SUPPLEMENTAL: 1973-11-21 (Dark Star Jam)

88612 Denver “Dark Star Jam” 3:26

After El Paso, the band sounds like it’s sliding back into a PiTB jam; instead they kick off Wharf Rat, but after a little bit it sounds more like Dark Star. At about a minute in, Garcia alludes to the verse melody. At about 2:20 it seems to me to shift back toward Wharf Rat, although they keep jamming for a little while longer. Part of an absolutely stupendous set.




What was said:

170. 1973-11-11

83318 Winterland 36:27 (35:22) (1. Dark Star 32:01 [30:56], 2. MLB 4:26)

Main theme at 16:21.
First verse at 17:33.
Mind Left Body jam at 2. :00
Goes into Eyes of the World.


This one begins confidently, coming in with a little spring in its step even if the tempo is still rather slow compared to previous years. At 2:31 Garcia plays the little bass riff that he has been sporadically returning to for a few years now. His line ascends from there, and it sounds like he knows where he’s going. The band is on solid ground here, everything sparkling right from the outset.


Godchaux’s piano drops out for a little while, and at 5:25 he reappears on Rhodes. The vibe gets a little jazzier now, with Weir lounging it up just a little to complement the electric piano. Garcia throws in some pinch harmonics from about 6:30, and he pursues this for a good minute, throwing a little roughage in the mix before sprinting off on some quick runs. His thoughts are long and involved tonight, and provide a through line while Phil pokes around and the others lay down a groove.


The groove really starts bouncing around the 9-minute mark. Garcia is laying it on a little harder now, and everyone is starting to feel it. At some point Keith has bounced back to the piano, giving the music a slightly harder edge as the band swells. There’s finally a bit of a lull around 11:20, with everyone still very active, but softer. At 11:38 Jerry starts playing with a Sputnik-adjacent roll, and the band starts to get a little louder; at 11:59 Lesh’s repetitive groove rumbles into a repeated A for the band to rally around, and as they spiral back out Garcia hints at Bright Star.


They’re really flying here! At 13:37 Garcia drops in the verse melody, but they don’t join and take it to the E minor 1969-style anymore. Instead, Jerry adds further variations, with enough of the familiar melody to remind us this is Dark Star; the band knots together and comes apart over and over, but the groove is cohesive throughout. At 15:20 there’s another lull, and now we expect the theme to come in soon. Jerry tries a little bouncy thing at 15:40, then starts winding toward the theme…sure enough, here it is at 16:21. A minute or so later the verse comes in (“seasons tatter”).


Lesh starts to get pretty heavy after the verse, and Weir is very active as they descend into space. This turns into a feedback thing crossing the 22-minute mark. At 23:25 Garcia’s eerie lines become more melodic, and the band pulls together and kicks into a groove. Jerry continues with the elongated line as the rest of them get a jam going—it’s a bit more abstract than the pre-verse fare, but they’re putting it together here in a way they rarely do after the verse these days. By 27:00 the abstraction starts to prevail, though, with jerky syncopation taking over, but they turn up the intensity rather than dispersing.


By 29:30 Garcia’s wah indicates the possibility of a meltdown in the offing. Lesh counters with some bopping licks; Weir is doing his own thing with some tangential harmonics, while Godchaux (still on piano) runs up and down the fretboard. They briefly spill into a meltdown, then come back with a groove while Jerry plays some really nasty-sounding lines in the sonic region of a clavinet. By 21:45 Weir starts to wander towards MLB, and they kick right into it where the track divides, playing it fast and hard with Jerry still hammering on the wah.


Garcia’s cleans his tone up a bit and pierces the skies, with the MLB chords churning and bubbling at a frenetic pace. They fully commit to the MLB here, playing with drive and focus as they have throughout. At around 2. 3:00 the MLB jam begins to fade, and they let the air out before Jerry starts strumming Eyes of the World.


An absolutely magnificent version is what we have here, not least because they sustain their focus throughout a very well-developed second half in a way we haven’t always seen in 1973. This one is in the pantheon of all-time greats.


What was said:

169. 1973-10-30

32367 St. Louis 28:13 (27:08) (1. Dark Star 12:58 [11:53], 2. MLB 3:09, 3. Dark Star 1:04)

Elastic Ping Pong jam at 6:21.
Mind Left Body jam at 2. :00.
Main theme at 3. :15.
First verse at 3. :38.
Goes into Stella Blue.


After some foreboding messing about on the instruments, Dark Star kicks off at the slow pace we’ve come to expect at this stage. This time the playing is relatively cohesive to begin with, relative to the last few versions. The music has weight and force, with the instruments seeming to struggle against one another rather than flying off on loosely related tangents. As it goes on, they start to pull together.


At 6:15 a groove is developing, and Lesh drops the Elastic Ping Pong riff in at 6:21 and it all flows together this time. He adheres to it somewhat loosely, sometimes wandering away from it altogether before bringing it back. Either way, Phil’s bass continues to drive the jam along (note that at 7:46 he drops in a bit of Footprints). The band works up a pretty good head of steam here, and the jam is a classic instance of their gloopy late 1973 sound when it gets going full blast.


The transition to the MLB section is reasonably smooth this time. This is the second and final time they dropped this into Dark Star before the verse, and it was probably discussed in advance. This segment is more cohesive than the last (1973-10-25), although it gets a rather relaxed reading. At about 1:27 Garcia picks up the slide and plays some eerie and elongated lines. They slow it down, and it’s evident that the theme will come next; Lesh makes it official a few seconds into the third segment, and the verse comes along just a few bars after Jerry joins in.


Lesh is really loud as the band comes out of the verse. At 3. 2:55 it sounds like the band is going into space as things quiet down considerably. Phil starts tentatively riffing, and at 3:35 he flashes the intro to Stella Blue, which will eventually succeed Dark Star. Garcia, Weir, and Lesh gently float ideas around, although Godchaux has gone silent for now. They start to coalesce a bit, although there’s still a lot of empty space here, like they’re slowly blowing up a balloon. By around 3. 6:00 Keith starts to become audible, playing something electronic now.

A rather abstract jam is coming out of all this. As we approach the 8 minute mark of track 3, the music is getting louder and a little faster, and is starting to sound like a somewhat oblique fusion jam. This is where’d we expect the first glimmerings of a Tiger to appear, but instead they stay with what they’re working with and give us a unique back half jam. At 3: 11:59 Garcia flashes the descent into Stella Blue, and then he does it again for good measure and brings the rest of the band along.


This is a really wonderful rendition. The first half jamming is more focused than some of what we’ve been getting there lately, including an MLB jam that works much better than the last one. The second half is something different this time. Killer.


What was said:

168. 1973-10-25

136695 Madison, WI 23:39 (23:05) (1. Dark Star 5:14 [4:39], 2. MLB 2:01, 3. Dark Star Jam 16:21)

Mind Left Body jam at 2. :11.
Main theme at 3. 3:01 and 5:57.
First verse at 3. 6:07.
Tiger at 3. 12:55.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


The second Dark Star of the Fall tour gets off to a typically ponderous start; the slow and drippy late 1973 sound is now in full effect. I find this mesmerizing, but others may think it soporific. The band basically just hovers for the first five minutes, until at 4:39 Lesh starts poking around at a riff. Weir is probably tuning, as he keeps throwing in incongruous harmonics. They almost come to a stop, and then they rather suddenly latch onto something; the move into MLB may have been planned, although it doesn’t really start until Weir finishes tuning and starts the riff 11 seconds into the second track.


This is the first MLB jam that does not come at or near the end of a Dark Star. They play it gently, and they don’t stay with it for very long. Lesh drops out at 2. 1:51 at the head of a new section, and they abort. They move into an interesting jam segment, with Garcia, Godchaux (who is on piano so far), and Weir playing flowing lines, with Lesh at first popping in and out around the edges. At about 3. 1:55 Jerry plays some lines that are reminiscent of Fire on the Mountain and they reach a little peak, and then they ease it back until Jerry comes in with the theme. They draw it out a for a few minutes this time; Weir and Godchaux are very active as it comes to a peak before settling down again and taking us into the verse.


We emerge into a grotto of sound, settling down into a disquieting space segment. Garcia’s eerie slide stretches over Lesh’s overdriven and elongated rumbles. I think Phil is playing some high feedback stuff now, and it’s hard to tell what Godchaux is doing; at some point I think he’s switched to the Rhodes or some electronic instrument, or else he has an effect on his piano. At 10:50 Jerry starts his wah line that suggests a meltdown is in the offing, and this picks up steam rather quickly until at 12:55 the Tiger is unleashed. The aftermath of this is some rather abstract and quietly frenetic noisemaking that soon begins to crescendo again but stops short of a peak and then gradually subsides until Garcia finally starts Eyes.


A rather odd Dark Star this is; although I loved every moment, I get the impression that not all of my colleagues are as enamored with the loose-limbed and ambiguous playing that characterizes the first half of this as I am. The early placement of an odd and underdeveloped MLB provides what passes for a point of focus in the first half, and the abstract stuff after the verse is really magnificent. This is oddball music, for sure, but that is one reason we love it…


What was said:

167. 1973-10-19

187 Oklahoma City 27:55 (26:29) (Dark Star 18:29 [17:03], MLB 9:26)

Main theme at 13:32.
First verse at 13:48.
Mind Left Body jam at :09 (track 2).
Tiger at 6:20.
Goes into Morning Dew.


The pre-into dicking around gets pretty dense, and almost reaches the level of cohesion of the pre-verse jamming in the last version! When it kicks off, this feels like the slowest Dark Star yet, although I’m not sure if science backs me up on this. The Wolf sounds beautiful, and they play with a mellow focus that was lacking the last time out. Everyone seems to be rowing in the same direction, although it is a subtle difference as there are as usual four distinct melodic lines going at the same time.


At 5:20 Lesh starts repeating an ascending line; after 15 seconds he switches up the attack, but he’s very loud here and provides the focus for this segment. At 6:20 the jam starts to fray at the edges, losing its center. They slide into a lull at 7:30 into which Garcia inserts hints of the theme, but they’re not going there yet, and they’re not ready to pull together either. They spin around an absent center for another two minutes; at 9:24 Jerry’s hinting at the theme again, but the music gets more diffuse, and now they are again getting close to the aesthetic of a between-song “tuning” segment.


At 11:00 Garcia starts to strum the theme, playing around it rather than stating it, but at last the band comes together. They pick up steam, still playing slowly and gently but pulling together, and Garcia’s lines on the Wolf shoot to the skies until, at 13:32, he slides into the theme. This leads almost immediately to the vocals; I suppose they had been playing around with the theme for a couple of minutes at this point. There have been no appreciable tempo changes tonight, and they certainly don’t need to slow down for the verse this time.


The post-verse scene is again dominated by Phil at first, although they’re all involved, and they get a mesmerizing drone thing going this time. Garcia breaks out the slide after a while and lays some eerie tones over the top. Lesh pulls way back, and Keith starts fiddling around on the Rhodes, until at about :09 of the next track, Weir starts up the Mind Left Body chords.


This proves to be a winning strategy, giving the band a needed focus after so much diffuse jamming over the past two Dark Stars. Jerry keeps it up with the slide, and the rest of the band cooks along. It starts pulling apart around the four minute mark, and the signs of a meltdown start appearing—the chord progression dissolves, and Jerry has laid the slide aside, as he starts playing the sort of licks that signal an oncoming Tiger.


By 6:20 Garcia is in full Tiger mode, although the others are more reticent, opting for an eerie accompaniment rather than pandemonium. Garcia’s sequences at about 7:20 are pretty crazy, although I’m not sure what the exact harmonic relationships are. From there at sinks into a spacier zone, with Garcia and Godchaux providing most of the narrative material and Lesh and Weir supplying atmosphere. Without belaboring it too much, they move from there into Morning Dew.


This is a marvelous piece of music. For whatever reason, unlike many of the 1973 Dark Stars we have considered thus far, it doesn’t leave me feeling like more should have been done—everything seems to last as long as it needs to, and thus this is a very satisfying rendition. The addition of MLB in the second half pulls the band together in a way that counter-balances the more diffuse first-half playing we’ve been getting. This Dark Star, and much of the show from which it comes, is an auspicious beginning to one of the Dead’s greatest tours.


What was said:

166. 1973-09-11

184 Virginia 23:18 (22:16)




Elastic Ping Pong jam at 11:00.
Main theme at 17:02.
First verse at 17:27.
Goes into Morning Dew.

The debut of the Wolf. At this point the Grateful Dead are well into 1973, and well on the way to the drippy, laidback Fall sound which would fully emerge when they returned after a short break on October 19th. The opening here is loose and flowing; it’s almost lackadaisical, but yet somehow gorgeous. At 3:17 Garcia initiates a staccato line that might have led to a frenetic jam if they were doing anything like that, but the others barely acknowledge him; everyone goes in their own direction, aware of the overall direction of things but refraining from anything so crude as playing together.


And yet, at around 4:30 they start to cohere—still loosely, but noticeably—and they drive to a peak at around 4:50. They’re still loose as hell, but they’re a lot louder and they seem to be coming together a bit. They crest pretty quickly, and once again there are some rather scattershot ruminations. By 6:45 they all seem to be tuned in to the same wavelength, although it’s unsure precisely what wavelength it is.


Godchaux has been very faint on the Rhodes, but he trickles in a little more here in spots. The band kind of wanders away from each other again, until Garcia starts a kind of variation on the theme at 8:32; Weir picks it up, although Lesh hangs back, and now Keith is getting more audible as he joins in. The band shies away from the theme after a little while, and Weir starts a gently rocking riff at 9:32 which they could rally around, but will they? Keith is game, and Lesh eventually picks it up. Jerry seems to have an idea about it for a moment, but then he disappears altogether.


Phil smoothly pivots to the Elastic Ping Pong jam at 11:00, and this gets going for a while, but where is Jerry? He finally comes back, tentatively at first, at 11:55. By 14:00 or so the jam has been stretched beyond recognition, and they are ready to try something else. Garcia plays a lick to get everyone on the same page, then drops out, then clearly refers to the theme at 14:57 and bounces off into a beautiful lead line while the band kicks up behind him, sounding more cohesive and energized than they have yet.


I should add here, though, that everything so far has been really wonderful in its shambolic, oddball way. The band gets it together here, Jerry fires up the theme, and they head right to the verse.


Lesh takes the lead with some weird doomy stuff, and Garcia makes some noises that are rather reminiscent of a few years prior, with the bell-tolling tone in evidence. Phil hints at the Philo Stomp a few times—another throwback—although he doesn’t quite pull the trigger on it, instead drawing out some very distorted tones while Jerry adds feedback. At 21:58 Lesh starts a very heavy riff, and Kreutzmann clicks his cymbals a few times, but otherwise it’s still just Jerry and Phil, aside from a few tentative sounds from the others. Then, rather suddenly, Phil drops into Morning Dew, which may have been planned because Jerry joins him before it the song is really recognizable.


This is an odd one! A lot of the pre-verse is so loose it’s almost like a between-song “tuning,” the kind of noodling around they sometimes do when they’re trying to decide what to play. At the same time, it is often really beautiful. There’s a way to play tentatively that requires a lot of confidence, paradoxical as it may sound, and that’s what they do here. Anyway, whatever this is, I think it’s great, although not a whole lot happens after the verse.


What was said: