riff of the type of which he is so fond in this era (I’ll date this from about 14:10 or so). The players return to their corners for one of the looser passages that are salted throughout this one, and Phil wanders away from his riff as the music trickles off until at 15:24 Jerry brings in the main theme. This is again brief, as we wind up with the now-rare second verse at 15:53, complete with Phil’s vocal counterpoint on the transitive nightfall. They almost seem not to know what to do after the vocals end, but Weir quickly cranks up Sugar Magnolia and the rest is history.


It's hard to know what sort of synoptic and evaluative statements to make about this one. It has a reputation as the weakest Dark Star of the tour, and that may be true, but that doesn’t make it a weak Dark Star. It is ragged at times, and it sags a bit in the middle. On the other hand, the band seems to be having fun, and they deftly, if raggedly, explore a variety of grooves, and even treat us to a space section that is reminiscent of 1970. There’s a lot of great music here, in any case, even if it’s not a very clear or coherent statement as a whole.


What was said:

129. 1972-04-29

125888 Hamburg 29:54

Main theme at :06 and 13:50.
Feelin’ Groovy at 6:21.
First verse at 14:33.
Tiger at 28:10.
Goes into Sugar Magnolia.


Something sounds a bit out of tune at the outset. After a brief statement of the theme, Garcia spins some pretty lines over the two-chord opening pattern. At 1:23, at which point the pattern has already been left behind, Garcia uncorks a high G (dominant 7) and hangs there until 1:41, creating tension as the band kicks up a bit. By the time he’s come off it, Weir and Lesh have concocted a vaguely Latin groove, and they bounce around with that for a while. From about 2:15 this starts to come apart a little, and then it coalesces again with a somewhat different feel.


At 3:32, the edges fray again, and a transition seems to be in the offing. They sink down into a darker, more chaotic groove. At 4:21, Garcia starts one of his repeating single note passages, and the music gets stranger. The band gets into a rather free improvisation where they seem content to listen to one another and let things unfold in a less groove-oriented manner. Lesh hints at Feelin’ Groovy at 6:14, and Garcia immediately picks up on, and then at 6:21 Lesh makes it official. It’s a rather ragged run through it, though, with chaos seemingly lurking around the edges. By 7:30 they seem to be transitioning out of it, and everything gets kind of wild again.

By 8:30 there has been a total breakdown of order. Here one wonders if Garcia is going to kick off the main theme, or let things play out a bit longer…he decides to let them play out a bit longer, and a jam that’s somewhere between a space and a meltdown starts to take shape. Lesh inserts a jaunty melody from about 10:48, but chaos will not be denied. At 11:48 there is another juncture where the main theme might intrude, but Garcia grabs the volume knob instead. Then at 12:38 they finally shift into the meltdown they’ve been suggesting for several minutes, but it’s brief and the Tiger does not appear. At 13:35 Weir starts up the two chord theme, and at 13:50 Garcia falls into line, leading us to the verse.


The return from the verse is rather placid at first. What comes next is not a straightforward jam, nor is it what I’d call space, but something in between. At 17:57 Garcia has kicked on the wah, which might indicate another meltdown. Some rather wild playing follows, and the intensity increases for a few minutes, coming right up to the border of a Tiger jam a couple times without ever quite crossing over.


At 21:41 Lesh starts one of his jazzy riffs and this pulls them out of meltdown mode and into a more structured jam. This is still pretty chaotic, though! At 23:03 Garcis throws in some Caution-style comping, which is later taken up by Weir. Then at 23:44 Garcia embarks on an absolutely bonkers passage, darting around the fretboard. This remarkable jam seems to have run its course by around 25:20, and they enter a kind of holding pattern. Lesh proposes another funky riff at 26:12, but it doesn’t really go anywhere. By 26:40 there are hints of yet another meltdown, and this time the Tiger arrives, beginning at around 28:10. The other end of this is a spacey kind of madness which Weir finally brings to a halt with the Sugar Magnolia riff.


It could be argued that this is not the most coherent Dark Star, but I love it. The playing here is adventurous, and there is a kind of joyful energy throughout. This is a unique and valuable rendition.


What was said:

128. 1972-04-24

youtube; youtube Dusseldorf 40:39 (25:46, 14:53)

Main theme at 8:03 and 10:08 and 10:55.

First verse at 11:10.
Tiger at 19:55.
Main theme at 14:38.

Goes into Me and My Uncle and Wharf Rat.


The Dusseldorf Dark Star begins with Garcia playing the lick over the main theme pattern that we heard on 4-14, which I mentioned was familiar, although I wasn’t sure whether he had done it prior to that rendition. The band sounds very relaxed and in the pocket here. The music comes in waves, with little returns to something like the theme alternating with hovering broody bits. From 2:03 to about 2:30, Garcia emphasizes the F#, which is the 6th of the A mixolydian scale, or the 3rd of D major, which seems to create an anticipatory mood, as it isn’t a note that would usually be resolved to…then at 3:25, the band slips into a spacey E minor section, setting up a heavy, brooding mood.


At 4:25 Lesh begins repeating a high, descending riff while the others play low tones, with Garcia repeating an emphatic A, and then Phil starts to play some slow, low and distorted chordal stuff. Godchaux starts a haunting octave pattern at 4:52, and his piano sounds echoey here. At 5:10 the band subsides as Garcia plays a repeating note, and the music gets atonal and spacey, with Phil playing up the neck. At 5:38 Garcia starts a little melody that resolves into a kind of gallop at 5:54.


At 6:21 Garcia starts another simple, almost child-like melody and then spins it out, as the band gains momentum and centrifugal force until by 7:20 or so they take it into a meltdown. As this dissipates at 8:03, Garcia starts the theme melody, filtered through a cracked glass, and they spin out again into a crescendo; the tempo seems to be picking up here, and it turns into a frenetic jam. This starts to come to a peak at 9:20, and they keep it there until it starts winding down at about 9:45, and they coast down and hit the theme at 10:08. They play around with it a little, and then slide back in at 10:55, slow and majestic so that, when the verse hits, the tempo seems to have worked its way down again.


At 12:34, coming right off the verse, Garcia is spinning a Sputnik-like web of notes, and the band swells and ebbs and swells. Godchaux’s piano again sounds kind of echoey here. At 13:04 Jerry has a little wah, I think, kicked on, and he starts in with the Sputnik-y stuff again. Now it sounds like they’re heading into space, with feedback and lots of drawn out, distorted notes. As we get to the 15 minute mark, this is almost ambient music, played with a lot of volume and distortion.


Garcia starts a line at 15:16 that may lead them back to earth. The band kicks up, and soon they are in another (somewhat) frenetic jam. Bright Star peeks out briefly at 16:38, and the band heads for another peak, with Garcia getting in some country and western licks. By 17:20 or so they seem to be coming down the other side. Garcia plays a long descending run and touches bottom at 17:32, and he stays there, repeating a low note as Godchaux trills, Weir weirds out, and Lesh rumbles around.


They want to get strange tonight, and at 17:57 they seem to be heading back to space, or into a meltdown. The lines aren’t entirely clear, though, as the more cohesive jams often have plenty of oddness lately…but by the 19 minute mark it seems clear we’re going into a meltdown. Weir is sort of the low key hero of this segment, as he’s not that loud in the mix but he is doing a lot of work to push the music along. At 19:55, Garcia starts the fast wah wah scrubbing characteristic of the so-called Tiger jam, taking it right over the top.


At 21:26, Weir plays two repeated notes that sound like the intro to St Stephen, and at 21:32 Godchaux quotes the introduction. Weir feeds it back to him a little, but they’re not going to play St. Stephen; instead, they wander into another spacey grotto, with Lesh making playing a sawing pattern and Garcia circling around. From 22:57, Weir contributes some bluesy leads; then Garcia starts to play a faster line and a frenetic jam seems to be in the works. They start to get it going, but they’re not ready to come out of space yet. At 25:19 Weir starts up a two-chord pattern, but it’s not clear where it’s going until about 30 seconds later, when they pause as Garcia spins a circular figure, and then Weir starts the chords that take them into a blistering Me and My Uncle.


When Dark Star returns, it comes as an ethereal minor key jam without drums. From :41 to about 1:00, either Weir is exactly mirroring Garcia’s lines a second or two later, or else there is some kind of delay effect turned way up. The latter seems more likely because of how exact the match is, but I don’t really hear Weir in here otherwise. At 2:22, Garcia starts a fast Sputnik-like pattern. By 3:25 the music has swelled to a kind of peak, although the mood stays spooky, and when Kreutzmann comes in at 3:52 he’s lightly tapping the high hat or maybe some sleigh bells.


At 4:48 Garcia resorts to the morse code maneuver which marks a lot of transitions in this era. Kreutzmann assays a few more taps, but the mood doesn’t really shift yet. There’s a kind of ebb, and at 5:48 Lesh starts to a sliding pattern and the music gains intensity until something midway between space and a meltdown takes shape. By 6:33 Kreutzmann, who has been creeping back in, is ready to assert himself more, and soon he’s venturing around the kit.


We are now at about the 7 minute mark, and a jam that sometimes recalls the Main Ten is getting underway. This has come together smoothly and subtly, but we’ve traveled quite a way from the first minutes of this segment, as the band is starting to rock pretty hard. Garcia has been working his way into a winding melody; just after 9 minutes now and it’s come together, and as the band works it he spins it higher, as together they come to a peak beginning at about 10:22.


As we reach the 11 minute milestone Garcia is galloping along with some double stops, the band cooking until at 11:26 they seem ready to lay off again. At 11:28 Garcia lays in a high rolling pattern while Weir supports it with a simple melodic pattern. At 11:50 Garcia introduces an ascending ADE figure, anthemic and triumphant. He turns it into a riff at 12:20, and then returns to the ascending bit with some double stops. His guitar here has the kind of tone he uses on Sugar Magnolia, which has been the usual destination so far this tour, although tonight they will go to Wharf Rat.


At 13:38 Weir starts a riff, and Garcia locks in with him for a little while. There are so many ideas in this jam it’s almost too much to take in! But at 14:38, Jerry decides to bring it all back home to the main theme. It’s a little surprising they didn’t go to the second verse here (which will still happen occasionally), since they came all the way back to the theme, but after a brief visit it shifts into Wharf Rat, which is such a natural and easy transition it’s a bit odd that they did it so rarely.


At this point the Grateful Dead have attained a proficiency with collective improvisation that is genuinely remarkable. More than that, though, they are consistently inspired here, pulling together segments on the fly that would be worthy of turning into songs in their own right. The music is heavenly and powerful; there are no rote licks, no down patches, no longeurs or meaningless transitions. Music like this is why there are Deadheads in the world, and why a Deadhead is someone who has figured out something the rest of the world hasn’t yet, but should. There is no other music like this, and for those of us who care about it, it is a priceless treasure.


What was said:

127. 1972-04-17

34224 Tivoli 30:54

Main theme at :06, 7:35 and 9:24.
First verse at 9:46.
Goes into Sugar Magnolia.


The second Copenhagen Dark Star begins with the main theme, and then a bending liftoff and some harmonics from Garcia as a delicately beautiful introductory jam takes shape. The band floats along on a cloud, each instrument contributing to the multi-headed melody. Garcia quotes the theme at 3:13 and 3:59, and at 4:30 there’s a lovely moment where Bright Star woven into his lead. Shortly after this they move into a minor tonality, where they hover for a while, and the music becomes more loosely wound.


At 6:30 Godchaux wants to take things out a little, and at 6:47 Garcia picks up on his line and elaborates with a repeating figure becomes a new center of gravity briefly until Jerry lets it carry him to the main theme at 7:35. This shifts into a variation on the theme that I don’t think we’ve heard before, and this becomes its own jam, which derives a kind of swing from its relationship to the theme. After a nod to Bright Star at 9:12, the theme proper returns at 9:24, at which point the verse becomes inevitable.


At 11:16, in the wake of the verse, Garcia plays a Sputnik-like roll which continues for a while as Lesh comes to the foreground with some ponderous statements. There’s a moment of uncertainty beginning at about 12:30 where it’s not certain whether this is heading to space or straight into a more straightforward jam. They take until 13:35 before they opt for space, as Garcia starts playing the sort of runs that are often prelude to a meltdown and the rest of the band unwinds a bit. And there is a kind of meltdown, but a pretty gentle one, in keeping with the delicate vibe that’s been in evidence throughout.


By about 16:30 there is a more vigorous and kind of fluttery jam happening. This ebbs and flows a bit, and then at 17:20 Garcia seems to pick up on something Weir suggests and establishes a two chord pattern. At 17:34 Lesh suggests Feelin’ Groovy, but then seems to think better of it. At 18:00 the pace seems to be increasing, and at 18:14 Garcia kicks on the wah and again and sets the course for meltdown territory. By 20:00 we are coming very close to a full-blown Tiger jam and things keep getting stranger for several minutes.


The meltdown seems to have played itself out by about 23:30. There is a period of retrenchment, and then Garcia starts a chiming chordal thing at 24:17. When the band responds, he starts playing lines again as a lovely little syncopated jam comes together, with Pigpen jumping in with some Hammond at 24:57. Typically for the Grateful Dead, this works so well that they tear it apart after about a minute. Lesh starts in with one of his jazzy riffs at 25:15. Then at about 25:25, Weir restores momentum by riffing on a chord pattern that is more or less what will become Let it Grow. This seems to embolden Pigpen, who should be louder in the mix but is swirling away like mad here.


You can almost hear them thinking furiously about how to sabotage this again. At 28:17 Garcia starts plating some chordal lead that starts to sound a bit like the Main Ten lick, and it’s hard to describe what happens next as it all simultaneously falls apart and comes together leading up to a mini-meltdown and a quick reconstruction into Sugar Magnolia.


The third Dark Star of the European tour is yet another outstanding version, both beautiful and adventurous, and with the most developed meltdown we’ve yet heard. This is like the mirror image of the previous Tivoli version, insofar as the introduction has a more cohesive focus, and the post-verse stuff is more exploratory. This is absolutely a top Dark Star of the era, in the best era for Dark Star.


What was said: