165. 1973-08-01

92478 New Jersey 24:50

Main theme at 12:31.
First verse at 13:10.
Tiger at 23:50.
Goes into El Paso.


A cymbal wash sets the scene this time for the introductory lick, which gives the whole thing an almost tentative feeling that carries through into the opening bars. Weir contributes to this premonitory feeling with some harmonics. Godchaux plays the Rhodes from the outset this time, and he’s coming through loud and clear. In fact, the mix is fantastic overall, as all five musicians are well represented throughout the sound stage.


At 3:05 Lesh starts a repeating figure that gets everyone to latch on and the music kicks up a notch. They get louder and more intense, yet the sense of brooding remains at first, but the playing gets more vigorous until they come to a peak at around 4:40. They come out the other side and kick into a groove, with Garcia’s stabbing chords providing a focal point. They walked us into it, but suddenly one realizes that they’re on fire.


Another peak starts swelling up in the neighborhood of 7:05, and now they’re really going! Garcia brushes up against Bright Star at 7:24, and keeps cascading over the top. Then by 8:00 they pull way back, and here they seem to consider visiting the main theme. Instead they drop into another groove, a little less sure-footed than the last at first, but by 8:45 it has become something vicious and disjointed. Now that they’ve pulled it together, they have to pull it apart somehow…they opt for a little smoothing of the rough edges, and by 10:00 the music is again asking questions. Weir is playing out of his head here, playing a muffled line that bounces up and down, and Garcia is locking in and then bouncing out again until he hits a roll at 10:15 the groove here is again monstruous.


So, of course, it doesn’t last long; they start to strip it for parts and then it’s all clattering to the floor. At 11:20 they are taking a serious look at the theme, but at 11:32 Lesh has is toying with a Ping Pong-adjacent riff…but then he resolves the tension at 11:59 by serving up the theme with an exaggerated gesture. They don’t play it yet, as instead they luxuriate for a bit in the Dark Star space before Garcia, with an exaggerated flourish of his own, kicks off the theme at 12:31. They settle into it and head right for the verse, Lesh popping off with some up-the-neck stuff on the way in. They play through the verse a bit impatiently, accepting the structure but seemingly eager to get back out of it.


There’s something droney and hypnotic brewing out of the verse. Weir is once again a prime mover here, as he hammers on his A string. Garcia is skritching, but at 16:22 he starts playing drawn out, keening tones, employing the slide. Lesh gets his fuzzy overdriven thing going, and Weir starts playing arpeggios. Godchaux tinkles along quiescently, adding texture. Kreutzmann is heavy on the cymbals. This in a way mirrors the beginning of tonight’s version with its brooding feel, only here on the other side of the verse the weirdness and intensity is turned way up.


And, it gets turned up even more, as Lesh’s chords at 18:22 burst out of the speakers. Here one starts to expect some kind of move toward a Tiger or something like it, but so far this segment is sui generis. By 19:50 Garcia has laid aside the slide, and he’s getting a wah tone, but his playing stays melodic, and there’s no meltdown in sight. Instead, Jerry spins out the kind of lines that sometimes culminate in him quoting Bach…I don’t know how else to identify this particular mode of Garcia.


By 22:15 we seem to have reached a crossroads; the music is dispersing, and has gotten very free…then it kicks up into a kind of frenetic pre-meltdown jam, and at 23:50 the Tiger suddenly bursts forth. It froths over and pours down into El Paso, and this Dark Star has come to an end.


One could perhaps fault this one for being a little short, but this is Grateful Dead music of the highest order. The first half is magnificent. If they’ve perhaps become overly familiar with the Dark Star form by now, tonight they wear it loosely, and this familiarity becomes a source of power. The back half is unique and gripping, almost overwhelming in its power and grace. For my money, this is the best Dark Star of the year thus far.


What was said:

JSegel:


Huge show. Here, the stadium show is shorter, yet they insert an El Paso between Dark Star and Eyes. Dark Star comes after Row Jimmy (for some reason a song I just don’t like much.) This is our last Dark Star with Alligator, I believe. Some cymbal rolling leads in to the intro riff and the song starts in a slow and mystically drifty way, the band are each playing sparsely, though Jerry has a lilting gait and descending phrases, that he comes back to occasionally in the waves. Bobby even starts playing some melodic bits after a minute! Keith sounds cool on the electric piano, sort of a sharper sound in there. Little eddies form, in a building way at 3 minutes in, they head upwards and Phil takes it and runs with it. Bill picks it up and they start moving quicker.

Jerry reiterates his lilting climb but the energy doesn’t stick this time, and only Bill is left plugging away after a couple minutes. Bobby picks it up with a groovy riff, Keith and Jerry with rhythmic stabs, developing it and settling into a jam, Jerry finally really takes off. It’s in the Dark Star world but pretty fast and moving. Over the hill by 8 minutes, it starts to settle a bit into a lower volume area. Bill is trying some odd patterns out, Keith is chordally accompanying the cycles, every body else finds their way into some sort of phase pattern cycle of sounds for a minute or so. It moves into a new groove after this but Bill is still trying some weird patterns out (13s?). At 11 minutes it lets go and drops into a mellower area, from which Jerry insinuates a new Dark Star melodicness, and Phil takes it into a downbeat so that at 12 min they go into a very slow and odd Dark Star melody-ish, and by 12:40 it starts for real heading to the verse.

Verse at 13:13, strong vocal entrance, slow band chugging away, Bill keeps the hi-hat on line 2, and Phil bubbles away at the end of that line and continues wandering around higher and higher on line 3. The electric piano makes nice octave bells on the refrain. They all play in sync in this section, and into the outro riff, from which Bobby does his “transitive nightfall intro lick” only twice, and Bill picks up some sleigh bells!

Bobby plays around with low notes, Phil taps his low strings, Jerry comes in and out with small sounds, string scratches. Phil and Bobby do percussion on their instruments, Jerry comes in with a wail-and-wah, slide playing again! Very bluesy little licks against a bass drone and percussive guitar. Eventually Bobby starts playing modal guitar in a very folksy-English way, and the bell tree ushers in cymbals. A peak with feedback slide and big bass notes comes at 18:30, over this, it’s still a slow two chord blues, (1 and flat7), some phrygian notes start sneaking in and the bass goes for some feedback as well.

At 19:40, Jerry drops the slide, plays wah-rolled-off notes, Keith arpeggiates a bit (I really like the sound of this piano!) and heads for major chords, Jerry picks it up and runs off with an arpeggio to a very major folky/classical melody, Bobby comes along. Bill has some new percussion or bells he’s rubbing together. By 22 the mode is expanding, entering non-tonal areas, ceding to chords, planing diminished chords and wah swells, Tiger chromatics make a soft entrance, and fade out. Odd little spurts of sound from guitars and piano, drums on hihat. A real Tiger happens at 24 min, building up higher and higher to a few wah-growls, but it lets off to notes again, and Bill rolls along, Bobby starts up El Paso.

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These stadium-size ones have been interesting. In one way they are very introverted, the stage sound must be decent for the band to play like this, and then you have thousands of people watching and cheering. They can get very small, mic’ed up hand percussion and all, and then also huge. It sort of took a while for this one to develop into a jam, but that said, a bunch of these lately have been endless successions of short ideas in rolling waves. It’s beautiful how they move through these areas collectively.




adamos:





Dark Star rises up through cymbal action and then they're off. It's slow going at first like they are cutting through the cymbal-induced fog. There's a mellow, gentle vibe that conjures up the feeling of taking a stroll through a meadow. Jerry and Phil work gentle lines with Keith and Bobby adding nicely to the overall sound. There's a pretty feel to the proceedings.

At 3:05 Phil starts up a bouncy, repeating thing that ratchets up the energy. They swirl upwards building towards an interwoven peak. There's some ebb and flow and then they push through another ascent before leveling out and slowly working up a groove. The vibe starts out mellow but before long they are cooking. Jerry works some sharp, staggered notes and Keith is very active. Bob is adding a lot of texture too. They are zipping along like a hovercraft on water; it really pulls you in.

They rise to another peak and there's just a slight touch of Bright Star around 7:22 as pointed out by bzfgt. They are moving and grooving with a hard charging lead from Jerry. After 7:45 they start to ease up and at 8:00 they hover briefly and consider new directions. Billy works his kit and they bubble along, still cooking but at a lower boil. Jerry plays some lower, staggered notes complimented by quick rhythmic bursts from Bob while Phil does his thing underneath. Keith is weaving in and around as well.

They find some more cohesion and then start to ease up. They don't let it fully go however, opting to let the momentum carry them forward. Jerry starts heading upwards after 10:00 and there's a bit of a Sputnik-ish feel. They slow it down again around 10:40 and Bill comes forward while everyone continues to do their thing. By 11:00 this seems to have run its course. They downshift and coast a bit and again consider their options.

Things start to return to Dark Star territory as they touch on the theme without fully committing to it. They float along in this zone for a spell. Phil asserts the theme strongly at 12:00 but it still doesn't fully take. They dance around it for a bit longer and then bring it home at starting at 12:31, adding some drama to its reemergence. They work the theme with a gentle feel briefly and then head into the verse.

After the verse they reset accented by sleigh bells from Bill as noted by JSegel. Things slowly quiet and then Bobby starts working a note while the others gently begin to swirl something up. They take their time with it and then after some subtle string scraping Jerry introduces some wailing slide around 16:20. Bobby continues to add plucking sounds and there's some background feedback and you can feel something collectively start to rise up.

Things are getting freaky but at the same time there is a turn towards the melodic. Bobby works some figures and Jerry keeps playing the slide and the others are quite active too. The intensity and volume begins to rise and then it really rises as Phil comes thundering in starting around 18:10. They pull back a bit but everyone is calling out into the night in various ways. It feels like something is swirling up again and Jerry holds a sustained note and there's a bit of a fury. But then they pull back and continue forth in somewhat mellower, melodic fashion.

Around 20:20 Jerry briefly brings in some Sputnik-like notes and they play soft and pretty, channeling a feel from another time, kind of like chamber music. Slowly this transforms into something more freaky but they take their time with it, keeping a foot in both places for a spell.

After 22:00 the more melodic aspects start to dissipate and there's a gentle turn towards the weird. They start to ratchet up towards meltdown territory but they take their time and don't just charge through the door. Then the intensity rises and around 23:59 the Tiger is unleashed. It's powerful but relatively brief and then they descend freakily and create an on-ramp for El Paso.

A really good performance. The opening passage is gentle and patient and pretty and then it really gets cooking. The slow, non-committing return to the theme is good as well. And then the way they balance the freaky and the melodic in the post-verse passages is very compelling. They could have let it rip further in the meltdown at the end but by this point they had done that many times so perhaps they didn't feel the need to explore that further.

Mr. Rain:


Bill's cymbal-rustling seems to be the standard opening these days. In the first moments the playing is looser, sloppier than on 6-30 (already a sign they're feeling more adventurous). Keith's Rhodes adds a delicate, understated texture. The jam becomes calm & graceful, but after 3m Phil hammers a repeated note and they stir themselves up into a little froth; by 4m it's sounding more like a propulsive Other One jam. Phil finds an interesting funky bassline.

Around 4:50 the momentum is spent and they ease into a kind-of-funky jam with Jerry chopping out sharp chords. They like this direction: Bob takes up the chords and Jerry soars over Phil & Keith's restless backdrop. This doesn't take long to heat up, with some intense peaking by Jerry after 7m. Then they calm down again at 8m, but don't want to let it go. There's a period of uncertainty, with everyone jabbing the off-kilter rhythm for a while, but without any particular direction, just seeing what comes up. Jerry returns to playing a lead line over this odd backing after 9:30, but after a minute seems to tire of it.

After 11m they finally return to a calm space, Jerry hinting at the main theme (meanwhile Phil returns to the line he was playing earlier at 4:30). At 12:00 Phil & Jerry play with the theme -- but it's just a feint, they keep teasing it for another 30 seconds until Jerry enters it for real. The theme is loose & relaxed, the verse coming abruptly at 13:10 -- Keith sparingly uses his bell tone for the verse.

They go straight to deep space afterward: tinkling cymbals, some droning from all the guitars & even Keith. Great tones! -- Bob hammers on one note while Jerry does some soft wah growls, Phil plucks, and Keith drops in perfectly placed notes. Phil gets into a deep droning hum and Jerry breaks out some wailing slide around 16:30 (a very rare sound in Dark Star!). Drone heaven here; Bob adds some nice arpeggios. Phil pushes them to a heavy peak after 18:20. The intensity continues, Phil breaking into feedback. Jerry switches from slide to his regular wah playing after 19:30 and the feeling gets more melancholy and song-like. There's a little Sputnik hint at 20:20, then Jerry starts playing some very familiar melodic lines that make it sound like he's about to burst into some ecstatic melody (in fact it's almost exactly what he played at 27:20 on 4/8/72).

But he keeps it at bay, and instead they stay circling in orbit, untethered to a theme. Phil has dropped out: now it's just Jerry, Bob & Keith with Bill tinkling a cymbal, drifting in quiet space. At 22:50 a drum roll, Bill's showing impatience, and Jerry edges in a more frenetic Tiger direction. The whirlpool sucks everyone in, the pace quickening, Phil returning after 23:30, the Tiger starting at 23:55. The screeching meltdown that follows is brief, over within a minute. Out of the chaos, Bob starts El Paso. (I think Jerry may suggest it to him with his last couple notes.)

Excellent version; magical space. My only quibble is that I'm not very fond of the odd-grooved jam they get into in the first half. And so far in 1973, it's obvious they're no longer interested in playing the spontaneous melodic themes that were such a feature of Dark Star up to '72: here Jerry tip-toes right up to the brink of a lovely melody after 20:30, then says nope and heads back to weird spacey spirals instead. One result is that almost every Dark Star since late '72 has ended in a Tiger or abstract freakout.

There are a few audience tapes of this one, Roosevelt Stadium being full of tapers by '73! I think Jim Cooper's stereo AUD is the best here; it's so clear it's hard to believe it was taped in a stadium. (Monte Barry's stereo AUD is also excellent, but the speed's slow and the crowd more obtrusive.) Keith is right up front with Jerry in this mix. The audience is reverently silent until the verse (some occasional howls), then held in rapt attention through space. El Paso is met with shrieks of approval.