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: