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:
JSegel:
Europe ’72 Vol.2, Europe ’72 Complete Recordings
(I also listened to the Aud/SBD matrix that was available, some people wrote that fireworks went off behind the band at some point and people Wooooed… but I must have missed that.)
Outdoor festival in the mud, tons of amazing bands. (I mean, Captain Beefheart, Family, Captain Beyond! Early Hawkwind… Etc…) There’s a bunch of writing on the web about the impact of this festival on the folks that went, including stories of it inspiring later musicians (such as Elvis Costello being inspired by the Dead, which is interesting and obviously wasn’t part of his public persona for years. Much later, though, he did have Jerry sit in at a Marin show!)
Dark Star comes after Jack Straw again, and heads off after a drum solo into an extended The Other One. That’s one way to take that ball and run with it!
After the intro, Bobby starts playing with the chords, centering it more on the e minor and f# minor, though it’s casual. Lotsa tuning in between notes and strums for a bit. Nice little eddies in the flow forming after a couple minutes, getting caught up in small fractals of the available notes. Beautiful echoing from Keith following Jerry’s runs. Into an area of wailing stretched strings and some tremolo at 4 minutes in to a Sputnik area.
Sputnik continues fairly quietly over its run, moving into an area of spaciousness as JG starts small lead bits as the drums roll on. Coming out of it with more modal melodic phrasing as Bobby holds on some minor chords in the key. They build the jam up to a faster pace, they have a new little chord sequence by 8 minutes (sounds like b minor area for a while there?) Bobby trying some very dissonant chords and phrases against Jerry’s short building blocks of melody. They hold on an e minor area as it becomes more space oriented, remnants of Sputnik.
(At 10:55 there’s a little lick that Jerry has played several times in the past that I call “it’s all the same” for long-ago acid trip reasons, it is a repeated “dit-dah dit-dah” nursery rhyme rhythm against the beat of whatever is going on, with descending intervals. This evening it’s D-C#, D-B, a couple nights ago he used it on a major third, G#-F#, G#-E. Not structurally important, but I always hear it when it happens. Just so you know.)
They settle on a b-f#-G triad and then a higher G maj7.
Jerry comes in with nasal tone bits at 12 min. Nobody exactly following him to a groove, Bob plays little stretches. Blips and bloops from Phil. This is some spaced out rock music, man. Muddy seaweed dancing continues. Some volume swells follow with delicate feedback and slow forward movement to the theme entrance at 14:28, and they’re back in the groove. Nice one!
Verse 1 at 15 min. Sort of a slow groove first line, decent vocal entrance. Phil leading the breaks on line two, Bobby has the wandering bits on line 3 with the previously explored dissonances as melodics. Refrain and out to the Transitive Nightfall with trills from Bob and chords from Phil, feedback from Jerry, and volume swells, it’s very much a transition here. (Jerry takes a bit to tune his strings, probably changing a lot in the humidity. Isolated sounds and swells follow, a rocky undersea surface, light feedback backgrounds, cymbals. Drums start moving around in the mix. The instruments sound like tape music, music concrete, very much sound-as-sound and not as notes really. Phil starts some trills. Eventually it’s just drums.
A 2.5 minute solo drum section follows, rolling on toms, continuous rolling over the kit. Eventually some kick and cymbal punctuation for the longer sentences. At about 2:10, he starts the 6/8 and it leads to Phil diving in and they start The Other One.
This is a long version of The Other One, 30 minutes! So we’ve got some intense jamming happening now to take people home from the Dark Star. The Dark Star was a little disjointed, or rather maybe a bit mellow overall. The space was nice but the jams never got super developmental and the soundscapes were relatively short—unlike the version of The Other One that follows, which is endlessly moving forward and growing off in branches. Even weirder spacey sections. …um, after Bill’s drum solo, again, a whole new band. (What was backstage during the drum solo?)
Note, at 25 minutes into TOO, they start a groove and Jerry almost goes for the Bright Star melody. It’s a jam that would not have been out of place in the latter half of Dark Star at all. After a couple more minutes, though, they start the journey back to TOO.
Mr. Rain:
. An outdoor festival Dark Star! Our first in a long time....will this change the vibe? Actually no, there's no particular sense of the setting; the Dead create their own environment.
Mellow start; nice mix on this source (except Keith's too quiet, and often seems to be absent). The audience tape is only fair, but it indicates a good sound system (with loud drums) and an attentive audience. If anything the Dark Star sounds more dramatic from the audience perspective.
The playing's sharp and relaxing at the same time, and they're in no hurry, they just drift downstream. Sputnik v.2 shows up again after 4:15, this one perhaps sounding the closest to its '69 ancestors....but it stays very mellow, just sort of floating on the breeze....but things pick up at 5:50 and the playing gets more edgy & driving afterwards. As bzfgt points out it becomes kind of an Other One/Dark Star hybrid after 6 minutes. They latch onto Bob's little descending riff after 7:50 and things really heat up; Jerry takes off and it could almost be a climactic jam here. But then they turn mild again after 9:20 and it's back to floating on the breeze.... The following passage has an unusual undertone, kind of a wandering minor-key feel that turns hypnotic. Jerry works up to some cool mournful volume-knob action around 13:20 that they extend for a minute, while Phil nicely nudges them toward the main theme at 14. The band arrives at the familiar theme with a kick (and audience applause)!
An enthusiastic verse seems to bode well for the post-verse jamming. They dive right into a bass-heavy space and linger there....sounds fall away, they're returning to 1970-style quiet minimalism....But under shards of feedback Bill's getting more active, ready to roll, and the others drop out and let him take a solo.
Will they come back to finish Dark Star, like on 5-4? Well, not this time....Bill sets up the Other One (the crowd's happy to hear it!) and they deliver a nice big half-hour version. Maybe it was part of their plan at the festival to do a Dark Star>Other One (a very rare combo by this time). So this was really only half a Dark Star. I thought it was a nice half -- maybe hard to rate but the few minutes before the verse were quite entrancing. Bzfgt accuses it of not going anywhere, but it took me places!
pbuzby:
Deadbase had a transcription of an audience tape from that mentioned Phil saying "look out Bickershaw, here it comes" before Dark Star. This isn't on the official release or any Archive source. Interesting as I can't think of another similar intro for the song.
adamos:
Nice mellow vibe as they get going. There's some relaxed strumming from Bob as Jerry floats off on a cloud. Bill adds some crisp cymbal work in the background. Jerry starts going higher and sharper while still gliding along. They slowly start to build some momentum with nice textures from Bob and Phil doing his thing.
Around 2:40 the feel shifts and they briefly get into a rumbly repeating thing before carrying forth. It comes back with higher notes from 3:20-3:40. Jerry moves into playing some high stretchy notes and then they swirl a little before moving into the Sputnik-y passage at 4:15. It's a low-key telling that takes it time and fits in well with the overall vibe thus far.
Starting at 5:50 there's a taste of The Other One as bzfgt noted which then gets incorporated into the blossoming jam. Jerry works some stronger lines and they rev up a bit with Phil working off it underneath and nice complimentary activity from Bob.
Around 7:45 Bob starts up some new chords that he plays with gusto and they all join in and crank things up again working off the pattern. They rise to an impassioned peak with Jerry's guitar screaming upwards; it might have been a Bright Star in another time. They ease up a bit but keep working the pattern, heading up again before bringing it down. There's a touch of Sputnik again at 9:30 and then they move into a mellower drifty passage with nice accents from Bob.
They wander in this zone for a good spell and it sounds like they might drift out into Space. They're in no hurry though. Jerry plays some winding lower notes with a touch fuzz before eventually getting into some volume knob action. Bob remains pretty active with melodic strumming. Then starting around 13:53 Phil starts gently introducing the theme while Jerry continues to play some stretchy, spacey notes. There's a touch of fuzzy feedback and then they move into theme proper and then on to the verse.
After the verse they briefly reset and then shift into some fuzzy, boomy spaciness. Things quiet down but this seems less of a dramatic, artistic decision and more like a bit of hovering as they decide where they'd like to go next. Various semi-spacey sounds ensue and then there's some gentle reverberating weirdness as Bill starts to slowly ramp up into what becomes a drum break. After that it's on to The Other One.
I enjoy this one and it's cool to get Dark Star and The Other One together. There are some nice passages and a good mini peak, and Bob's contributions also seem worth a mention. But it does seem to drift along in places without any particularly strong statements. Perhaps knowing that The Other One was coming changed their mindset and approach.
Mr. Rain:
Carrying on with the 5-7 Other One....strong stuff! The Europe '72 Other Ones may, on average, be better than the Dark Stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment