99852 Portland 27:13
Main theme at :06, 15:13.
Elastic Ping Pong Jam at 6:22.
First verse at 15:50.
Tiger at 22:50.
Goes into Eyes of the World.
A languid entry into the theme sets them off on a typical (for the period) opening jam. This introductory section has been particularly mellow lately, though none the less effective for it, like gentle waves lapping at the shore of the deadhead mind. Garcia gestures toward the theme several times, which sometimes serves to orient the groove a bit, I think. Godchaux is inaudible or missing. At this point Weir is rarely doing anything that resembles rhythm guitar as the world knows it, yet the resulting polyphony is generally rather beautiful.
At 4:20 the jam starts percolating nicely, largely thanks to some bubbly lines from Weir and Lesh. At 4:35 Garcia gets into a Sputnik sort of thing; this soon settles down, and then he gets bubbly along with the other two, playing a one-note line that fades in and out. As this subsides into a transitional section at 5:22, Godchaux’s Rhodes can briefly be heard piping up, but then he’s gone again. 5:52 brings another Sputnik groove, and it sounds like they might get weird, early as it is. But then at 6:22 Lesh starts the Elastic Ping Pong lick. Weir is ready right away, but Phil pulls back and reorients himself before blasting off again.
They seem quite comfortable with it this time, and it gets going right away. This is in some ways a more flexible successor to the Soulful Strut jam, with its lightly mobile Garcia line. Not having to maintain a rhythmic chord pattern, Weir is freed up here in a way he never was on that earlier module, and he takes full advantage of this freedom, at times getting kind of crazy! The Dead in 1973 are developing a remarkable facility for developing a gentle groove until it raises the roof, but without relinquishing the mellowness. It’s the most anyone can rock without rocking hard, and they get this one going pretty good.
By 14:07 they step back and let Kreutzmann to do his thing for a little while. They come right back in on the theme at 15:13 in a way that may have resulted from an impromptu planning session during the drum solo, unless Kreutzmann’s beat was sufficient to plant the idea. Godchaux can now be heard on the Rhodes as they take it to the verse.
Garcia goes right to the volume knob as they come loping out of the verse, and accordingly they stagger-step into space. It’s a Lesh-dominated segment; he lays down heavy chords as the others make some accompanying noises. As it slides into near-nothingness, the crowd hollers appreciatively; more evidence, perhaps, that they did not hate the jams and the weirdness! Lesh is more placid now, and they start to weave a compelling skein of sound. Keith pops up here and there; particularly after 21:00 he becomes rather audible, still playing the Fender Rhodes.
A little after the 22 minute mark Kreutzmann begins to put his hand in, and this sends them rather rapidly into a meltdown. A Tiger pops up and slips back into the underbrush just as quickly, as they return to a region of spaciness. At 24:30 they start getting louder and harsher again, perhaps contemplating a second Tiger. A funky beat emerges instead, and Keith takes an active hand in shaping it with his jazzy electric piano. They have one foot in the jungle and one in the lounge, with Garcia’s mad scrapings roughening the edges. When this all subsides into a rather hairy space, Keith considers another funky rejoinder, but they instead slip into Eyes of the World.
A very nice Dark Star, in the manner of recent very nice Dark Stars—there seems to be more that could have been done, but what we have is really good. The second-half hijinks have been excellent lately, but at the same time they seem less interested in developing this aspect of Dark Star. Even though this is a full 27 minutes and change, it feels short. There’s a standard opening jam, and then the Elastic Ping Pong takes up the rest of the first part; the post-verse stuff is very good, but they don’t quite commit to the jam in the second half sufficiently to really let it bloom.
What was said:
JSegel:
(I’ve had the Pacific NW box set for a while (in fact the 45-min PitB got me started on all this concentrated improvisation listening) so I’ve heard this one a few times—it’s the only Dark Star out of 6 concerts in the box set! )
A very relaxed intro into the song, and nearly leaving for space immediately for a minute, where they finally pull it together into a groove. Delicate, again. Nobody is pushing it, allowing easy shifts in the mode. It’s a beautiful quartet interplay, bass drums and two guitars. No Keith going on here… he went on a break, I guess? Or isn't on the tape? Hard to say.
Coming back to the theme occasionally before departing again at 4 minutes in, it goes into a new very spacey groove where Jerry tries some Sputnik-y ideas, but they fade into a low tremolo.
It comes back to a very quiet modal area, some hammer-on/pull-offs using lots of open strings, and back to a Sputnik in min 6. Bill picks it up as it fades a bit, hoping for someone to groove along, and then Phil steps in with a riff in 7, (the ping pong/proto-Solomon riff) against the 6/8 drums.
Jerry picks it up and goes with it. It evolves as a band theme in a few minutes, riffs from Jerry cohere it, and Bobby starts going for it after with sliding chord figures, by 10 minutes they are getting down on a funky groove. They keep plugging away at it over some crests, Phil starts suggesting new places to go melodically/tonically. In the 12th minute Bob is doing his erratic skrrawk on guitar in between riffs (as he isn’t singing at the time to skrawwk vocally).
At the end of min 13 it falls apart, Phil takes it down and then a roll from the drums into a drum solo!
Which leads them all to a way back in at 15:24 with the Dark Star groove.
Verse at 16, vocals far off at first, coming in closer. Very sparse line 2, rolling back to a descending and then ascending groove on line 3, to the refrain.
Outro and into the sea of the Transitive Nightfall, Bobby has his lick moving down against pulsing bass coming in and volume swell guitar. Drums drop out, everybody leaves space, the sounds get small. Phil stretches a bit higher, Jerry is soft, but looking for some feedback. Phil goes for some big chords, answered by small wah resonances from tapping on the guitar. It goes low at 20 min, into wobbly bass subharmonics and the multi channel thing bouncing around. Swelled atonal notes come in. Bobbys stretching some odd chords against the fretboard.
Creepy-crawlies start at 22, little short bits and odd sounds. Jerry sees the opportunity to start the Tiger meltdown in min 23, but it comes over its crest and backs off again into the depths, building again but this time in atonal wah-inflected pseudo-melodies, the riffing starts as the bass gets louder, drums get chaotic. At 25 min, Bill starts a heavy back beat and I finally hear some Keith in there, rocking on it. Phil is in on the groove, but his bass is still moving all over the place spatially. Jerry and Bob are making odd little noises respectively. It cedes to string scratches and noise, back to swelled notes and feedback from Bob’s reverb, and then suddenly Eyes of the World.
___________________
Much phenomenal stuff here. The keyboardless interplay is amazing, it’s all very delicate; they have the proper sound stage to hear each other and work on the smallest details. I really appreciate the versions where they can obviously hear each other and have the ability to play very subtle things. The versions of a lot of songs in the PNW box (both 73 and 74) are really good, and the audience really comes along for the ride, even for those intensely long jams, like the long PitB. Impressive.
Mr. Rain:
The opening's very relaxed, like floating on the surf. Keith's apparently absent for a while, so it's a little like 1971 again, with only four players. (Sometimes I think I hear a Rhodes note in the background, so maybe he was accidentally turned down in the mix.)
The jam stays light & mellow for a few minutes, all delicate interplay. A more intense feel creeps in around 3-4 minutes as Jerry gets more pushy, then relaxes again. Jerry gets into a hovering motif around 4:40 and things get very pretty in the next minute; he slips into a Sputnik-type arpeggio at 5:50. Seems like things are going to get spacey, but at 6:22, Phil butts in with his Marbles riff, and the others fall into place. (Rather, there's a false start with Bob, then Phil pauses and restarts it "for real.") By now Bob & Jerry have worked out their own repeating lines for this theme. Phil & Bob don't always keep the line going but spin out on variations now & then. It heats up over a few minutes and turns into a nice groovy tight-but-loose jam. Their playing gets more wacky (especially Bob's squawks), almost like it's a cartoon jam, and Jerry in turn responds almost comically. At 11:30, aha, Keith shows up at last on the Rhodes! (I think someone finally remembered to turn him up.) They stick with this theme for quite a long time, considering they rarely jam around a single structure in Dark Star for long these days. But it eventually peters out around 13m.
At 13:15 Phil teases the main theme, but the others want to keep it freeform and they wriggle around in delighted loose abandon a little longer. But then at 13:50 Phil takes a rather abrupt, heavy-handed downward turn, and everyone stops playing so Bill can take a drum solo. I'm not a big fan of drum solos in Dark Star, it seems like a sign that something's gone awry. This one seems kind of unmotivated, cutting short a nice jam. But it's short, and the crowd's supportive. At 15:13, the others all come back on the main theme in unison (aha, those sneaky Dead), and Jerry sings the verse at 15:50. Keith's Rhodes is very understated in the verse.
Then they trickle out into spacey ooze....Jerry does his poignant volume swells, Bob makes little ghostly noises, and Phil's pluckings lead up to his standard big doomy chords. Phil kind of takes the lead here on bass, striking out semi-melodically while Jerry & Bob shimmer eerily in back. (I think they're expecting him to take a solo, but he doesn't.) An audience cheer at 20m, and then Phil switches to stereo, different strings on right & left. Keith quietly sneaks back in at 20:30; Jerry comes forth with more elegant wah-inflected volume turns. By 21m there's a slight classical feel, but the playing gets weirder with high plucks & fragmented runs, and after 22m it's a full spacey morass, everyone getting freaky. Bill comes in, and things turn quickly into a Tiger meltdown. This stays restrained and they soon back off & return to spaciness at 23m, Jerry slithering around on the wah. At 24:30 Phil seems to be pushing for another Tiger, but this breaks up into Phil's bloops. Then Phil, Bill & Keith enter into a kind of demented lounge backing, peppered by Bob's chords and weird sounds from Jerry. Jerry scrapes away like mad! Then they drop back to spaciness after 26m, and they float on Jerry's volume swells for a while, Phil following him melodically while Bob makes echoed gusts of wind. Eyes of the World starts unexpectedly; the audience approves. (Phil's still in stereo, for a nice touch.)
I liked this one more than I used to. This was a rather simple Dark Star, with the Dead single-minded in their aims. The first half is mostly devoted to one of the longest Marbles jams; the second half is entirely given to freaky space. It's kind of funny, whenever a pattern starts to emerge, they soon head right back to open space. One thing I've noticed in a lot of recent Dark Stars, they rarely actually get to a whole explosive meltdown; usually they prefer to tease it and stay in the spooky twilight zone as long as they can. (In this case, I don't think it's a case of them "not committing to the jam" or developing the Tiger enough; it's the more open spacey part that they DID want to develop. They give us about 10 minutes of spacey madness with hardly any structure at all: they're quite committed to keeping it weird.) Eyes works well coming out of the weirdness, so for most of '73 it's the default segue. Unfortunately there's no audience tape for this one, but the crowd's clearly diggin' it.
adamos:
Nice mellow opening; they float through the clouds in delicate fashion. Jerry works a subtle line and there's lots of open space for collective interweaving. Phil adds some gentle buoyancy and Bob blends in his textures. They drift along nicely, slowly building just a bit of momentum. The whole thing has a pretty feel.
Around 4:35 Jerry shifts into some Sputnik-like sounds and they bubble and swirl before easing up and gently exploring their new location. There's another touch of Sputnik that slowly fades away. And then at 6:22 Phil gets the Elastic Ping Pong jam going. Archtop has called this the most fully fleshed out version of the jam.
It takes its time starting up and then they take it for a ride. Phil and Billy hold it down while Jerry winds and weaves in higher territory and Bob compliments him nicely. The momentum builds for a good spell and it’s sort of mellow hot. There's some ebb and flow and Keith becomes audible around 11:30 as noted by Mr. Rain. It builds up again before eventually running its course after 13:00 or so. From there they transition for a bit and then quiet down and after some pronounced notes from Phil give it over to Billy. He solos for a minute or so and then at 15:13 they shift right into the theme and then move on to the verse.
After the verse they reset and let things dissolve. Bob extends his rhythm and then Jerry gets into some volume knob action and things get gently spacey and contemplative. Phil steps forward and works some lines as Jerry keeps going with stretchy subtleties. Phil gets a little more ominous sounding but they let it percolate slowly. They're drifting in deep space now. It feels like danger lurks nearby but they've yet to confront it. Around 20:00 Phil starts up another staggered line and the interplay is quiet and patient.
Things slowly start to build again and Keith becomes more noticeable and then after 22:00 things start to get freakier. Billy gets more active and there's some scratchy insect-y sounds and then Jerry starts spinning up the Tiger. He lets it rip in somewhat understated fashion (relatively speaking) and then pulls it back fairly quickly. By 23:00 they're drifting in space again. They float along for a spell slowly getting freakier again but keeping things relatively in check.
There's a fuzzy, feedback-y interjection around 24:30 and it feels like they could let it rip again but they pull back and find their way to a fusion-y jam instead. Keith stands out and they work the groove, getting a little funky while still blending in some freaky, stretchy sounds. It's kind of weird! Before long the funkiness subsides and they're back to scraping weirdness. They quiet down and after making various spacey, freaky sounds they let it go and start up Eyes Of The World.
I like this one more every time I listen to it. The opening is mellow and open with a certain beauty and delicateness. The fleshed out Elastic Ping Pong jam is really good and a highlight. The post-verse freakiness stays somewhat in check which aligns with the mellow nature of the overall performance, and they opt not to fully explore whatever was potentially coming together near the end. But things still get nice and weird.
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