189. 1990-03-29

149396 Nassau 29:17 (Dark Star I: 18:19; Dark Star II: 2:58

First verse at 5:53.
Verse melody at II:52.
Second verse at II: 1:45.
Goes into The Wheel.


This is another one I attended. At this point, one could expect a significant amount of people in attendance had not yet seen Dark Star, and the reaction to the opening lick is duly rapturous. We have Branford Marsalis (on soprano sax) sitting in for the first time at this show; the Eyes of the World that led off the set was released on Without a Net. Marsalis dives right in, but he could be a louder here; it may be advisable, for this reason, to check other sources. The opening jam is a little chaotic, perhaps because of the extra musician, as everyone seems excited to have their say.


The intro jam is sonically chaotic, but it hews pretty closely to the two-chord template. At 5:33 Lesh kicks into what passes for the main theme these days, and the verse follows closely behind, with Garcia sounding particularly hoarse. The second line reversal of the chords has at this point mutated into a somewhat disordered uncertainty, and this seems to be the case pretty consistently now. Lesh performs the reversal, but I don’t think anyone else does.


They pop right back into the two-chord format after the repetition of the intro lick. Garcia is relatively circumspect with a guest taking up some of the space. As they approach the 8-minute mark he finally makes good on this circumspection, as the band starts to deviate from the song pattern. It quickly gets into a vigorous variant on Space, and Jerry starts in with some flute sounds. Marsalis seems at ease with all this, gamely chirruping along.


The intensity increases at around 9:50, and this sounds like nothing so much as the lead-up to a Tiger! Jerry puts on some distortion, but he’s also a lot quieter here, so the chaos is a group effort. Crossing the 11 minute mark, Jerry has a lower, brassier sound and he marches around on the bass strings, with a loping beat emanating from the drum section. At 12:20 he switches back to flute, then back to a more guitar-like timbre. Branford starts overblowing at around 13:10, which is fitting enough in the circumstances.


This section, which starts to fray around 13:50, is the most cohesive non-song jamming here, although it remains chaotic and overstuffed. By 14:30 we’re clearly in the “pre-Drums” phase, where last thoughts and desultory parting shots linger for a few minutes as the instrumentalists prepare to leave the stage. Here we can hear Marsalis better, and there’s a bit of call-and-response with bassoon Jerry before they cede the field to the drummers. There’s an amusing part where they lock together and come apart repeatedly, right before it all ends.


After Space Dark Star coalesces again for a coda, and a run through the second verse. As the timing indicates, this doesn’t add up to much; all the action is behind us at this point. At one point Garcia plays the verse melody, and as he reaches the end at 1:05 Weir suddenly remembers that this used to go to E minor! No one else pays it any mind, though. They go right into The Wheel when the verse ends.


I’m not sure this one entirely works. The band sounds overstuffed in a way I generally associate with the post-Brent era. Perhaps because of the guest musician, Garcia’s playing is rather indirect and ornamental. It’s not bad, but it’s not a latter-day classic, either.


What was said:

188. 1989-12-31

154970 Oakland 14:46

First verse at 6:31.
Goes into Drums.


Victim or the Crime had become a space-faring event in its own right by this point; tonight they follow it with Dark Star. Everything has a little bit of a digital sheen at this point, even with Garcia (now playing Rosebud) otherwise sounding remarkably organic at first; Weir has some kind of flute-like thing going right away. Musically, though, this starts out in a pretty straightforward polyphonic pocket. At 2:30 they settle into what passes for the main theme these days, but then Jerry turns into a flute and they continue jamming.


There’s a nice peak starting right after the four minute mark. Coming off the other side, Garcia becomes more guitar-like again. It seems like there’s always some sort of MIDI tinge around the edges, though. They keep dropping back into the pocket, as at 5:10, but they head out again—though not too far out, this is still a jam on the basic chord pattern of Dark Star. Finally, at 6:20, we reach the theme again and get to the verse.


Based on the placement in the set, the timing, and the last version, we would expect a freakout here, but they go right back to the groove, although the MIDI is ramped up a bit. After a couple of minutes the center starts to distort, and weirdness begins to hold sway; this is sort of a wind-down into the drum section, rather than a full-fledged excursion, but one’s grip on the mundane is pleasingly shaken a bit in the process.


Anyone who had heard the Miami version could be forgiven for thinking they were on the way somewhere rather special at around 11:30 when things are starting to fly a bit, but we are already almost at the end. At around 13:10 it gets really good, with Garcia’s bassoon bleating along and the drums striking a fast and exciting beat. Short as this post-verse segment turns out to be, they don’t phone it in. But this is a last blast, and pretty soon it has all subsided into tonight’s drum segment.


Here we have one of those “good but not earth-shattering” Dark Stars, mostly because the brevity of it and the relative conservatism of the pre-verse material preclude any extended exploration.


What was said:

187. 1989-10-26

147766 Miami 26:41

First verse at 2:10.
Second verse at 13:58.
Goes into Drums.


If the Brendan Byrne show proved that Dark Star wasn’t to be a one-off this time, the third rendition in a month made the future look quite bright. When the Dead returned after Garcia’s coma in late 1986, there was a new optimism and energy in the sound, and a feeling that a new beginning was underway. In retrospect, the common narrative at the time—that the band had become hidebound and erratic, but the coma put the fear of God into them and set their feet back on a musically righteous path—is at the very least overly simplistic, if not flat wrong. The mid-80s offer some great and highly energetic music, and late 1986 through 1988 are not beyond criticism by any means. One such criticism would be that the band wasn’t really stretching out much. But by mid-to-late 1989 that had begun to change, and the return of Dark Star was a big factor in that.


The version under consideration here is a well-regarded—even legendary—rendition; at this point, at least as much as, and possibly more so than, the Hampton version. Dick Latvala once famously insisted it is the best version ever. Did he go overboard? I don’t think it would be productive to litigate his claim; I’m not sure there is one best Dark Star, in any case, and if there were it would probably not be this one. But that’s not to say that it’s not worthy in its own right, and I of course won’t shy away from making evaluative claims about it here, even if they are less definitive than those of the late archivist.


The audience sounds quite pleased when they start the song, as one might expect. Nobody was taking Dark Star for granted at this point. The vibe at the outset is confident but suitably mysterious, and I kind of like the Brent factor at this point (although this does not seem to be the consensus). He seems comfortable with his role, and in this era he has even shown himself capable of improvising convincingly, albeit in a somewhat modest way. Approaching the two-minute mark Lesh stakes out the theme, although Garcia doesn’t play the melody, and we go right to the verse, which leaves plenty of territory for the middle jam.


A few seconds after the post-verse intro lick (which is now the standard procedure) Garcia kicks on the MIDI. Once again, it sort of surrounds his cleaner guitar tone, which is sort of a cool effect. It’s hard to define exactly what the MIDI sound is here, it’s just a sort of trippy halo around the guitar line. The band seems to be feeling things out, but in this era that means they keep a steady groove going while doing so. Garcia, Lesh, and Mydland trade lines, with Weir in more of an accompanist role.


At 5:38 Jerry launches a Sputnik type thing, while Weir gets a rock riff going. The latter is quickly joined by Lesh, but it only lasts a few seconds! This seems to bode well, though, as they’re exploring rather than settling in, and Weir’s cadence is mirrored a few times by the other instruments as it’s transmogrified and they move on. Garcia slathers on more MIDI. Weir gets a little flute-ish for his part, and comes back to his little lick from time to time—it seems to function as a theme that they don’t overdo, but use as an anchoring point or callback from time to time.


Jerry is also playing the flute now (I’m at 8:30). He goes back to guitar, dipping in and out of the effects regime. At 9:20 there’s a swell as they come together a bit, and at the same time disperse. I realize this doesn’t make much sense, but they seem in command tonight, and they’re stretching my descriptive powers. At 10:10 Weir is again chiming his lick on the flute, then he plays some high guitar notes, and at 10:34 Jerry has a steel drum/flute hybrid thing on. Brent is choosing to mirror this sound a little bit, and they are tinkling along in space. It gets stranger and stranger. Weir is playing a xylophone now. Lesh is very active, although he still isn’t quite taking the lead the way he once did.


Garcia is altering his effects several times in the course of a minute, but not abruptly or in a jarring way; it’s rather a masterful performance, in fact. At 12:37 Lesh hints at the theme, and they seem to drift earthward from here. At 13:18 Weir hits the theme chords, and then Lesh starts the theme up in earnest, and they all fall in line, although again Garcia doesn’t play the melody. In fact, the accompanying part he plays on the theme parts is becoming common, so maybe I should redefine what gets identified as “main theme.” It can get confusing trying to track the recurring parts…


Jerry’s voice is quite croak-y tonight, but another central feature of this era is that he’s learned to put his vocals across regardless of what’s happening with his voice (although he may be more successful at this during other parts of the show, as his range has clearly moved away from Dark Star). At 15:07 Garcia gives a desultory nod to the fragments of the intro lick being dutifully performed elsewhere on the stage—they give it a perfunctory nod and head back into space. They seem not have considered capping it after the middle jam: now they’re going to really get weird.


The groove that they had been stuck in for the late 70s and 80s is gone. Jerry has a brass effect that is quite electronic-sounding at the same time. Weir is getting seriously strange with the MIDI stuff. And Brent really shines here; he seems less apt at structured melodic improvisation, insofar as he stays to close to home, but he’s happy to go along when they they go whole hog. I suppose I mean that he’s good on both extremes, with structured and very free playing, but doesn’t offer as much in the middle. Again, Lesh is playing a lot, and his lines are creative and important to the jams, but he’s still not as much of a force in determining their direction as he once was, for some reason. Garcia and (to a lesser but still crucial extent) Weir are now the main drivers.


At 21:00 we’re still going out, but there are some bouncy riffs bubbling around the edges. Brent gets into a one-note rhythmic thing, and pretty soon there are electronic drums. By 21:35 or so Garcia sounds entirely like a keyboard—I think! It’s getting hard to identify the instruments. This is some of the wildest space rock ever played, just magnificent. At 23:19 Garcia gets in with some spacey brass, and I can pick him out again. But it may be beside the point here to try to identify the individual players; it may be better to just dig the gestalt.


By about 24:40 things seem to be winding down, and the center has unraveled, which makes me realize how remarkable it is that a kind of center has heretofore held amongst all this chaos. Whatever one may think of the codified space segment, the band has gotten really good at this kind of improvising, and those wont to spend that segment in the bathroom (or fast forwarding) may have been surprised at the intensity and counter-intuitive coherence of the unadulterated free jamming going on here.


This is without a doubt one of the craziest and most powerful pieces of music the band ever played. Anyone who thought the spirit of 1973-12-02 was long gone would surely have to reconsider after this night. This is the greatest Dark Star since 1974 and, whether or not you think Latvala went overboard, it certainly deserves a place in the canon.


What was said: