139554 Winterland 12:26 (1. Dark Star 11:21; 2. Dark Star Jam 1:05)
Main theme at :00
First verse at 6:48.
Verse melody at 2. :23.
Goes into Other One, then Wharf Rat.
Four years have gone by; apparently it was at the request of Bill Graham that they dusted off Dark Star for this New Year’s show after not playing it in their previous post-hiatus shows. The intro sets a quick and bouncy pace. They start with the theme, which Keith keeps tinkling away in the background. Garcia lights into some fine cascades, and Keith joins him for a bit approaching the minute mark, but the band is still cranking out the two-chord pattern.
At 1:56 Garcia plays some beautiful variations on the verse melody. It’s not an inauspicious beginning, and Garcia is outstanding, yet one wonders if they still have the wherewithal to break out of the basic theme pattern and move into some more adventurous territory, which may prove more difficult with a second drummer back in the fold. Lesh plays some intriguing little runs to mirror Garcia, for instance at 4:40. At about 5:00 Jerry’s tone rounds off into a hornlike sound; in later years, he’d have switched on the MIDI here. The band gathers intensity; at 6:00 they are peaking, and Garcia is playing something very like Bright Star; they take it back down into the theme pattern here, and move right to the verse, complete with harmonies from Donna Jean on “Shall we go…”
They play the beginning theme after the verse, and go right back to a two-chord jam. Again, most of the focus is on Jerry. At 9:30 Phil pushes them away from the chord pattern a bit, but they don’t stray very far. At 10:10 Garcia initiates a Sputnik-like pattern that seems to herald a change; the thing could really take off here, were they not almost out of it. But it doesn’t end as quickly as the tracking indicates—they’re still in no man’s land at :20 of Other One when Lesh starts pushing toward the latter-named song, and the transition is still fairly gradual until 1:20, when there can no longer be any doubt. Similarly, there is no definite return to Dark Star where it is tracked to be; at 2. :23 Jerry plays the verse melody a few times before heading into Wharf Rat.
This cannot be said to be a particularly adventurous version, and in a way it feels even shorter than it is. It wouldn’t be fair to call it perfunctory, however; it must have been wonderful to hear Garcia spinning out his lines with confidence and power, and for what it is, this is fine and dandy.
What was said: