SUPPLEMENTAL: 1992-06-18

32487 Charlotte 6:00

Main theme more or less throughout.
Verse melody at 2:36.
Goes into All Along the Watchtower.


After Space, Garcia starts noodling around with the Dark Star theme. He seems to be playing with a delay effect. They play with the theme until Garcia plays the verse melody at 2:36, going all the way through it, although it doesn’t really do the “shall we go” parts. Weir is involved but rather difficult to hear much of the time; the others are more or less present. There’s some lovely stuff by Garcia in the back half, and this is certainly a pleasing little trifle, if nothing more.


What was said:

JSegel:


Again after Drums and Space (which follow He’s Gone) this time just remaining instrumental. This time, Drums is 13 minutes, starting with only 3 minutes of drumming before 10 of electronic weirdness, lots of quiet droney springy sounds. When Space starts, more weird synthy sounds come in, bells and strings, odd e-percussion. Slow start. Guitars are in quietly, slow atonal licks moving to pseudo-tonal bits. It’s pretty mellow and quiet. Then the bassoon and all that, but it’s mostly almost solo, very 20th century atonalist. Back to distorted guitar with echo for the last couple minutes, sparse accompaniment. It winds down and Jerry quietly starts the intro riff, with echoes, first high then low, bass accompanying. Keys filter in, other guitar, etc, it’s quiet and echoey and minimal. He plays the theme a bunch before going to delicate noodles. Then by 1:45, the rest of the band seems to figure out that it’s Dark Star and they also play the riff. So Jerry solos more, with a weird filtered pitch follower sound. Phil goes into a pedal tone on the A.

At 2:30, he does the song form, playing the melody on guitar with a pitch-follower singing along, odd accompaniment. No refrain, just continuing the “groove” as such, though Vince does the pitch-bend organ between lines as if it was the refrain.

More noodling soloing, back to the theme riff all the time. Some ascending modal lines. Guitar gets a bit more swinging, the last couple minutes are kinda cool. Then it moves back to repeating the theme riff and falls out and into All Along the Watchtower.

Sort of a tepid attempt at Dark Star, it never gets there. Phil just keeps an odd pulse throughout. Weird one, sort of nice though.




Adamos:


As Space ends Jerry plays some gentle notes and then drifts into the Dark Star theme. It's very quiet and gentle at first. Vince adds some subtle accompaniment in spots. Jerry works his line a little more and Phil adds occasional touches but it remains rather understated. After 1:45 things become a little more collective but still very mellow.

Jerry changes his sound and keeps gently weaving along. At 2:36 he goes into the verse melody which fleshes things out a bit more. Bob comes through in spots but hasn't been particularly active. They continue to glide along in thematic territory with Jerry picking up the pace a bit. The keep going for a little while, eventually slowing up again and then gently winding down and creating an on-ramp for Watchtower.

It's a pretty little interlude that doesn't quite become a full-on jam but it's nice in spots.


Mr. Rain:




Dark Star comes out of Space again. This Space is much trippier, kind of an eastern haze with temple bells & mystical drones. Jerry takes over in what's almost a solo spot with heavy delays & echoes. Then when the rest of the band returns, the MIDI bassoon & flute kick in for an annoying stretch. But then Jerry switches to a distorted guitar tone for an evocative passage. This culminates at 10m, then Jerry quietly noodles into Dark Star, backing into the theme.

The temperature stays low, the backing quiet, the mood intimate. Once again it sounds like the drummers might happily sit this one out, but alas, they show up after 90 seconds, totally off-tempo. Jerry keeps revolving round the theme, and a couple times it sounds like he's about to sing the verse; but when the verse melody comes at 2:36, it's instrumental (with a MIDI flute shadow, actually a nice touch). The jamming after that is basically low-key noodling around the theme, nothing too energetic. Bob, once again, barely seems to participate; I can't tell if he's even playing through much of this. So like 6-8, this is almost entirely Jerry/Phil/Vince & some unnecessary drums. Finally the jam staggers to a halt, and they stumble through a clumsy, inept "segue" to All Along the Watchtower. Well, at least Bob belatedly wakes up after Jerry keeps signalling the song to him. This band has sure fallen a long way since 1972!

You could consider this a couple different ways. It could count as part of Space, a sidetrip into a melodic theme that happens to be Dark Star. Or you could see it as part 2 of the June '92 Dark Star, cleverly carrying the theme through the tour. Either way, I agree with bzfgt that it's just a trifle; it's pretty but there's not much going on here.