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:

pbuzby:


Godchaux (or Weir? not sure) tries playing something different on the opening riff but hits some clams at 0:04. Then around 0:10 Garcia hits an out of tune note and takes a tuning break until 0:20.


KeithGodchaux:


Nice write-up. Bobby has something interesting but low in the mix going on between 10:30 and 11:00. I would love to hear Keith and Bobby's isolated guitar parts on a lot of the improv stuff the Europe Dark Stars.


Do you listen on headphones when you do your critical analysis?




bzfgt:


Yeah, always headphones.


adamos:


A quick rumble from the drums and they're off. I agree that it seems slightly disjointed initially but they soon slip into the groove and glide along for a spell. Jerry plucks some high notes and then heads out on a line. Nice complimentary textures from Bob and Phil is quite active underneath. Keith is more distant on the recording but his accents are present too. Starting at 1:23 Jerry plays a sustained high note. As it slowly fades Bob steps forward with nice interweaving from Phil and they shift into an adjacent groove. Nice collective playing with Phil and Bob remaining prominent in the mix as Jerry continues to weave along picking up some momentum as he goes.

By 3:30 things seem to have run their course; they hover briefly and then begin a slow downward decent, changing the mood to something weirder. Jerry gets into a repeating, reverberating note and then they proceed to explore this spacier yet still melodic territory. After 5:00 Jerry starts working up a line slowly that builds in strength as it goes and everyone jumps in and the collective momentum rises. They wind through some passages and suddenly find their way to Feelin' Groovy around 6:15. It's a low key version but it still has a nice feel and a mini peak.

After 7:30 they start to shift out of it and the intensity builds as they head back to stranger territory. Around 8:00 they reach a hover point that they stretch out in pretty fashion before descending into a slower, deeper weirdness. It's somewhat mellow but you can feel a potential meltdown on the horizon. It slowly becomes more apparent and by 9:30 the cauldron is swirling. They don't fully let it rip but continue to cast about in the weirdness.

Starting around 10:10 Keith adds some classical-ish piano as he has done in other recent versions. They collectively rise up and swirl a bit but keep it in a spacey zone. Eventually Jerry brings in some volume knob action which he sticks with for a while and then they veer back towards melting down. However before long they ease up again opting not to fully unleash it. Instead they hover in a gentler zone from which they reconnect to the theme, which sounds lovely, before moving on to the first verse.

After the verse they reset and kind of glide along for a bit. It feels like they are starting a groove but then they let it go without fully dissolving into space. They resume forward momentum but in lower, semi-mellow fashion with some spaciness at the edges. Slowly things become more spacey; there's volume knob action and some jagged start and stop sounds from Keith. Things get weirder and again it feels like a meltdown is coming. Billy gets quite active and the wah-driven weirdness builds. Things get pretty intense although the Tiger isn't fully unleashed.

Around 20:38 they pull back from the edge but after a brief pause ramp up the intensity again with Jerry getting into a semi-Sputnik but more jagged line starting at 21:13. Then Bill gets a tribal beat going and Phil starts working a bass line and they shift into a new jam. It's a good, earthy groove and they take their time building it up. Nice twangy textures from Bob and Phil is really working it. Jerry is spinning lines energetically but not quite at the forefront so the collective interweaving shines through on the recording. After 23:00 it briefly gets Caution-esque as bzfgt noted and around 23:45 Jerry touches on the jagged Sputnik-ish line again, letting it rip. Really nice jam.

They keep it going but slowly start bringing it down. There's a quick final upswing around 25:00 and then they let it go and hover for a bit. Phil steps forward with a line that gets stronger and fuzzier and they let things fray. They hover around 25:50 and then things begin to head towards weirdness again. Phil briefly inserts a new line but they seem ready to dissolve. They quiet down and then start to slowly ramp up the weirdness. The intensity builds and Jerry winds up and conjures up a full-on Tiger that rips through the night. It subsides after 29:00 and they stay in a spacey zone for another minute with Phil hammering away and Bob interjecting jagged chords that eventually lead the way to Sugar Magnolia. Jerry again keeps his own weirdness going for 10 seconds or so before smoothly joining in.

I like this one too. It lacks the grandeur and perhaps at times the focus or precision of some of the greatest versions but there's something about it that pulls you in. And the big jam in the second half is really good.


JSegel:


This show opened with (a fantastic and extended) Playing in the Band, and closed with the Dark Star/Sugar Mag/Caution triad, with encores. Dark Star starts and begins wandering and tuning, then gets into the relaxed groove. Lots of swells and ebbs from the drums while Bobby and Phil plug along, the lead guitar seems to be playing with the space, and he gets some controlled feedback at mid tones even. Bill settles into a groove, lots of toms recently, and they’re recorded well so the full set is nice and round sounding.

It’s an endless sea of this groove till some tuning has to happen before 4 minutes and then it breaks down a bit, Bill starts up with a sidestick groove, Jerry starts playing with leading tone stretches and eventually an eddy of single notes, coming out of this into a quieter place with faster little spurts of runs from lead guitar and piano, bass catching up and they bring it up and down. Sort of jazzy now with the sidestick groove and Al DiMeolo-type fast guitar runs, and then hey, Phil starts the Feelin Groovy riff halfway through the 6th minute, and they switch into major key stuff. Well, until they take it tonally sideways a couple minutes later, heh, you thought music was normal for a minute there, didn’t you?

Jerry brings it down with an arpeggio and then it goes into a minor mode, Phil on some minor seconds. Into a sea of holes.

It is very soundtrack-y, storytelling, the scene changes and we’re in a new space, new things are happening. It’s getting a little scary in this scene. Jerry is playing some very high false harmonics and stretching them (you stop the string right where you pick it to make a harmonic of the fretted note). It goes arhythmic and atonal. Into some volume swell space, Bobby playing clusters of notes, runs from the piano.

The bass is picking up some strong feedback tones, non-tonally related notes, it comes to a crest and they start more melodic lines, drums still in bursts and no groove, but it’s coalescing now to become Dark Star again at 14 minutes, the theme is on its way.

Verse 1 at 15:07. Grooving drums through the first line, laying back on line two, and back on line 3 with Phil riffing on the last line. The refrain has some tinkly piano and they go to the outro and into the Transitive Nightfall, a bit of groove happening, it’s not falling apart immediately, takes a few bars. It’s maintaining a semblance of song for a minute, drums start making small rolls, then it’s gone again into volume swelled atonal notes and low piano notes with some weird quick muted guitar strikes, rolling piano bits, rolling drums building into a wild drum area, big bass strikes, Jerry jamming along with his wah wah pedal all backed off for a nasal tone, while the band goes wild, lots of atonal noisy statements from everybody, culminating in a feedback note from Jerry and it brings it into a sparser space at 21 min, some chicken clucks from Bobby, longer notes from Phil. Jerry brings in a wide arpeggio, still with wah wah up and down.

Bill is still rocking out and it’s settled into a groove with Keith finding something in there. JG begins the fast licks again for a bit, some of the riffing has that Main Ten idea for a second. JG is very jazzy, Bill is maintaining a jazzy jungle groove on the floor tom, Phil starts some walking bass stuff. JG still in the quick jazzy licks world for a long time, almost heading toward that later jazzy Blues for Allah type stuff.

It starts to break down at about 26 minutes. There’s still an underlying latent sentiment like it might come back up, but it stays quiet for a bit. Most of the band backs off and leaves Jerry to lead them somewhere else, but he’s moving around different key centers still. Bob and Phil back him up for a while, then Phil starts just playing big chords, sounds like they’re getting tired of it, it goes into extended tremolos, fast little chromatic repeated bits with wah wah, frightening build up with the bursting drums. The break down is fast muted notes, big bass distorted chords, arhythmic statements and then Bobby starts Sugar Magnolia.

Fascinating version, not as beautiful as the Düsseldorf version, but interesting. Lots of jazzy riffing contrasted with atonal monster movie sound tracks.


(Note: post-facto, I associated that fast jazzy-fusion style with Di Meola, but of course he wasn't a known player until two year later with Return To Forever.)


Mr Rain:


For contrast, I listened to the audience tape, maybe the best-sounding one from this tour. I recommend it: the band sounds clear and somehow more forceful than on the SBD tape.
Bill starts off this Dark Star with a 30-second rolling-drums prelude which is an interesting change (and it's cut on the Miller copy). The audience is very happy to hear Dark Star. Jerry has a little tuning mishap at the start (and can be heard briefly tuning periodically throughout), but it's minor.

The opening jam is loose and happy-sounding...maybe more sprawling than cohesive, they're in no hurry to get anywhere. Bill's very active on the drums; Keith seems laid-back but always has nice touches to add. Gradually they gather speed, flickering like hummingbirds, with shades of the '71 flightiness. It's a surprise when Phil starts Feelin' Groovy out of the blue around 6:20; it's kind of a loose lightweight version, and they slip out of it easily after a minute. Sounds like the jam might escalate, but instead they go off into gooey space, the music melting like a Dali painting with pinging Jerry harmonics. They stretch out this space tantalizingly, Phil starting to get heavy around 11 minutes, and there's a nice volume-knob passage. Phil wants to push them into a feedback meltdown but it doesn't quite appear; instead the tension lifts and the music reconstitutes from the ooze, and by 13:40 here's the theme again, the familiar structure sounding quite refreshing. The audience claps! -- one of the touches that gets lost on the SBD tape. (These few minutes are my favorite part of this Dark Star.)

The jam after the verse starts out sunny & peaceful, but there are hints of unease, and some more volume-knob action around 17 minutes turns it in a gloomy direction. They soon get back to spacey wackiness, Keith doing weird backward-piano stuff, Jerry turning on the wah. This gets close to threatening a Tiger meltdown with big Phil rumbles of doom. Jerry hits a nice feedback climax around 20:40, they pause, then carry on with atonal weirdness. But amid the freakiness and Jerry's shimmers, Phil decides it's time to go back to regular jamming and after 21:40 gives them a jazzy line to organize round. Keith & Bill quickly get with this.

The ensuing jam is kind of frenetic and gets close to Caution around 23 minutes with Jerry coming unhinged. But it tames down after a while; they reach a pause by 25:20, gliding restlessly in search of a direction. They quiet down into a guitar trio but the mood is antsy, probing. Their meanderings head back toward a Tiger (again!) around 28 minutes -- this time it's full-fledged with rattling drums & tiger screeches. After it bursts, they end up in skronky random squawks, Phil goin' wild. Bob starts up Sugar Magnolia; Jerry's burblings overlap it a bit but within 10 seconds the whole band's in the song. Big cheer from the crowd! (This is the same kind of wild space>Sugar Magnolia transition they'd done on 4-14 and 4-17....the band must have liked the effect to keep doing it, although I like this one a little less than the others.)

Not a very focused or organized Dark Star; this one kind of wanders around randomly and keeps dissolving into space & noise. But, trippy as it is, it's not all that mellow either; despite a few upbeat stretches, the light & dark shades are in constant tension, with the dark ooze winning out in the end. This isn't so much a Dark Star of beauty & grandeur, but one that invites us to swim out in the deep waters with the sharks.


Deadlast:


Chiming in here with my appreciation for this thread and all the contributions to it. I’ve been reading for a few weeks after stumbling on the blog. I love the project and have thought about doing this myself for years to really appreciate the evolution of Dark Star and the range of what happens within the song as it is generally structured at any given point in time. The variety of just the versions played on this tour are a great window into the latter.
I’ve started back at the beginning and am working to catch up but at the same time, also listening to the most recent shows that have been chronicled here. So, I’m currently just closing out 68 and also here in April of 72. What a difference!
I am appreciating getting familiar with the common musical themes and phrases and the names they’ve been given. Some were quite familiar while others I had not really identified as being as structured and recurring as they are. This just deepens the love of this band and the song. Thanks for letting me tag along.


bzfgt:


That's a good way to do it, 68 and 72 concurrently! Other listening chronologies can be revealing in different ways, I think....