174. 1974-02-24

151723 Winterland 29:21 (29:00)

Main theme at 18:26.
First verse at 19:04.
Goes into Morning Dew.


The beginning seems slightly more sprightly than we are getting used to. The beauty the band is capable of is in full flower from the first note; the introductory jam doesn’t do anything really novel, but it unfolds with the inevitability of perfection. There are subtle shifts between major and minor modalities, without a definitive decision being made either way; the mutual sensitivity and communicative acumen of the instrumentalists lets them maintain the kind of cohesive flexibility that they have been honing for five years now.


At 4:45 Garcia settles into a rolling pattern that gathers the rest in and drives the jam forward. Kreutzmann pushes a little harder, and the beat lopes forward for a bit until they subside without peaking into a brooding minor soundscape at 6:30. Here tension builds, a gathering storm. Another sally is soon underway, but again they don’t push it too far. Listen from 8:35, as it starts to seem like everyone is echoing everyone else; a sort of fractal beauty is the anarchic result.


By 10:30 we’re spiraling down into a hole; although there’s a beat, it’s just one more element, not a foundation. A minute later the whole thing lifts; they drive toward a peak without ever narrowing their focus. They ease over the summit at 12:40, and now it starts coming together; they open a space for the theme, which they nevertheless withhold, although there are strong hints before they wander off into abstraction.


At 14:35 Lesh and Kreutzmann have something tribal and funky, yet still tentative, going on; the others calibrate their abstract caterwauling to the beat, and another peak is attained. Lesh starts jabbing at the Elastic Ping Pong riff, and at 15:45 he finally uncorks it. He soon wanders off, though; the band is chugging along, and that seems to satisfy him. He brings back a variant of it at 17:01, and this again pushes things along, and he again strays. It’s a brilliantly executed segment, and it’s hard to think of a better exemplar of Phil’s improvisational genius, as he manages to drive the band through the jam without ever locking into a pattern for more than 10 seconds.


The peak at 17:45 is more emphatic than anything previous, and now there is a big windup for the theme. They don’t linger long, but head right for the verse which Garcia enthusiastically brays, a bit out of tune at first. Little matter, he sounds like he’s really into it tonight.


They have so much momentum that they seem unable to pull back into space. Weir hits some nice a descending pattern, and then goes right on to take the lead. This he shares with Godchaux, as the others accompany them. Garcia seems ready to reclaim it at 21:40, and now there is a three-pronged melody with Lesh taking an uncharacteristically supporting role in this segment. At 22:30 they finally wind down, and the audience cheers as the band heads into space.


Bob is still feeling his oats, and he still seems to be leading things here. At 23:55 there seems to be a group decision to take it to a meltdown, but then Weir calls and audible at 24:15 and starts Spanish Jam. Kreutzmann can dig it, but nobody else seems too committed, and by 24:55 it starts going somewhere else. Jerry is playing some pellucid and otherworldly slide licks, and Keith seems to want to rock out, but they all congeal around Garcia, although it takes them a little while to determine what they’re going to do.


Jerry gives them another nudge at around 27:00, getting into a pattern they can rally around and a lovely two-chord jam pops out. Once it’s established, Garcia shoots for the skies, and the music that ensues is heavenly indeed. Another chord somehow gets into the mix—now there’s a B part, and somehow they’re all more or less together. The next time through they let it get away, slipping into a magnificent Morning Dew.


This is where it’s at. The post-verse stuff, in fact, is much better than I remembered it being—there is some indecision, and it is possible to regret that the final section doesn’t last longer, but only because it is so painfully beautiful, and yet so temporary and fragile—like life itself, I suppose. But the mystery and power of Dark Star never ceases—it’s always playing somewhere. Take heart!


What was said:

173. 1973-12-18

113498 Florida 21:44
Main theme at 10:54.
First verse at 11:26.
Tiger at 19:33.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


There’s a pause after Weather Report Suite, and they quickly slide into Dark Star. It’s a pretty slow tempo at the start, which is not unusual for this era, but it feels pretty focused out of the gate. Things get a little strange already about a minute in, as Garcia visits some outside tones and Weir takes a cue from him there; pretty soon Lesh gets a feedback thing going on again. There’s a little peak near the two minute mark, and they keep the intensity high for about a minute, and then they begin to meander a bit more, thoughtfully.


Godchaux is starting to be audible on the electric piano, and when he switches to the acoustic piano he gets even louder. There are peaks and valleys as we’d expect, and the band seems in fine shape tonight. Garcia falls into repetitive patterns, and the others rally around him. With Keith up in the mix, this all sounds really good on the Miller transfer.


At 7:37 they pause and the theme could be imminent, but instead they seem to want to start another jam first. From around 7:55 Weir starts proposing an MLB jam, and Garcia pulls out the slide, but it’s something a little different here; not quite MLB, but in the neighborhood. It’s a little jauntier, and the pattern repeats quicker; when they get to the part where they hang on one chord (if it were MLB) there’s a little confusion. Weir and Garcia wind up on something a bit like Other One, and Lesh jumps on it at 9:40, even hinting at his intro roll at 10:01. This runs its course by 10:54, and they settle on the main theme; from there, they quickly head to the verse.


There seems to be something brewing after the post-verse lick. Lesh is again using the overdriven amp sound he employed to such effect on the 6th, and Garcia gets the volume knobs going as we seem to be dropping into a space jam. Phil gets louder and more dominant as it goes, exploring feedback sounds, and Weir and Garcia seem like his accompaniment here. There’s not much happening with Godchaux in this segment, and Kreutzmann is laying out. Jerry has something really eerie going that starts to come to the fore a bit more.


At 17:48 someone (perhaps Kreutzmann) yells “There’s a blown speaker in here somewhere!” a couple of times. It seemed to be contributing to the space jam, whatever it is! I assume it is one of Phil’s, and it sounds pretty cool. A bit after 19:00 Garcia has gone into wah-wah meltdown mode, and he plays some Tiger licks. He then starts some melodic stuff at 20:04, and Weir joins him while Phil splashes around in the blown speaker sounds a bit more. They eventually subside into a brief drum break, and then they play Eyes of the World.


The band has been on a hot streak with Dark Star since late summer. This is a really nice one, although it doesn’t seem particularly ambitious. The jamming is good, and the post-verse space stuff is intriguing. Not a world-beater, but a good version.


What was said:

172. 1973-12-06

132361 Cleveland 43:32
Main theme at 20:53.
First verse at 25:00.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


There is noodling and tuning, and there are flashes of Dark Star there, and then it sort of gradually turns into a jam, with the intro riff nowhere in sight. Above, for this reason, I just left the timing of the track as is, without determining exactly when Dark Star begins. A good four minutes in, we’re still hearing the kind of stuff that could be a pre-song warm-up goof, but instead the second-longest Dark Star of the Dead’s career is already underway.


By around 4:30 it’s coming together more, and by the five minute mark there is probably an unspoken consensus that they are playing something—and maybe even that this “something” is Dark Star, which is sort of seeping through, particularly in Garcia’s lines. By 7:00 there’s a funky beat, and if this is Dark Star, we’ve gone beyond the initial phase and into the first excursion of the introductory section.


The core remains nebulous, but in the best way—the band is gelling while holding each other at arm’s length, refusing to converge in a way that sometimes annoys my fellow travelers in this project, but throughout the year they have, in hit or miss fashion, developed a way of playing this way that can be very effective. There’s a bit of a peak toward the ten minute mark, and this is again rather Dark Star-ish for a few moments, and as they ease away from it Garcia flashes Bright Star at 10:23. They continue sliding down the backside of the peak, and at 11:00 they reach a point where we almost expect to hear the theme, but this is not to be. Instead they come to another peak, slowly and in exaggerated fashion this time, with Godchaux’s swirling Rhodes laying down a carpet for the entrance of Lesh’s distorted bass which swells to a crescendo at 12:10. Garcia, Weir and Kreutzmann lay in a lilting background while Phil keeps the distortion swelling; Godchaux splits the difference, until at 12:43 he sides with the melody team and Phil subsides into the cantering bounce which, of course, they almost immediately abandon.


There follows a series of feints—they keep threatening to coalesce into a bouncy jam, and then pulling it back again. Garcia keeps proposing a rather majestic melodic Dark Star thread which he then alternates with frenetic runs. At 15:00 Lesh has one of his funky riffs going, and the others soon converge on a frenetic jam which he weaves himself into, and this comes to a thrilling peak at around 15:40. The back end of this is promising something light and jazzy, but as usual they don’t belabor the point.


At 16:30 Jerry’s onto one of his Sputnik-adjacent rolls, which Weir complements; Kreutzmann subsides while the Lesh and Godchaux turn up the minor-key atmospherics. Lesh settles into a long distorted tone, and Keith switches over to the Sputnik team for a while; the two tendencies weave together into a shimmering mesh as we cross the 18-minute mark, and the music swells and hangs in the air, radiating power and beauty—a stunning moment.


Jerry’s Sputnik has become a jangling lick; this could almost be the transition to a new song, if there was a song that started this way. There should be. At 19:35 Jerry starts up a lead line, and Lesh’s bass oscillates and buzzes—I don’t know how long he’s been manipulating one tone now!—and then he starts layering on feedback. At 20:53 Jerry drops in to the main theme; they could put down their instruments now and walk off, and this would be one of the best things they’ve played all year. Instead, they draw the theme out and elaborate on it for better than four glorious minutes before Garcia sings the verse.


Keith seems keen to grab the reins as we enter the second half, and he remains quite assertive as Lesh’s loud bass comes to the fore. Garcia is backing them with some noisy rumbling vaguely in the neighborhood of his bell-tolling tone as they settle into an atmospheric space segment. Kreutzmann is mostly laying out, and there’s no indication that a structured jam is on the horizon; in the quieter spots we can hear the audience declaring their appreciation of this strange music.


It gets freakier, and quite a bit of feedback is coming out of the amps. Phil’s got a fuzzy blown-out sound going now; it oozes out to the periphery and surrounds the space into which Garcia (or Weir?) drops some loud feedback and volume swells; at times, though, it’s hard to discern who is doing what, but there’s a really big sound happening here. At 35:19 Godchaux comes back, tentatively; Kreutzmann assays a rhythm on the cymbals, and more quotidian music starts to emerge as we cross into the 37th minute.


Jerry and Keith get a stereophonic frenetic jam going, and the drums kick in. Jerry’s line veers between harshness and clarity, feinting toward a Tiger and a more melodic direction by turns. Weir is quite recessed here, with the other players drowning him out in the mix as they further coalesce into a fleet jam. By about 40:30 Garcia seems to be fading as well, with Godchaux’s Rhodes coming to the fore, and there’s a short drum and keyboard interlude until 41:04 when Jerry and Phil fade back in, more or less picking up where they had left off. At this point they seem to have exhausted this jam, and there’s not much left to do but let it go and head into Eyes of the World, although they rally for a bit of a last hurrah in the final moments.


What can I say about this? This Dark Star is absolutely stunning; a masterpiece.


What was said:

171. 1973-11-30

(instrumental) 124131 Boston 9:37


Main theme at :00.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


The jam at the end of Let it Grow increasingly veers away from the form of that song; Garcia is playing what JSegel calls the “it’s all the same” lick, and then Lesh picks it up before they drop into the Dark Star theme at the track break. Garcia fritters around pleasingly, then tosses in Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring at :58 before briefly returning to the theme. They head into a rather dense jam from there.


Jerry starts playing a repeated figure with a strongly emphasized plucking note at the end, beginning at 2:46. There seems to be a cut at 3:46, although it’s unclear how much is missing. There are a couple other little fades over the next minute or so, although there doesn’t seem to be anything missing at these spots. The jamming retains a distinctly Dark Star flavor throughout, with hints of the theme in various places. By 7:20, they seem ready to head into or out of Dark Star, as they wind down and take stock of things, and the verdict turns out to be “out.” The last minute or so is some interstitial throat-clearing before they strike up Eyes of the World.


Because they begin with the theme, and because they hew so closely to the basic Dark Star structure and vibe, I will (perhaps somewhat arbitrarily) count this as a Dark Star. This is a very nice little jam in the midst of a typically great late-1973 set.


What was said:

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:

165. 1973-08-01

92478 New Jersey 24:50

Main theme at 12:31.
First verse at 13:10.
Tiger at 23:50.
Goes into El Paso.


A cymbal wash sets the scene this time for the introductory lick, which gives the whole thing an almost tentative feeling that carries through into the opening bars. Weir contributes to this premonitory feeling with some harmonics. Godchaux plays the Rhodes from the outset this time, and he’s coming through loud and clear. In fact, the mix is fantastic overall, as all five musicians are well represented throughout the sound stage.


At 3:05 Lesh starts a repeating figure that gets everyone to latch on and the music kicks up a notch. They get louder and more intense, yet the sense of brooding remains at first, but the playing gets more vigorous until they come to a peak at around 4:40. They come out the other side and kick into a groove, with Garcia’s stabbing chords providing a focal point. They walked us into it, but suddenly one realizes that they’re on fire.


Another peak starts swelling up in the neighborhood of 7:05, and now they’re really going! Garcia brushes up against Bright Star at 7:24, and keeps cascading over the top. Then by 8:00 they pull way back, and here they seem to consider visiting the main theme. Instead they drop into another groove, a little less sure-footed than the last at first, but by 8:45 it has become something vicious and disjointed. Now that they’ve pulled it together, they have to pull it apart somehow…they opt for a little smoothing of the rough edges, and by 10:00 the music is again asking questions. Weir is playing out of his head here, playing a muffled line that bounces up and down, and Garcia is locking in and then bouncing out again until he hits a roll at 10:15 the groove here is again monstruous.


So, of course, it doesn’t last long; they start to strip it for parts and then it’s all clattering to the floor. At 11:20 they are taking a serious look at the theme, but at 11:32 Lesh has is toying with a Ping Pong-adjacent riff…but then he resolves the tension at 11:59 by serving up the theme with an exaggerated gesture. They don’t play it yet, as instead they luxuriate for a bit in the Dark Star space before Garcia, with an exaggerated flourish of his own, kicks off the theme at 12:31. They settle into it and head right for the verse, Lesh popping off with some up-the-neck stuff on the way in. They play through the verse a bit impatiently, accepting the structure but seemingly eager to get back out of it.


There’s something droney and hypnotic brewing out of the verse. Weir is once again a prime mover here, as he hammers on his A string. Garcia is skritching, but at 16:22 he starts playing drawn out, keening tones, employing the slide. Lesh gets his fuzzy overdriven thing going, and Weir starts playing arpeggios. Godchaux tinkles along quiescently, adding texture. Kreutzmann is heavy on the cymbals. This in a way mirrors the beginning of tonight’s version with its brooding feel, only here on the other side of the verse the weirdness and intensity is turned way up.


And, it gets turned up even more, as Lesh’s chords at 18:22 burst out of the speakers. Here one starts to expect some kind of move toward a Tiger or something like it, but so far this segment is sui generis. By 19:50 Garcia has laid aside the slide, and he’s getting a wah tone, but his playing stays melodic, and there’s no meltdown in sight. Instead, Jerry spins out the kind of lines that sometimes culminate in him quoting Bach…I don’t know how else to identify this particular mode of Garcia.


By 22:15 we seem to have reached a crossroads; the music is dispersing, and has gotten very free…then it kicks up into a kind of frenetic pre-meltdown jam, and at 23:50 the Tiger suddenly bursts forth. It froths over and pours down into El Paso, and this Dark Star has come to an end.


One could perhaps fault this one for being a little short, but this is Grateful Dead music of the highest order. The first half is magnificent. If they’ve perhaps become overly familiar with the Dark Star form by now, tonight they wear it loosely, and this familiarity becomes a source of power. The back half is unique and gripping, almost overwhelming in its power and grace. For my money, this is the best Dark Star of the year thus far.


What was said:

164. 1973-06-30

19903 Los Angeles 16:10

Main theme at 7:35.
First verse at 8:58.
Tiger at 15:08.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


This starts out slow and deliberate. Immediately one notices Keith, on piano, is reasonably high in the mix for a change. By 1:30, however, he has switched to the Rhodes. Lesh gets them out of the two-chord scheme pretty quickly, and they venture into a dense and exciting thicket of sound that sounds like it’s on the verge of going somewhere somewhat different. They take their time and let it build, and then a little after the six-minute mark they ease back.


This leaves us in a transitional place, with hints of the theme popping up. By 7:25 they’ve taken it way down to almost nothing, and Garcia drops into the theme. The feel here is very laid-back and mellow as they ease into the verse, with Godchaux gently tinkling as the band plays softly. The mellow vibe carries through the verse and into the immediate aftermath.


Dissonant elements begin to emerge in the oozy space directly after the verse. At 13:12, Garcia starts bustling around in a manner that suggests a transition to more forceful playing preparatory to a meltdown. It’s on a slow boil, though. Kreutzmann briefly drops out at 14:08, but soon thinks better of it, and it picks up from there until by 15:10 there’s a kind of mellow Tiger jam going on, and this flickers in and out a couple of times before we reach a denouement of sorts and Jerry starts Eyes of the World.


This is a really excellent segment, although it’s a little too brief—I wanted it to continue, but it’s a very nice quarter hour.


What was said:

163. 1973-06-24

99852 Portland 27:13

Main theme at :06, 15:13.
Elastic Ping Pong Jam at 6:22.
First verse at 15:50.
Tiger at 22:50.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


A languid entry into the theme sets them off on a typical (for the period) opening jam. This introductory section has been particularly mellow lately, though none the less effective for it, like gentle waves lapping at the shore of the deadhead mind. Garcia gestures toward the theme several times, which sometimes serves to orient the groove a bit, I think. Godchaux is inaudible or missing. At this point Weir is rarely doing anything that resembles rhythm guitar as the world knows it, yet the resulting polyphony is generally rather beautiful.

At 4:20 the jam starts percolating nicely, largely thanks to some bubbly lines from Weir and Lesh. At 4:35 Garcia gets into a Sputnik sort of thing; this soon settles down, and then he gets bubbly along with the other two, playing a one-note line that fades in and out. As this subsides into a transitional section at 5:22, Godchaux’s Rhodes can briefly be heard piping up, but then he’s gone again. 5:52 brings another Sputnik groove, and it sounds like they might get weird, early as it is. But then at 6:22 Lesh starts the Elastic Ping Pong lick. Weir is ready right away, but Phil pulls back and reorients himself before blasting off again.

They seem quite comfortable with it this time, and it gets going right away. This is in some ways a more flexible successor to the Soulful Strut jam, with its lightly mobile Garcia line. Not having to maintain a rhythmic chord pattern, Weir is freed up here in a way he never was on that earlier module, and he takes full advantage of this freedom, at times getting kind of crazy! The Dead in 1973 are developing a remarkable facility for developing a gentle groove until it raises the roof, but without relinquishing the mellowness. It’s the most anyone can rock without rocking hard, and they get this one going pretty good.

By 14:07 they step back and let Kreutzmann to do his thing for a little while. They come right back in on the theme at 15:13 in a way that may have resulted from an impromptu planning session during the drum solo, unless Kreutzmann’s beat was sufficient to plant the idea. Godchaux can now be heard on the Rhodes as they take it to the verse.

Garcia goes right to the volume knob as they come loping out of the verse, and accordingly they stagger-step into space. It’s a Lesh-dominated segment; he lays down heavy chords as the others make some accompanying noises. As it slides into near-nothingness, the crowd hollers appreciatively; more evidence, perhaps, that they did not hate the jams and the weirdness! Lesh is more placid now, and they start to weave a compelling skein of sound. Keith pops up here and there; particularly after 21:00 he becomes rather audible, still playing the Fender Rhodes.

A little after the 22 minute mark Kreutzmann begins to put his hand in, and this sends them rather rapidly into a meltdown. A Tiger pops up and slips back into the underbrush just as quickly, as they return to a region of spaciness. At 24:30 they start getting louder and harsher again, perhaps contemplating a second Tiger. A funky beat emerges instead, and Keith takes an active hand in shaping it with his jazzy electric piano. They have one foot in the jungle and one in the lounge, with Garcia’s mad scrapings roughening the edges. When this all subsides into a rather hairy space, Keith considers another funky rejoinder, but they instead slip into Eyes of the World.

A very nice Dark Star, in the manner of recent very nice Dark Stars—there seems to be more that could have been done, but what we have is really good. The second-half hijinks have been excellent lately, but at the same time they seem less interested in developing this aspect of Dark Star. Even though this is a full 27 minutes and change, it feels short. There’s a standard opening jam, and then the Elastic Ping Pong takes up the rest of the first part; the post-verse stuff is very good, but they don’t quite commit to the jam in the second half sufficiently to really let it bloom.


What was said:

162. 1973-06-10

90979 RFK 26:34

Philo Stomp at 7:35.
Elastic Ping Pong Jam at 10:08.
Main theme at 13:40.
First verse at 14:23.
Tiger at 21:58.
Goes into He’s Gone.


The second of two big, well-known outdoor shows with the Allman Brothers features the first Dark Star since the end of March. The band lays into it with a will here; Phil Lesh’s bass is quite loud on this recording, and he drives it along from the start. Godchaux is playing a Fender Rhodes electric piano now, which gives this Dark Star a little bit of a jazzy flavor. The first few minutes are rather textural, setting a mood without much development going on. Nevertheless, the music is driving and aggressive until about 3:45, when they shift into a more contemplative stage.

There’s a move into B minor around this time, a key that was visited the last two times out. There are several feints in the direction of an Elastic Ping Pong jam; Phil plays the lick aty 5:00, and again more strongly at 5:50, but then he goes wandering. The band hovers around him for a while, and then they recede and Phil takes over. I’ve marked this as a Philo Stomp, a throwback to 1972, although it varies a bit from the iterations of the previous Fall. Phil calls the band back with the Elastic Ping Pong riff and this time they launch into the jam, but it doesn’t last much longer than a minute before they wander off somewhere else.

At 12:15 they get into a three-note thing that we’ve heard before, haven’t we? Perhaps my colleagues will remember where. This sends Garcia off on a remarkable picking excursion, but this doesn’t last long either before they slow it down and slide into the main theme, and thence to the verse.

Coming off the back of the verse, they get right back into a place that’s similar to the very beginning of the intro jam, with a lot of momentum but not much forward movement in terms of motives. It gets a little spacier as it goes, with Garcia going to the wah but playing drawn-out lines with it, keeping them in the jam rather than moving toward a meltdown yet, until the sequence that begins, after a rather deliberate series of chords from Lesh, at 18:50. At this point Garcia starts playing what could be the lead-in to a Tiger jam, and Weir joins him. Lesh starts playing a fuzzy bass line, keeping things spacey for the nonce. A loose jam develops, with Garcia playing Tiger-like stuff, and Weir getting into some funky rhythms. At 21:30 Godchaux reasserts himself on the Rhodes, and the jam has a unique flavor.

21:58 brings a more decisive shift into Tiger mode, and this then simmers down into a rather spacey meltdown. By around 24:00 they’re in an exotic place, bursting with wild energy. Godchaux’s Rhodes adds to the sense of uniqueness throughout, as there’s a different palate of sounds than usual. They don’t seem to want to stick around these environs though, and as the jam disperses in waves of feedback Garcia starts strumming He’s Gone.

This is a perfectly fine Dark Star as far as it goes. There are rumblings of new sounds and new forces, but at the same time they don’t seem to have sufficient patience to let things develop to the extent that they could. So while this is very good, there are glimmerings of something more that is not quite allowed to develop.


What was said:

161. 1973-03-28

86459 Springfield, MA 32:08


Main theme at 18:30.
First verse at 19:00.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


As on the 21st, the band runs though the Weather Report Suite Prelude for a couple of minutes before kicking off Dark Star. It’s a mesmerizing (and somewhat out-of-tune, which seems to be more common than ever) lead-in, and in some ways is a bit like a (brief) successor to the Mountains of the Moon jam in this spot. The introductory Dark Star jam soars right away, majestic and stately. The mix on this Miller transfer is well-balanced, and it’s always nice to notice what a collaborative effort the jams are when everyone is clearly audible.


There’s a subtle shift, evident by 1:40, toward the E minor, as the jam becomes more subdued. On some versions they toggle back and forth between this and a Dark Star jam in A, but here they keep pushing forward with it. At 4:04 Garcia throws in the “it’s all the same” lick that JSegel has named—once you name something, it’s easy to keep noticing it! At 4:30 Garcia is pushing them back toward A, and the jam intensifies, but Lesh underpins it with more E and G. Then at 5:46 Garcia makes a more decisive push for the A, and Lesh let’s himself be dragged along.


At 6:04 Garcia’s rolling lick hints at Wharf Rat and Sputnik, perhaps in equal measure. The A tonality seems pretty well established now, with Lesh hammering on it. By 7:00 or so there are elements of a frenetic jam, but without a lot of tonal movement. Jerry’s triplets at 7:41 slide into a lick that may or may not be the beginnings of the main theme. It seems not, for now. At 8:15 Phil starts walking on the bass, which is not a typical maneuver; he lands on B at 8:43, pushing the band up a notch to where they spent much of the previous rendition (3-24).


The jam is becoming more dispersed, with Kreutzmann rolling all over the toms and Garcia wandering up and down the fretboard. At about 10:45 Garcia is hinting at Other One, still around the B, and Weir has engaged his wah pedal. This doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, and at 11:20 Jerry starts gesturing toward the main theme while Kreutzmann starts jazzing out on the ride cymbal. By 12:30 the music has subsided into a rather dispersed and transitional place, and at 12:54 the band gives way to Kreutzmann entirely. Weir comes in with some high soul rhythms at 13:05; no one joins him, so he plays around for a little while until Keith and Phil trickle back in.


By 14:05 it sounds like they’re getting something together, largely thanks to Godchaux, but it’s still a bit tentative. Jerry comes back at 15:04, the others take it up a notch, and now it really starts to get good. At 16:20 it starts fraying at the edges, but they bring it back up—they’re playing with a loose kind of intensity, and with a palpable sense of freedom and joy. A minute later they’re shooting into the stratosphere again, while maintaining the looseness. When they come down the other side at 18:14 it is clearly time for the main theme. Garcia takes us there, and brings us right to the verse.


As is often the case, the crowd sounds really into it, and as they come out of the verse there’s an audible ovation. Weir has said that by 1974 they were losing everyone with the long jams, but just about every recording that has audible crowd seems to belie this (so far). There’s a bit of throat clearing after the out lick, and Lesh comes swelling up with some fuzzy noise which he turns into a monstrous pulse, and as he pulls back the crowd again goes wild.


A thoughtful yet noisy space ensues rather than the potential throb-fest that suggested itself here. Lesh swoops in and out with the fuzz swells, and the other two string players hover around him—Godchaux and Kreutzmann seem to be absent so far. At 24:50 Garcia start some syncopated wah strafing, and the drums begin to tap at 25:20. They are carefully building a noisescape now, and Kreutzmann adds a bit and then drops out again. Lesh starts playing some heavy chordal stuff, and Billy comes back with the cymbals this time. This might be heading for a Tiger, by now a standard maneuver, but it’s an interesting trip so far. By 27:50 Jerry’s wah tone has gotten cleaner, which may signal a turn away from the expected Tiger.


At 29:20 Garcia starts running arpeggios, and the band has never crossed the line into meltdown territory. This circumspection has paid off with some truly interesting improvising. At 30:50, though, they might be out of gas, as the jam starts to meander. I thought Jerry had hinted at Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring a few minutes back, but it wasn’t distinct enough to note at the time; it becomes unmistakable at 32:38, however. These are dying embers, though, and pretty soon Garcia is strumming Eyes of the World and, as I like to think Gary Cohen might say, the Dark Star is over.


This is a wonderful half hour of music. The jamming is in a way more diffuse and scattered than usual, but that doesn’t come across as a weakness; the playing is casual but confident, and rather than offhandedness, this conveys a sense of freedom and whimsicality. It may be the case that the burst of creativity and excitement about the Dark Star form that came in with Keith in late 1971 is beginning to wane a bit, but for now there is plenty of juice left in the piece.


What was said:

160. 1973-03-24

139595 Spectrum ~25:57 (I. Truckin’ jam ~22:00>II. Dark Star 3:57).

Spanish Jam at I. 22:05.
Main theme at II. :00.
First verse at II. 2:09.
Goes into Sing Me Back Home.


The Truckin’ jam shifts into a different mode around 10 minutes in, and Garcia plays the Dark Star intro lick at 10:37, so we’ll pick it up there. (Track times are for the Truckin’ which is tracked as 32:37 on this recording, so something 30 seconds from where we are starting would be at 11:07). The band downshifts from the bluesy Truckin’ outro into moody and uncertain terrain at about 10:00, and when Jerry throws out part of the Dark Star intro lick shortly thereafter, it almost a quote, and it remains ambiguous whether the band is now playing Dark Star (or if they even gave this any thought, which is questionable).


Lesh starts riffing, and Weir lays in some choppy soul rhythm licks. At 12:12 Garcia asserts himself more and a jam of the type I sometimes label “frenetic” is underway, although this remains at the same time very laid back. Phil, somewhat uncharacteristically, keeps a fairly consistent funky groove going here, and it all comes together nicely. The jam seems a bit more centered on B than we’d want if we were intent on calling it Dark Star, but in any case I doubt they were worried about how people were going to classify it 50 years later.


Garcia starts to quiet down at around 13:45, and Godchaux comes to the fore. I can still hear Jerry a little bit up until about 14:20, after which he seems to have departed the scene. Then the jam starts to wind down at 15:30, and Lesh and Kreutzmann take over. Phil keeps doing a lot of the same kind of stuff he has been doing since this jam began, now accompanied only by the drums.


The others start trickling back in a little after the 18-minute mark, and again they launch into a jam that is simultaneously laid back and frenetic. Garcia’s playing here is somewhat jazzy, and he is starting to play the kind of licks that will eventually cohere into Slipknot—for instance, see 21:47. Right around then is when Weir starts leading them into the first Spanish Jam since 1970, with Bob starting up riff at 22:05. This works up a good head of steam, although compared to the early versions it has a kind of loosely relaxed feel (but one important thing about the Dead in general is that they can generate a ton of energy regardless of how mellow or aggressive the gestalt of the era).


The riff frays and disperses, and by 27:45 there are hints of a meltdown, but soon it seems like we’re headed into a mellow space section. Weir, Lesh and Garcia wind around each other; Godchaux is absent at this point. At 29:05 Weir starts playing a lick that is like a sped-up take on the Twilight Zone theme at first, and Garcia latches on with some triplets. Kreutzmann is back by now, mostly sticking to the cymbals, but Godchaux is still absent. Soon Kreutzmann drops out again for a while, and it’s back to the three guitarists, who weave together to mesmerizing effect.


At 31:57 Garcia’s line elongates, and there are hints of a resolution, which gets a favorable crowd reaction. Finally Jerry drops into the Dark Star theme; either this comes deep into the song, or at the very beginning, depending on how you interpret what came before; I doubt the Dead troubled themselves over this question at all. Next comes the verse, and then it’s just about over. There is about 20-seconds of throat-clearing, more or less, and then Garcia takes them into Sing Me Back Home.


Although this segment isn’t uniformly focused, it’s a very nice stretch of Grateful Dead music. Perhaps it was helpful not to focus on creating a Dark Star, but rather to let the music go wherever it wanted to until it seemed like a good time to bring in the song form and the verse. In this case, there is no post-verse jamming, so we have something a bit different here.


What was said:

159. 1973-03-21

29263 Utica 21:44

Main theme at :06, 8:20 and 9:13.
First verse at 9:35.
Goes into Eyes of the World


An early rendition of the Weather Report Suite intro leads into Dark Star, and the audience sounds really excited to hear it tonight. A few passes at the main theme follow the opening lick, and then we get a fairly standard two-chord jam. Godchaux is present in the mix here, which is always welcome. We can hear him being rather active, which is often the case when he’s sufficiently audible. He locks in with Lesh at 3:15, and they generate some drama with a sort of hanging chordal interlude that stretches out for about a minute, lending the music an unresolved feel.


The jam seems to hover for a while; Garcia hints at E minor, but there are no decisive moves. Weir adds some harmonics at 5:44, which contribute to the sense of hovering that pervades the early parts of the jam. There’s a bit of a crescendo beginning at around 6:25, and as everyone’s lines get louder they begin to feel a bit more decisive. Lesh starts playing around with the Elastic Ping Pong riff at 7:15, and things are now pulling apart again. They pull back and regroup, trying to latch on, but this segment doesn’t get off the ground; Garcia finally pulls the ripcord on the main theme at 8:20. They use the theme to pull together, and then they leave it behind; it seems like they’re going to have another whack at a jam, but they soon return to the theme and Jerry sings the verse.


After the verse there’s an interesting interlude where Garcia plays some rapid arpeggios to Keith’s quarter note accompaniment, before it all subsides into space. Keith generates a droney buzz in the left channel, and Kreutzmann taps out a beat on the cymbals while Garcia floats. When we reach the 16 minute mark this seems to be heading toward a meltdown as all four of the string players begin to generate a cacophony over Kreutzmann’s beat. The chaos here has a kind of cohesion, and for a couple minutes there is a very effective meltdown, which they keep at a low boil. At 18:40 Jerry initiates the lead-in to a Tiger segment, but they avoid the expected peak and let it continue to simmer. By 20:30 they’ve come out the other side, and once again a Dark Star ends just as the elements of a really interesting jam seem to be coming together. This is enjoyable in its own right, but it’s a shame they don’t give it room, as it dies out just as it’s beginning and Jerry starts strumming Eyes of the World.


The first half begins nicely, but nothing remarkable winds up happening, and they wind up getting a little out of joint. The back half is quite good here, though; it’s a shame they didn’t develop it further.

What was said:

158. 1973-03-16

79186 Nassau coliseum 27:14

Main theme at 13:00.
First verse at 13:47.
Tiger 23:25.
Goes into Truckin’.


This one comes in askew right from the beginning, with Weir playing some odd counterpoint on the intro, and Garcia laying in some harmonics soon after. First there are true harmonics, then pinch harmonics. Godchaux is in a similar register and my ear keeps confusing them for a little while, until Jerry drops down and plays around on the bass strings for a little while. This laid-back and playful early part of the introduction evokes a feeling of the desert, for some reason, although they are playing a hockey rink in Long Island.


Lesh is auguring a shift toward minor key his lugubrious phrases, and by 3 minutes in or thereabouts the sunshine has dissipated a bit. At around 3:30 there are allusions to the theme, and Garcia in particular keeps putting in reminders that this is Dark Star. It’s a great instance of playing around a theme without really playing it, and the ensemble is limber enough to manage seeming to be in and out of Dark Star in successive moments, with the whole maintaining a sense of ambiguity. Why go somewhere, when you can go everywhere?


Kreutzmann is brilliant here, as he holds it all together but avoids settling into a groove. The groove finally comes at about 7:10 and, typically, it’s not clear how it starts, nor exactly when it begins. Weir and Godchaux join the drummer and push, and Garcia whips out the slide at 7:39, bringing back some of the desert haze. Listen to Keith from around 9:19—I’m not sure what to say about it, just listen. His line starts to unravel a little, and then Lesh starts getting funky. All this is enough to create quite a sense of drama, and somehow it keeps building.


They seem to have crested by the 11-minute mark, and they let the center unwind a little until they reach another, looser peak at 11:50 or so, and then another at 12:30. By 12:43 they decide on a more abrupt transition, slowing down and melting into the theme. This plays out rather straightforwardly and leads into the verse a little under a minute later. JSegel will tell you about it.


The return lick, mostly executed by Weir, takes us down into a sinkhole of Garcia feedback and tom-tom clubbing. Kreutzmann, who is (and has been) occupying opposite sides of the mix, keeps a tribal beat going, and the rest almost leave him to it before Garcia starts popping along on muffled strings with the wah engaged; at 18:40 he starts to gesture toward the Tiger. There’s a bit of a shift at 20:00 into more tonal, arpeggiated stuff, however, and we veer away from the Tiger and into spacier territory.


They are threatening to get melodic before Garcia again veers at 22:35, initiating a sawing maneuver in which he is soon joined by Weir. At 23:25 he lets the strings ring out a little more, and we arrive at the Tiger. Lesh is hanging back for much of this. At 24:30 Garcia plays a crushing E chord, and Lesh joins back in as a bendy jam takes us back to desert climes. At 26:00 Lesh’s pumping chords bring us up to a new plateau, and we seem to be heading into a full-blown post-verse jam, and a rather unique one at that. Weir hits on a striking descending lick , and it seems to be heading somewhere quite memorable—but suddenly it’s over, and they’re going into Truckin’.


The pre-verse jamming is spectacular here, as it has been on most recent Dark Stars. After the verse, things never quite coalesce, which is also characteristic of recent versions. There is a nice meltdown, although it doesn’t reach the heights of cacophony that typify the most intense Tiger jams, and then they put together all the elements of a top notch jam before abandoning it almost immediately. This is a little frustrating, but I suppose you can’t have everything, and this is an excellent rendition overall.


What was said:

157. 1973-02-26

1208 Lincoln, NE 25:18 (24:48 actual)

Main theme at :37 and 17:16.
Elastic Ping Pong Jam at 10:19.
First verse at 17:31.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


After some preliminaries, another out of tune Dark Star intro issues forth into the Nebraska night. Even in the early going where the strategy is familiar, each one is a bit different, and this one seems to have a unique character from the outset, thoughtful and well-articulated. After a run through the main theme, the instruments wind around each other in familiar fashion, in a thoughtful manner and at a deliberate pace.


At 2:24 Garcia adopts a brassy tone, playing the bass strings close to the bridge and emoting almost hammily. He winds his way upward, drawing out his lines and exaggeratedly emphasizing his figures. Something’s going on at 4:30, with Jerry spitting out high descending runs and the band momentum coming in fits and starts. They end up in a whirlpool at 5:43, and the centrifugal force sends them upward into a rousing peak at 6:24; all the energy is discharged by 6:39, but before they settle all the way down Phil proposes an ostinato lick that is taken up by Garcia…but then they shift into something more laid back at 6:39, quickly moving on as the music resists settling into a groove.


Garcia starts a three-note pattern at 8:05 that provides the focus for the next groove, but this also plays out quickly. Ideas are flowing to quickly for the music to fully coalesce. By 9:15 they are swirling down the drain in to spacier territory, with Lesh’s tentative riffing doing nothing to halt the general trend to oblivion. However, he again starts up a riff at 10:11 and this time Garcia jumps aboard, followed in short order by Weir and Godchaux, and pretty soon we are in the midst of a lovely Elastic Ping Pong Jam (and this for the first time, although there was a precursor on 1972-08-24).


This winds up being a rather lengthy excursion, and much of the interest comes from Lesh’s variations of his line. At 16:24, Garcia rather suddenly signals a pivot to the main theme; they bring the tempo down as they swing into a Dark Star section, getting around to the theme about a minute later, then quickly going to the verse.


There’s some stormy throat-clearing directly after the post-verse lick, and then they let it get spacier, with Garcia making haunting theremin-like sounds as Phil prophesies doom with big bends and chords. Here we find pleasing disarray as they explore the busier side of space. A bit after the 22 minute mark it seems like they’re ready to go into another song for a moment, but Garcia’s popping and clicking guitar almost does sound like a tortured clavinet as he steers them toward a meltdown. This takes an unexpected turn at 23:59 as an increasingly assertive Lesh starts some chordal riffing sort of in the vein of Philo Stomp. It’s not clear anyone has much idea what’s happening at this point; there’s a brief attempt to build a jam around Phil, and then Garcia starts up Eyes of the World.


Front-loaded Dark Stars are seemingly becoming more of a thing, and this one qualifies; although there is some rather nice chaos on the back end, the overall scene never quite comes together there. The first Elastic Ping Pong Jam is a thing of beauty, even if it begins a bit tentatively, and in general there’s nothing to complain about here. A very nice Dark Star, if a bit limited.


What was said:

156. 1973-02-22

111169 Illinois 13:30

Bright Star at 5:06.
Main theme at 5:23 and 6:30.
First verse at 7:10.
Tiger at 12:55.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


Once again something sounds a little out of tune at the outset. The intro very quickly settles into a Dark Star-adjacent jam, with (this time I’ll say it) plaintive lines from Garcia woven into a polyphonic blend with the other instruments to mesmerizing effect. Garcia’s guitar shifts around the soundstage a bit in the beginning, for some reason. Everything feels on and right—this is how the intro jam ought to sound, one feels.


The band kicks into a disjointed yet funky groove at around 4:30, and it feels like a windup for something; at 5:06 Garcia unexpectedly brings back Bright Star to lead us into the theme, but they veer off again, not ready to end the opening jam. They come to a peak, and the theme comes back around at 6:30, bringing us to the verse. This has all been quite wonderful, if a bit brief, as it has been a while since we’ve seen the verse arrive this early.


The back end of the verse opens into spacey territory, but forward momentum is maintained. Just as in the pre-verse jam, all the musicians seem more or less equally involved here. The crowd sounds rather enthused throughout all of this. By 11:00 the momentum has abated, and Garcia and Lesh come to the fore with more spacey meanderings. Weir returns around 40 seconds later, but Godchaux seems to have disappeared, and the three guitarists wind around each other for a spell. At 12:23, Garcia unleashes some percussive bass notes and the jam becomes syncopated and jerky, launching them into a Tiger. This is brief, as at 13:30 Weir takes them into Eyes.


This is a concentrated blast of everything great about Dark Star except, of course, its expansive and exploratory side. Even in lieu of all that, it's a wonderful piece of music.


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