29263 Utica 21:44
Main theme at :06, 8:20 and 9:13.
First verse at 9:35.
Goes into Eyes of the World
An early rendition of the Weather Report Suite intro leads into Dark Star, and the audience sounds really excited to hear it tonight. A few passes at the main theme follow the opening lick, and then we get a fairly standard two-chord jam. Godchaux is present in the mix here, which is always welcome. We can hear him being rather active, which is often the case when he’s sufficiently audible. He locks in with Lesh at 3:15, and they generate some drama with a sort of hanging chordal interlude that stretches out for about a minute, lending the music an unresolved feel.
The jam seems to hover for a while; Garcia hints at E minor, but there are no decisive moves. Weir adds some harmonics at 5:44, which contribute to the sense of hovering that pervades the early parts of the jam. There’s a bit of a crescendo beginning at around 6:25, and as everyone’s lines get louder they begin to feel a bit more decisive. Lesh starts playing around with the Elastic Ping Pong riff at 7:15, and things are now pulling apart again. They pull back and regroup, trying to latch on, but this segment doesn’t get off the ground; Garcia finally pulls the ripcord on the main theme at 8:20. They use the theme to pull together, and then they leave it behind; it seems like they’re going to have another whack at a jam, but they soon return to the theme and Jerry sings the verse.
After the verse there’s an interesting interlude where Garcia plays some rapid arpeggios to Keith’s quarter note accompaniment, before it all subsides into space. Keith generates a droney buzz in the left channel, and Kreutzmann taps out a beat on the cymbals while Garcia floats. When we reach the 16 minute mark this seems to be heading toward a meltdown as all four of the string players begin to generate a cacophony over Kreutzmann’s beat. The chaos here has a kind of cohesion, and for a couple minutes there is a very effective meltdown, which they keep at a low boil. At 18:40 Jerry initiates the lead-in to a Tiger segment, but they avoid the expected peak and let it continue to simmer. By 20:30 they’ve come out the other side, and once again a Dark Star ends just as the elements of a really interesting jam seem to be coming together. This is enjoyable in its own right, but it’s a shame they don’t give it room, as it dies out just as it’s beginning and Jerry starts strumming Eyes of the World.
The first half begins nicely, but nothing remarkable winds up happening, and they wind up getting a little out of joint. The back half is quite good here, though; it’s a shame they didn’t develop it further.
JSegel:
Weather Report instrumental intro for a minute and then directly into Dark Star on a cymbal swell, intro and and into a flowing theme area, some playful notes at the intros for each person’s single-note lines. Jerry starts in on some fast riffing in a minute, but they sound fairly playful bouncing around the Dark Star thematic world. Phil has some interesting statements at 3:30 or so, Bobby responding with harmonics, Jerry then goes into an eddy with an augmented leading tone bringing it over the crest, landing on some trills which then bring the rhythm into a different area. (Some “yeahs” from the audience.
They bring it down even farther to get set for the next wave. Keith on a descending melody, then Jerry idles out on the “it’s all the same” rhythm moving it into a bluesy riff before 6 minutes, then they start it up again. They chug away and get into some new odd rhythmic stuff in the 7th minute, Phil accenting things into a new world. It ebbs at 8 minutes and they regroup, in the Dark Star theme world, with an interesting thematic version that climbs in dyads to a kind of Bright Star at 9 min. Theme directly afterwards, and into the verse at 9:38.
Nice vocals, strong at the start and then sensitive, Bill keeps a ride at half time for line 2, Bob doing some very interesting wandering on line 3. Refrain goes smoothly, they play through the outro into the next section allowing it to flit away in the breeze, Jerry starting on a wide arpeggio (that is like the outro to )
He lets it go and brings it back while people come in and out of the rhythm. It all floats away into isolated swelled long notes (plaintive!) that develop into feedback. Some odd noises from Bobby (? or is it Keith with wah piano? sounds a bit Sitar-like, I think he’s scraping the piano strings?), some sticks and cymbals from Bill.
It moves into more drums, but not really a drum solo, there are odd little sounds from everybody as accompaniment, string scratches and wah bits. The noises build, everybody making warbles and scrapes, Jerry on some clicks and pops with wah-pedal. Wow, very odd. Billy comes back with a stronger drumscape, but not fast, just short rolls and hits. At 17:30 it sounds like Jerry is heading for the Tiger meltdown. Some stronger bass notes come in, in between the scrapes. It lulls at 18:30 into longer scrapes and some atonal notes and riffs from the guitars. Jerry starts up the Tiger chromatics again, but doesn’t bring them up high, and some bass feedback signals the crest of this wave and they back off into soft sparse notes.
Some more atonal quiet venturing goes on, into a bizarro-world polka for a second, Jerry goes off on a whole tone scale. It’s a short little wave that peters out at 21:30 and slowly allows for Eyes of the World to begin (into Wharf Rat.)
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Nice one! Sort of short and sweet (at 22 min), great multi-player improv on the thematic area up front, a nice verse and then some very weird noisescapes in the second half.
adamos:
There's touch of Weather Report Suite to get things started and then they're off, much to the delight of the audience. The initial feel is upbeat and bouncy with plenty of cymbal sparkle. They ease up just slightly and head out into the clouds. Jerry works a wandering line through thematic territory. Nice fills from Keith and Billy remains pretty active. Phil asserts himself around 3:15 and they focus around it leading to an upward, spiraling charge that is compelling.
From there they settle back with some nice playing from Keith. Phil sends out some bouncy notes and they start to swirl things up again with a pretty feel. There's some ebb and flow leading to nice, gentler lines from Jerry. They work in this space for a bit. Keith asserts himself again and the collective volume rises as they make a stronger statement. There's a touch of lower, bluesy notes from Jerry. Phil hints at some Elastic Ping Pong starting around 7:15, as noted by bzfgt. They hover and swirl with repeating movement and then let it go and move back into thematic territory around 8:20. The energy conveys a triumphant return although they hadn't wandered out too far. They rise to a mini-peak and then come back down to the theme and on to the verse.
After the verse they reset and then seem to be considering how they want to let things dissolve. This turns into some repeating patterns that slowly give way to space. Jerry plays some stretchy notes that create a gentle, wailing feel. Billy works the cymbals and a lower, buzzing sound emanates forth that is somewhat reminiscent of a mouth harp.
After a brief pause Bill starts working up a beat. He rides this for a spell; some string scraping enters to weird things up followed by assorted freaky sounds. It sounds like they've left space and entered a deep, spooky jungle. The intensity rises and they spin up an insect-y freakout. After 17 minutes or so the wah becomes more present and it feels like they're on a slow, winding path towards the Tiger. They rise up and freak further but the Tiger doesn't fully emerge. Instead they ease off and gather and then things start to rise again.
By 18:40 or so Jerry seems ready to take another run at it. They freak further but keep it relatively mellow. Some buzzing bass enters and then they slowly let it go. They find a quieter place in this still freaky land and get into some staggered, atonal playing. It seems promising but they opt not to explore it further. Instead they let it subside and create an opening for Eyes Of The World to emerge.
A pretty good version overall. I like the energy and feel of the opening and there’s some good Keith on the recording. The post-verse spacey, jungly freakout is the most interesting part even though they don’t fully unleash the Tiger. I’d have liked them to explore that final passage more but apparently they were ready to move on.
This is a Dark Star I didn't even remember. As soon as I started listening I realized why: there's a horrible buzz on the tape (as on several March '73 shows) which makes this difficult to listen through. Can Dark Star fight its way through the buzz?
Things sound lively before Dark Star begins with lots of audience shouting, the band goofing around....some of that New York energy! (Miller's tape cuts out about 3 minutes of dead air.) Naturally Bob decides to calm things down with his Weather Report Suite prelude -- still just a Prelude at this point without any song to attach itself to, except for Dark Star. The band plays it very badly (Jerry seems to have forgotten how it goes), but after a minute they bring it to a close, and with a rush of cymbals and a tease from Jerry....they fall into Dark Star. The crowd goes yay! (It's neat to hear someone shouting "yeah! yeah!" periodically throughout Dark Star.)
Silky smooth jamming to open with. They're in a relaxed pretty mode, almost easy-listening. Keith seems to come up in the mix after 3 minutes. They get looser after a while, starting to poke around, though there's kind of an empty feeling here to my ears. By 6:40 they're in a little surge, swirling together in a new gust of energy. At 7:15 Phil tries throwing his Marbles line into the mix, but the result is just muddled confusion -- everyone seems to be playing different directions, and the swirl falls apart. By 8m they've settled down again, and Jerry brings up the main theme to pull everyone together. This works; and he soars off in a nice little Dark Star jam, but they come back to the theme around 9:15, the verse following shortly at 9:35.
The verse outro figure is a bit sloppy, and they soon dissolve into the buzz, Jerry fading out on a repeated line. A very nice space follows -- plaintive Jerry volume swells, Keith doing kind of an insect drone (!), cymbals. The audience is super-quiet now; the buzz is super-loud. By 14m Bill's started up a rolling groove, but the rest of the Dead doesn't join in; they're not ready to jam. Other than a few notes from Phil, they drop out -- maybe a drum solo's on the way? But no: by 15m Jerry's uttering some Tiger-like cackles, Phil & Bob start scraping their strings, Keith's making quiet metallic shimmers. They descend into full-out noisy freaky weirdness by 16m. Great stuff! And they keep it up for a few minutes, assaulting the audience with their spooky jungle cacophony. Around 18m they get quieter; Jerry breaks out some wah runs and starts heading for the Tiger at 19m, but they keep it at a low boil. Phil does his Ominous Drone, but for whatever reason, the coming meltdown cools off and the tension just dissipates at 20m. (Crowd appreciation: "woo hoo!")
Little musical hints from everyone, what's next? -- but instead of cohering into a jam, Jerry & Keith go sideways on some atonal silliness, and the rest of the band follows them into the wacky zone. It kind of sounds like if the opening Prelude had fallen apart into total goofing-off. They mostly fall silent; Phil plucks a few notes, but the jamming's over. Jerry strikes up Eyes of the World. The crowd likes this turn, and they start clapping along right away!
Even without the distracting buzz, this is a Dark Star of small pleasures. The opening jam's okay but slight, the space & freakout are very good, but there's no climax. They just unravel at the end like they've had enough. With many sloppy moments, much noise and not much committed jamming, I get the feeling their hearts weren't in this Dark Star.
The audience tape offers an interesting alternate Phil-centric perspective. It sounds like the taper is right in front of the bass amp, with drums also up-front and the rest of the band in the background. It makes the opening jam sound even more disjointed. However, the space section sounds way better on this tape without the buzzing, then you get Phil's wobbly-saw noises at full blast. I recommend checking out the second half of Dark Star on this tape.
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