112775 Chicago 7:31
Verse melody at 1:10.
Main theme at 2:25.
First verse at
Goes into Playin’ in the Band reprise.
In the closing minutes of Space there are hints of Dark Star, and then Garcia starts his backing theme lick. They start is up without playing the opening riff. Garcia plays the verse melody and, interestingly, he keeps it going and they go to the E minor the third time through. I’m not sure if they’ve done that before.
Welnick has a pretty nice organ sound tonight—a sound that’s perilously close to the forbidden B3, in fact. Hornsby is on the other side of the mix this time, so it’s easy to tell them apart, and in fact I think the two keyboards sound better mixed like this instead of lumped together in the sound stage.
I wondered if they were going to play the second verse to finish off RFK, but it just peters out and they reprise a Playin’ in the Band that, for once, they had started earlier in the evening.
This stays pretty close to home, but it sounds like they’re having fun.
What was said:
JSegel:
Here, we have a Dark Star instrumental jam for 7 minutes after the Drums and Space tracks, which are inside PitB after a long Terrapin Station. I guess he gets the midi bassoon out of his system, as he’s quietly jamming in mode with guitar tone by the end of Space. A brief riff and allusions to the melody comes out of this, and settles into a Dark Star groove which goes to a song-form jam on the melody, em on line 3, and into the riff groove again. Minimal guitar lead.
Seems like halfway through they are setting it up for a verse, but it doesn’t come and instead they keep going again and building the intensity a little in waves with sparse leads in between areas where a verse could potentially pop up. Maybe he couldn’t remember the words. Anyway, they end up moving into a PitB reprise.
adamos:
I was at this show and this instrumental jam was my first taste of Dark Star in a live setting. I was with some friends that I hadn't seen in a while and Uncle Albert was with us and we were sitting kind of high up in the stands and I remember just taking in the whole atmosphere and the sea of people and it felt like a special night.
In the latter portion of Space they start working something up that could have potentially presaged a shift into The Other One. But then they let that go and kind of drift along and there are some subtle hints toward Dark Star. As the Dark Star track starts things begin to take greater shape without a formal entry into the song. It just sort of gently rises up into being.
Around 0:37 they latch on to the repeating notes and work that collectively transforming things into a more fleshed out instrumental. Jerry plays the verse melody and they glide along in pretty fashion. At 1:46 Jerry starts climbing and then settles back into the collective groove. Vince continues to work the riff and they weave along nicely. Phil's subtle line bounces along well. They build up some low-key momentum and keep dancing along with nice collective interweaving.
Things start to get a little more emphatic around 3:14 but then they quickly shift back into working the groove. They rise up again around 4:08 with Jerry reaching upwards and Bruce quite active and it sounds lovely. They keep it going for a little while they start slowly easing up again. At 5:07 they latch on to the theme again and continue to saunter along.
Around 5:53 Vince starts inserting these longer, stretched out sounds into the mix. I agree with bzfgt that he sounds Hammond-like at times. Bruce continues to be active too dancing around the keys. The overall feel starts to morph a little, slowing down and getting a little spacier. Things seem to running their course but they stick with it for another minute, regrouping one more time before heading back to Playing In The Band.
Going into the second verse would have been cool and made the performance more notable but this is a nice instrumental passage. This segment is also evidence that subtle beauty and a connection with the audience could still be manifested in a stadium environment at least in certain moments.
Mr. Rain writes:
ReplyDelete"1991-06-22. Space is kind of tired & monotonous, without much variety. Jerry seems to be thinking of the Other One, as he often does. It might be just the three guitarists until the keyboards join them after 6:30, Bruce tapping out Other One rhythms. So now that they have the Other One all but teed up, Jerry has a change of heart after 8m and they just drift for a minute until Jerry starts the Dark Star rhythm. Not everyone's on the same page, so it takes a minute for the band to get together and play it for real; Jerry plays the verse melody at 1:07. And yep, after that Vince starts playing the theme over & over as usual! As bzfgt notes, he's got his B3 sound again, and when he leaves the theme for freer territory he does pretty well, adding a nice lush touch to the jam. (Bruce's piano is over on the right as always; I can't remember the last show where they were lumped together in the mix.) Once the jam loosens up, it becomes clear they're not going to play a "full" Dark Star, this is just a jam on the theme. (Jerry brings the theme back at 3:30 and 5:05, but they're just feints.) It's all very casual & laid-back, no big exploration or space ventures here, but it's still very enjoyable. The lack of seriousness (and the lack of MIDI) make this a nice off-the-cuff ramble down Dark Star lane, with something like a peak between 4-5m. At the end it just runs out of gas, and Jerry meanders back to the Playing in the Band riff."