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.


What was said:

155. 1973-02-15

150175 Wisconsin 19:25

Main theme at :05 and 12:30.
First verse at 12:56.
Goes into Eyes of the World.


They sound a little out of tune on the intro lick. The music begins forcefully, with a run through the main theme and then off into a series of variations. Garcia hits some spectacularly beautiful runs. He plays a stentorian melody on the bass strings starting at 1:19, and shoots into the stratosphere by 1:43, playing long lines and exploring ideas in depth. Lesh unleashes a vigorous salvo at 2:32 which Jerry briefly latches onto, and then it’s back to a more pastoral scene immediately afterward.


There seems to be a musical core throughout, more or less based on Dark Star, from which Garcia and Lesh at times sally forth. At 3:38 Phil starts up one of his typical bass riffs, and as is often the case it seems to float beneath the surface and recede without seriously changing the trajectory of the piece. At 4:29 Garcia starts turning the volume knob, and the jam starts to slide into a placid lagoon where the two chord structure is finally abandoned for real. By around the 6 minute mark we’re almost in space; at 6:15 Garcia strikes up a variation on what JSegel calls the “it’s all the same” lick, but this turns out not to be the gingerbread trail out of space, which just gets deeper.


Lesh comes to the fore as, at 7:45, Garcia (who has engaged the wah) starts playing with a little Sputnik-adjacent roll pattern. This doesn’t shift things either. At 8:30 Lesh finally starts toying with another funky riff; then at 9:05 Keith emerges more strongly, and he seems to be also using an effect (unless he’s playing electric piano, I haven’t been able to tell for sure yet). Somehow a jam comes together out of all this, although it’s difficult to identify its genesis. Everyone just kind of drifts together, and the music becomes more insistent.


As the jam picks up steam, it gradually gets more Dark Star-like. This is helped along by Jerry’s allusions to the theme along the way, which become quite pronounced beginning at 11:40; by 11:55 he’s clearly playing the theme, but the rest of them aren’t doing the usual theme backing. At 12:25 Garcia initiates a descending transition, and then he kicks off the theme proper at 12:35. The transition here is more organic than we sometimes find, without a drastic tempo shift. This proves to be a brief iteration of the theme, and when Jerry starts singing at 12:56 it feels rather abrupt.


Phil Lesh emerges as the main focus after the proceedings associated with the verse are through. He gets into some rock-oriented riffing, although it seems he is through with the Philo Stomp at this point. This time recording allows us to hear how he makes use of multi-phonic speakers, as he seems to be coming from different places on different strings. At 18:17, Garcia enters with a piercing lead line, duetting with Lesh. This is a beautiful segment, but it’s pretty brief, as a little over a minute later they’re into Eyes of the World.


This is a nice piece of music, and one that is much beloved of Deadheads. The pre-verse stuff is quite powerful. Not a whole lot happens after the verse, though; there’s some Phil stuff, and a brief duet with Garcia which is very good, but not all that lengthy. All in all, it’s some good Grateful Dead music, and part of a strong sequence, but there are Dark Stars that cover more ground.


What was said:

154. 1972-12-15

17186 LBC 25:00 (I. Jam 14:04; II.Dark Star: 10:56)

Main theme at II. :00
First verse at II. :26
Goes into Morning Dew.


As will become more common, there is a jam here which at some point it becomes Dark Star, and the placement of track breaks and boundaries remains ambiguous. The jam comes out of Truckin’; Hollister does a good job of placing the first break right around where they seem to depart from the structure of that song.


As Truckin’ winds down the band pedals on E for a bit, and there’s a kind of bluesy vamp. Godchaux is playing wah, and Lesh has some kind of fuzzy doomy thing going on. At 1:01 of Jam, Garcia alludes to Dark Star briefly, and then they head into a moody section where the music seems to hang in the air. At about 2:45 Kreutzmann lays down a beat, and a gentle groove starts to form. They migrate toward A; there are allusions to Dark Star throughout, until the groove picks up momentum, and then a little two chord jam pops out that has little overt connection to Dark Star.


This starts to rock pretty hard; they roll back the volume a little after 7:00, but the playing remains intense. At 8:21 the jam has run its course, and Lesh comes to the fore. He leads a Garcia-less section which doesn’t take on a distinct character, until the latter returns at 9:51 and the music begins to coalesce a bit more. There is a kind of pure improvisation happening where they don’t seem to have a destination in mind yet. Godchaux again adds a percussive muted part, as in the last Dark Star. At 12:30 they seem to be pulling it all together; a three note lick emerges that serves as a holding pattern, and then the music again disperses.


Finally they go to the Dark Star theme, which is where the next track begins. They stay with it for a rather short time before getting to the verse at :26. The jam out of the verse heads into space after a minute or so and becomes very sparse. Godchaux continues to make use of muffled strings, which is an interesting development lately. At 5:05 Garcia and Weir unleash some eerie moaning feedback, and they seem poised for the next phase.


This begins with Lesh and Godchaux, with the latter now letting his piano strings resound. Garcia joins in with a line that seems to point toward meltdown territory. He lays in some Tiger licks; Lesh joins him, but the overall effect is very restrained. The train is gaining momentum, but the feel here is spooky. If there has been a Tiger, it was dispersed in time, and it never comes to a head at any particular moment before sliding into abstraction. By 10:00 they are back in a holding pattern, and there they stay until Garcia starts Morning Dew.

They spend a lot of time in limbo during this sequence. I kind of like it, though; you can hear them thinking and communicating with each other, which is one of the charms of improvisation. This is no tour de force, but it’s a fine place to observe the band dynamic and reflect on the defining features of Grateful Dead music in this era.


What was said:

153. 1972-12-11

153092 Winterland 34:27

Main theme at 16:47.
First verse at 17:21.
Tiger at 32:23.
Goes into Stella Blue.


The introduction section is, as it often is around this time, relaxed and quite mesmerizing. All the string players are loud here, but I don’t hear Keith at first. The other three all function as lead instruments, weaving in and out of each other’s lines in a way that pushes the attentive listener’s mind into a blissful overload. At 3:11, the piano finally joins the mix to euphonious effect. A swarm begins at 3:38, and when we come out the other end, there’s a syncopated groove working.


The jam is much the same as it was, only now it swings. This peters out by 4:55 or so, and now it feels like a transitional stage. Lesh and Weir are eager to get funky again, but Kreutzmann hangs back. They build their way back until the drums fall into a groove again at 6:02; they spin it out until hitting another transition point at 7:03. Lesh ties it through with an ostinato, and Garcia launches some rolling triplets; the jam resides in the tension between these two for quite a while from here.


At 8:41 Garcia alludes to Sputnik in a passage that lasts for 15 seconds or so. The music is getting beefier, with Godchaux quite busy now. Lesh plays a few runs through Feelin’ Groovy starting at 9:34, but they’re not going there. As he climbs into a higher register at 9:45, Garcia drops into an ostinato lower down before they again switch places.


The band is seriously cooking now, and the intensity keeps increasing. At 10:55 Garcia starts a simple pattern that they rally around. He tops it off with a screaming lead, and then from 11:32 they float back to earth. They slow the tempo a bit, and some jerky, syncopated chopping follows; Garcia strikes up a catchy riff, and then spins out some leads while the band extrapolates. By 14:25 it seems the ideas are coming thick and fast from all directions. They reach a peak around a repeated Garcia figure starting at 15:04, and as we crest Garcia starts to signal for the theme at 15:30 or so...at 15:47, and they cut the tempo down and glide into it. Garcia waits a minute to play the melody, and they slow the tempo down even more as they head for the verse. Slowly sung, the verse features Keith’s watery wah licks, much like the last one.


There’s a little crescendo after the concluding licks, and what pulse there is seems to slow even further. We find ourselves in space, with Garcia playing eerie squalls amid big tom flourishes. Doomy bass licks and feedback engulf the scene. Lesh comes to the fore, and his playing is deliberate and spacy, with no hints of Philo Stomp here. Both guitar players are layering feedback, until at 23:48 Godchaux starts playing some staccato muffled notes and it turns into a conversation between him and Lesh. (I initially thought this was Weir, and it is difficult to tell as for a long time this sounds like a guitar. Someone can correct me if I have it twisted, but after rewinding a few times I’m pretty sure it’s Keith dampening the piano strings somehow.)


Godchaux increases the pace, still muffling his notes, and Lesh responds with muffled passages of his own. At 25:45 Keith kicks on the wah, continuing in the same vein. Garcia comes back, also with the wah engaged, and throws in some eerie sounds as Kreutzmann plays a primal beat. This is absolutely unique and riveting music, and without any clear precedent, as far as I can recall.


The muffly jam is driving toward a peak, and at 27:55 Keith lets the strings ring out a little more; by 28:20 this jam finally seems to have run its course, though. They seem to consider a drum break, but then Garcia, who throughout the previous jam has been confined to a supporting role, starts to assert himself more. At 29:45 he seems to momentarily think of Bach, and then he starts to edge toward the Tiger. The band again gels, if in an oblique and eerie fashion. The lead-up to the Tiger is another astounding jam. They really pick up steam at 31:40, as they push for the finish line; Garcia finally unleashes the Tiger at 32:23, and the whole thing comes to its vicious denouement.


At 33:52 Jerry seems to remember his previous aside (29:45) and drops into Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring before starting to strum Stella Blue (which is, incidentally, one of the best versions of the year).


What can be said about this version? This is one of the greatest pieces of music the Grateful Dead ever created, an absolute masterpiece. The first half is varied, by turns soulful and driving, and does everything you want a Dark Star jam to do. After a few versions where they seemed to struggle after the verse, the unique, creative second half is utterly successful here. This is what it’s all about.


What was said:

152. 1972-11-26

9248 San Antonio 25:12

Main theme at 9:26.
First verse at 10:28.
Feelin’ Groovy at 18:37.
Tiger at 21:55.
Goes into Me and Bobby McGee.


The beginning jam here is a thing of beauty. Everyone plays off each other, and (as so often happens) Garcia’s lines prominently float along on top but are far from the only thing on which to focus. After a gorgeous series that alludes to the theme a few times, at 2:18 Garcia plays a stentorian line on the bass strings that we have heard before—the first instance I know of is at 2:40 on 1968-08-23, and this lick also appears in the intro jam on 1973-11-11. Here it is more extended than anywhere else it appears, though.


The jam opens out a bit from here—Lesh starts fishing around for funky licks. At 3:11 Jerry stretches a note which he lets ooze around for the next 30 seconds, and then the jam alternates between bouncing and elongating passages. Lesh’s ostinato from 4:05 sets off Godchaux and Garcia’s acending lines until Jerry reaches a repeating note at 4:25 and the band comes to a peak. At 4:42 he hits a higher plateau, and then they take it down and regroup.


Phil strikes up a jazzy riff at 5:17, but it doesn’t lead anywhere, as they are still coming off the peak. At 5:40 Garcia hits some tumbling triplets and Godchaux flutters around him; at 6:10 a new groove emerges, as Lesh and Kreutzmann lay down a laid back groove which Keith offsets with staccato 8th notes. This is something Garcia can work with, clearly, and he weaves in some Dark Star melodies. At 7:40 Keith starts a triplet figure and Garcia quickly picks it up, setting off a unique interlude. This is a passage that is, broadly speaking, in the Sputnik universe, although it’s not much like anything else they’ve played in this vein.


There’s a whole lot going on in this jam, and it’s difficult to narrate. It needs to be heard, in any case, as it is absolutely prime Grateful Dead.


At 8:53 Garcia starts repeating a galloping lick and Godchaux starts playing the wah. It seems like it could go somewhere new, but Garcia climbs to the A at 9:26 and comes down on the theme. Lesh doesn’t seem interested right away, but Jerry’s persistent, and they drop into it. As usually happens in this era, this takes us straight to the verse, during which Godchaux continues playing through the wah.


The aftermath is spacey, but it seems to be germinating a jam. At 12:35 Garcia plays the lick JSegal calls “It’s All the Same”; now that he’s pointed it out, it seems ubiquitous. They play for time with some volume knob twiddlery and Lesh’s searching lines; by 14:20 it goes down to nothing, and then Phil takes over; soon Kreutzmann comes back to accompany him.


Lesh seems reluctant to get the Philo Stomp going again, but what he lands on isn’t a million miles away from that, either. The band starts to trickle back in at 16:45. At first it’s all very tentative, but they seem determined to make a go of it, as they never really recovered from this section last time. Garcia’s licks are a little bolder and more committed this time; nevertheless, they seem to be in a holding pattern until Lesh starts Feelin’ Groovy at 18:37.


We’ve had a little bit of space, a Phil section, and a modular jam—the only thing left in their standard second-half bag of tricks is a meltdown, and by about 20:50 it seems clear that’s where this is now heading. They careen into a Tiger jam, which comes to fruition much sooner than usual. By 23:30 they’re already out the back end, and they lean into the atonal jamming for a while longer, until finally Weir kicks off Me and Bobby McGee.


This is another front-loaded Dark Star. The pre-verse stuff here is stellar; in fact, I want to say it’s as good as anything they ever did. The back half is far from bad; in fact, it’s a marked improvement over the previous rendition. The jamming around the Tiger portion is particularly effective. Nevertheless, there seems to be an emerging trend in the second half of Dark Star. The beginning of Dark Star gives them a chord pattern to begin to build a jam from, whereas in the second half they more or less start from nothing. And in the latter part of 1972, they seem to be losing a little bit of facility in creating jams out of nothing. The meltdowns and/or atonal jams are effective, and there are also bass solos and modular jams in their bag of tricks; however, it is becoming more uncommon for them to put together a cohesive improvisation that does not rely on any of the aforementioned strategies. There will certainly be some very notable exceptions, but I my impression is that this overall trend will continue; we'll see if the concentrated, sequential listening to come will dispel this notion.


What was said:

151: 1972-11-19

142329 Houston 31:19 (DS 25:40, WS Prelude 5:49)

Main theme at :05 and 11:25.
First verse at 11:39.
Goes into Half Step.


I have chosen to treat the debut of Weather Report Suite: Prelude here as a jam within Dark Star, as it seems to me that’s how it functions here. This is certainly debatable, though.


The main theme comes right out of the opening lick here, and this one gets off to a brisker, more thetic start than some of its peers. Lesh is very loud in the mix, and we are reminded that the melodic burden is his as much as Garcia’s much of the time. At first, they wind around on the upper and lower limits as Weir and Godchaux fill in the texture in the middle. The lines start to get a little blurred at 3:06 when Garcia plays some funky stuff on the lower strings with Lesh above him.


By 3:50 or so, Godchaux is starting to flick on the wah, as he seems wont to do lately. Listen to Lesh at 4:36 deftly pick up on some of the stuff Keith is playing, which sets up a nice moment. The music starts to unspool a little from this point as they loosen up while considering their next moves. Jerry starts to hint at Other One at around 4:45, and this inflects what follows. There’s a bit of excitement when Garcia starts a little roll at 5:43, and then Lesh starts playing an Other One-like figure which Jerry again picks up, but by 6:20 it’s all over and they’re on to something else! The lines get more drawn out here; at 6:48 Lesh starts working in a riff which we’ve heard before, one that is reminiscent of Reggie Workman’s line on Coltrane’s Greensleeves and a precursor to the Elastic Ping Pong jam.


At 8:27 Garcia starts to suggest an approach to the Dark Star theme. At 8:46 Lesh brings his riff back, though; Garcia sounds like he still wants to head for home bass, but he’s game for now; Godchaux is playing wah again. At 10:05 Lesh modulates the riff upward as Garcia plays a tremolo line, and then at 10:20 he bursts out with a high, wailing line that he draws out and twists until it resolves into a repeating two-note call at 10:52 that seems to bring everyone to attention. They pedal for a little bit until, at 11:21, Lesh finally calls for the theme; Garcia is happy to oblige, and he takes it to the verse very quickly.


The post-verse lick recedes and there is a descent into space. It gets down to almost nothing at 14:05, and it stays there for almost a minute, putting us back in 1970. Lesh oozes into the open space with an almost sub-sonic hum until bursting out at 15:01 with some ominous tones which Garcia embellishes with feedback squalls. This is some properly freaky stuff, until Phil tentatively casts about with some riffs and Kreutzmann picks up the beat, and we go from space into a bass and drum session.


This starts to feel a bit aimless to me. At 20:42 Phil seems to start thinking about how he’s going to get the band back, although he reluctant to start up Philo Stomp. At 20:55 he finally gets into something pretty close to the latter, although it’s not quite the same. At 21:23 the band starts to trickle back in, but they seem tentative. Weir wants to play Feelin’ Groovy, but nobody seems ready to commit to it, and it comes in and out at various points. Nothing is happening, and it’s a drag. By 23:00 it finally seems to be coalescing a bit, and there’s the beginnings of a nice little jam here, but it’s still slightly tentative. After about a minute they seem stuck in a rut, but not fully in a groove.


By the 26th minute they seem pretty lost; Lesh even suggests a return to Dark Star, but then Weir starts up his Weather Report riff. Jerry knows it, it seems, but Lesh and Godchaux lay out. When Keith comes in he seems at first like he’s following along. Garcia fades out, Lesh takes a few stabs. When they both start playing together they pretty quickly take it away from Weather Report, so the band may not have learned this yet. It gets back into a space kind of thing, and Garcia wants to go to a meltdown. By 3:15 or so it’s pretty much chaos, of the ramshackle rather than bludgeoning variety. When Kreutzmann finally stops pounding there’s some kind of nice spacey stuff, but they quickly conclude their work is finished and play Half Step.


The first 16 minutes of this are outstanding. Once it gets into the Lesh and Kreutzmann stuff it loses any sense of direction and turns into a dissatisfying mess. 16 great minutes are not chopped liver, by any means, but I can’t say this is a resounding success overall.


What was said:

150. 1972-11-13

105812 KC 32:16 (31:56 actual) (“Dark Star” 22:03, “Philo Stomp” 10:13)

Main theme at 11:22.
First verse at 11:44.
Tiger at 19:25 and (PS) :40.
Philo Stomp at (PS): 1:30.
Feelin’ Groovy at (PS) 7:46.
Goes into Morning Dew.


Here we have an audience recording, and it sounds pretty good in this case. Dark Star kicks off in a mournful mood, with nobody hitting it too hard. At 1:34 Garcia gets into some pinch harmonics, repeating a couple notes for about 30 seconds and then spinning out a lead from there that still sounds like a holding pattern; the task seems to be to create a mood rather than to tell a story. The skein stretches gradually, revealing little knots of intensity. The peak that begins at 3:34 is brief, leads into a lull. The band peaks vertically, so to speak—the music is at all points a tableau or cross section, rather than a progression of ideas.


Another peak comes in at 4:30 and this one empties out into a lurching backbeat from Kreutzmann and some chiming rhythm from Weir. At 5:40 is another peak, or perhaps rather a plateau. As we reach the edge, Garcia threatens a melody, and then drops into a rolling arpeggio passage instead, earning some applause. Although the sequence of notes is different, this could almost be labeled Sputnik. Garcia plays with dynamics, phasing in and out, until 7:50 brings more Dark Star notes, but before this goes too far Garcia starts in with the volume knob in order to keep the atmospheric approach alive. It gets pretty quiet here, but Kreutzmann has a new vibe brewing, and as he lightly but firmly brings the backbeat in Garcia starts flurrying at 9:15. The band is light, agile and rather quiet here.


As is sometimes the case, I am getting Weir and Godchaux mixed up here, but they both seem to have some kind of wah-wah sound going, although Keith started this one out with straight piano. Listen at 10:50 as Lesh is starting to bump up against Garcia from below, doing the funky-jazzy riffing of which he is so fond in this era. This seems to light a fire, and at 11:00 they are again driving toward a peak, this time in more frenetic fashion. As this gets going there’s a cut that plunges us into the back end of the pre-verse theme section, so I switched over to the Hanno version (10089) for this passage—not ideal, so my apologies, but this version sounds better overall. Hanno is also the Bear recording, but there’s a patch at this point, and there’s a really nice little peak there that shouldn’t be missed. The theme starts at 12:32 on the Hanno, and lasts 50 seconds, plus there’s probably another minute or so of the jam before that.


We hear how enthused the crowd is; as the Dead exit the verse there is a rousing cheer. Weir once said that by 1974 they were leaving the audience behind, implying that the long improvisations were not crowd-pleasers. I think that every audience recording we’ve listened to thus far, however, has evidenced a great deal of enthusiasm for Dark Star. Whether this had changed by 1974 is a question I can’t answer with any real confidence; it’s possible that the venues they were playing by then brought in more casual punters.


In any case, the space jam that comes together after the verse elicits more enthusiastic cheers. These are some of the most difficult passages to describe; by now the Dead were masterful at building up these ambient passages that had no real beat or time signature but still have a kind of cohesion and momentum. We get a brief return of Garcia’s tolling effect at 14:33, and everyone gets really weird here in a most pleasing way. While remaining in space, the band coheres and increases the intensity. At 17:15 Garcia starts to build up his line a bit, and one feels it will either lead us out into a jam, or else into a meltdown. This dilemma seems to be resolved in favor of a meltdown at 18:21, as Garcia starts to prefigure a Tiger jam. Lesh and Garcia push it forward while Weir and Godchaux build outward.


The Tiger arrives at 19:25. Godchaux’s piano is titanic, like a turbulent ocean, with Garcia the storm-wracked ship and Lesh the sea monster ascending from the depths. There is calm at 20:45, but they start to build it up again. As the second track (“Philo Stomp”) begins (without a Philo Stomp in sight!) the music is warped, demented; by :40 we’re back in a Tiger jam. No sooner does it peak than Lesh is shifting into Philo Stomp (PS 1:30). Coming out of the Tiger without any bass preliminaries, the effect is remarkable. Garcia, Godchaux and Weir chime right in this time; they almost sound like they know it.


At 3:50 Lesh is ready to try to build out a successor jam. Weir starts a pedalling riff at 4:33, and this turns into a holding pattern. At about 5:00 Garcia seems to be communicating his willingness to play some great leads if the rest of them will only get it together. At 5:19 Weir proposes a two-chord pattern; Lesh approves, and Jerry starts fiddling away. Weir of course abandons the chord pattern at this point, but Garcia is not to be deterred; he ups the intensity, and Kreutzmann approves of this, so he helps drag the rest of them to a howling peak starting at around 6:55. At 7:18 this settles back into another holding pattern, although we are now on a higher plateau and the intensity does not subside.


Lesh breaks us out of this one with Feelin’ Groovy at 7:46. This is a raucous affair, all jittery and cacophonous. They play it almost ridiculously fast, and it’s already over by 9:25. Garcia substitutes another descending riff, and it almost seems like a throwback to 1969, where a modular jam could result in another jam loosely based on the former. It’s not happening this time, though; instead, they go into Morning Dew.



This is a strange and magical half hour. The band at times seems to be getting a little impatient with the Dark Star format, it seems to me; although this is a subtle thing and doesn’t manifest all at once, I think there is such a trend, in any case. Here the first half is almost ambient, and it does seem to cover new ground, at least insofar as they are more committed to that approach here than we’ve heard before. The second half is dominated by space, meltdown/Tiger jamming, and Philo Stomp. The meltdown approach is increasingly becoming the primary mode of post-verse as we get closer to 1973. The two-pronged meltdown in this Dark Star is one of premier instances of the form. A classic rendition.


What was said:

149. 1972-10-28

20405 Cleveland 27:46

Main theme at :06, 9:31 and 10:51.
First verse at 11:27.
Philo Stomp at 16:50.
Tiger at 25:23.
Goes into Sugar Magnolia.


A little bit of the main theme leads into some volume swells by Garcia, and the Dark Star starts clopping along. Godchaux and Weir open up a bubbly jam space while Lesh and Garcia wander a bit. Kreutzmann is pushing them along (check out his runs at 1:51, 2:16 and 2:33, and 2:47, etc.); he keeps goosing the band, creating forward momentum. In this case, he seems to be leading the jam as much as anyone, and perhaps he inspires the tumbling riff that Garcia unleashes at 4:05, which Keith picks up on, one of many such bursts that drive the jam forward tonight.


From about 4:20 Kreutzmann starts to play a more lurching beat, and again there is a reponse as at 4:43 Lesh puts forth a funky riff, and again Godchaux is right there, embellishing it and pushing it further. At 5:05 Garcia’s chords start to swell up and they all come together with a thrusting beat that raises the pressure again. At 5:55 the band is steaming along and Garcia starts spinning some frenetic lines that turn into another hammering motif at 6:08; Godchaux locks on, and they take it to a sort of peak, and it seems the general trajectory is ever upwards.

The music gets denser and busier. Now Lesh starts a double time pulse at 7:55. They all seem to pull back a little at the same time, and at 8:11Garcia starts a driving chord pattern. This seems to bring everything up another notch, as they alternate between a driving sway and dot-dash pounding until Garcia begins an ascent at 9:21 that leads to high A at 9:23; he tumbles off it into a kind of main theme/Bright Star hybrid. They start to settle into the theme, but there’s a detour at 10:05, a misty little grotto that has hints of a rolling Sputnik jam. This leads us back to the theme, which brings us to a dark and lurching verse. (In a throwback to the ‘60s, Jerry gives a little vibrato shake to “Shall we go…”).


Out the other side, Garcia immediately puts out some spooky vibes with a watery wah effect. While Kreutzmann starts up a deliberate beat, and Lesh adds a deliberate riff, Garcia considers some weird directions. The band swirls down the drain until, at 14:35, Lesh barks out his intentions. Garcia echoes him for a little while, and then Lesh drops out for a bit, leaving Bill and Jerry. As Phil returns, there’s a little bit of space, and everything seems uncertain.


At 16:50, Lesh takes charge and launches Philo Stomp. This proceeds with bass and drums for awhile, but the others trickle back in. When Garcia lays in a distorted lead at around 18:30, Lesh pulls back the riff and reduces it to a thudding fundament, and the jam develops. The Philo Stomp bass riff might be too dominant to leave much room for a band jam, and Lesh’s solution to this seems to work this time—they’re flying along, they don’t seem to want to keep it going for too long. and it already starts to unravel at 20:10.


The jam is sprouting frayed ends all over the place now. At 21:30, Garcia gets ahold of something, and a kind of abstract and choppy funk seems about to emerge, and almost does. Instead, there is more unravelling, until Garcia’s wah at 22:22 unmistakably ratifies what seems to be the only possible direction this can go in, toward a meltdown. Lo and behold, the madness does indeed seem a bit more methodical now that we can identify it with a recognized move, and we arrive at a brief Tiger before everything unravels a little further into an abstract space from which there will be no returning. At the utmost extremity, Weir finally kicks off Sugar Magnolia.


This is one of those Dark Stars where the first and second halves seem to have little to do with one another. Unless, that is, the second half is a kind of riposte to the first—whereas the intro jam kept exploring new ways to push forward, the back 40 is filled with weeds; with the exception of Philo Stomp and the short jam that it catalyzed, there is not much in the way of momentum in the second half of this Dark Star. We find instead a wonderful sprawl, a space where it seems almost gauche to develop one’s ideas overmuch. This is not intended as a knock, though, as this is a powerful rendition.


What was said:

148. 1972-10-26

32717 Cincinnati 21:32

Main theme at :06, 14:49 and 15:16.
First verse at 15:37.
Goes into Sugar Magnolia.


This comes out of the embers of Truckin’, with Kreutzmann rolling the toms through the intro lick, and starts with the main theme before quickly diverging with some rather low key jamming. Lesh is practically inaudible at first, which perhaps adds to the lethargic vibe, until he steps up with some rolling licks at 1:18. There’s a strange passage at about 2:48 where Lesh is playing above Jerry, I had to rewind it to figure out who was who, but Garcia’s tone on the bass strings is unmistakable.


Garcia starts a line at 3:21 that slides through the Sputnik tonal pattern at 3:31, then at 3:47 starts to run through the main theme notes, and then skitters off again until at 4:32 he hits the descending pattern we’ve heard a few times lately, so he covers a lot of bases here. At 5:14 there’s another brief quote of the theme; Lesh starts a minor-tinged riff at 5:40 that threatens to break the jam out of its current form, which is rather sleepy but not unpleasing. They fritter away without really leaning into it, until at 7:40 they lock into a rolling pattern which sort of comes in and out for a bit. Suddenly at 8:15 there is conviction, and they start to build a peak, going on to 8:42 when they break back into more straightforward opening-type jam.


This starts to spiral down into more spacey territory by 9:20, with Garcia getting a sound a bit like the “insect weirdness” we used to hear in 1969. They get to a fast weird thing around 10:15, and soon they’re buzzing around like a hive of bees. This doesn’t last long either, though; there’s a brief Sputnik-type thing around 10:51, and the band again seems to be casting about for an anchor. Garcia suggests a frenetic jam, then starts playing a two chord vamp, and Weir picks it up with some chiming country licks at 10:50.


By 12:20 Garcia is playing some licks that are reminiscent of Other One, then goes to another two-chord vamp, and then at 13:18 the music almost collapses as Garcia tunes up. There is no momentum at all now; there’s a little volume knob twiddling, and by 14:10 the whole thing has almost come to a halt. A little Sputnik rolling comes out of this, but it’s quiet and no one really wants to help out. At 14:37 they swing into the main chord pattern, and as the theme sounds we can hope the verse is coming to save us.


They lurch through the verse rather slowly, and as the closing licks die out the band swells and conures an atmosphere that allows us to hope for some good jamming to come. This hope is misplaced, however; they fiddle around for a little while before giving up on this Dark Star entirely. They almost lapse into a drum solo, but never quite relinquish the half-hearted accompaniment they’re giving Kreutzmann, so he does the reasonable thing and stops playing. We’re left with Garcia noodling alone until, mercifully, Weir strikes up Sugar Magnolia. (I don’t think I’ve ever used the word “noodling” before, but for once it feels apt).


This is certainly the worst Dark Star of 1972. I don’t need to tell you that there are engaging moments even here, but overall this one is a failure.


What was said:

147. 1972-10-23

98958 Milwaukee 28:53

Main theme at :06, 10:07, 11:46 and 12:31.
First verse at 12:42.
Goes into Mississippi Half Step.


A horrible recording is all we have of this. I’ll do my best to plow through it. We begin with the main theme, and then Garcia spirals off into some high wandering that sounds like it may have been pretty exciting. The band seems pretty fired up from the outset, although this may partly be an effect of the AUD recording.


There’s a burst from Garcia at 4:03, then a little pause where it seems like they’re gearing up for the main theme, but it is probably too early for that. The instruments are less tightly bound together from this point, and the jam seems like it gets a bit stranger. There’s an intriguing bit from about 5:57 where the band quiets down and sends out rippling waves of sound that get louder and softer, building up to a more aggressive passage shortly thereafter. After this, there are several peaks where the band seems to be generating some power, and Garcia really cuts through the murk at times, even if not much else does. It's difficult to give a cohesive account of all this, due to the sound quality which makes it hard to get a handle on everything that’s going on.


At 10:07 Garcia swings into the main theme for a moment, but it isn’t happening yet. The jam keeps going, ebbing and flowing, tantalizing the listener who’s trying to make sense out of this recording. Jerrry brings back the theme on the high strings at 11:46, and it turns into another kind of descending riff before coming back again at 12:31 and leading right into the verse.


There’s applause after the verse. After the usual riffing, Garcia launches a high line with some pinch harmonics while the band weaves a two-chord pattern. Particularly from just after the 15-minute mark, Godchaux is very active here; it would be nice to be able to better hear his interactions with Garcia, as they are in dialogue much of the time throughout this section.


At about 17:04 Godchaux, who has gotten louder and seems to be using a wah effect, moves into the lead for a while. By 18:30 the music is dense and swirling; Garcia still seems to be absent, or else in the background. We start to hear him again at about 19:10, but he takes a while to get out front again. This jam sounds really crazy! It drops into a groove at about 20:00, but it’s a frenetic one, and there still seems to be lots of atonal weirdness. By 20:30 or so it sounds like Garcia is putting on the wah, and he may see this leading to a meltdown.


It's hard to pinpoint what happens when in all this murk, but the jam increasingly seems like a meltdown now. In any case it’s a crazy jam, and now I find that I would really love to hear a good recording! Lesh is doing some wild descending licks; at 23:40 it seems to have come to a head, as there’s a lull, but then it seems like they were just gathering themselves because shortly thereafter the music rises like a tornado. I don’t hear Garcia doing the usual Tiger thing, but that’s the general idea, and the crowd bursts into applause at 24:50.


The storm is succeeded by a quiet, spacey segment, with feedback and scritching, and Garcia working the volume knob. This turns out to be the last bit of it, as after a couple of minutes Garcia strikes up Half Step and the Dark Star is over.


From what I can glean from the recording, this is a major effort. I need to remind myself of all the recordings with which we have been blessed, but it’s tough when you can tell that something is really good but you can’t properly hear it. This is clearly a great one, but it's difficult to enjoy.


What was said:

146: 1972-10-18

132378 St. Louis 28:22

Main theme at 9:58.
First verse at 11:31.
Philo Stomp at 22:41.
Feelin’ Groovy at 25:22.
Goes into Morning Dew.


Nestled in the middle of an incredible Playing in the Band>Dark Star>Morning Dew>Playing in the Band sequence that anticipates the setlist shenanigans of the next couple of years, this also works quite well as a standalone. The tempo of these Dark Stars seems to be getting more deliberate as we get toward the end of 1972. In the initial phase, the band seems to set up an environment as much as anything; one can feel oneself entering a forested landscape or some such thing, if that’s not too fanciful. Garcia cries from the trees with some volume swells, while Godchaux releases rivulets that cascade down the jagged cliff face of Weir’s distorted chording, while Lesh prowls in the underbrush. OK, that is too fanciful! Sue me.


If the music is slow and encompassing, as the intensity increases the effect is massive. By the time we’re four minutes in, it feels like a lot has happened, even though they have not yet forsaken the basic Dark Star pattern. At 4:55 they start to slide down into a little gap, with Garcia playing Dark Star melodies to remind us of the overall concept. Godchaux is using an effect (or an electronic keyboard?) now, and they land on a minor chord at about 5:19, with Lesh seemingly leading the way. A groove bubbles forth, but it subsides by 5:45, where there’s a more pronounced hiatus.


This issues forth in some warblings that seem to portend space. These are drawn out so that, rather than a hiatus, this seems to be the next section of the jam—a meditative series of statements without an underlying groove, but with a cohesive feel nevertheless. All four string players are crafting beautiful melodies here, and this draws up into a kind of peak at about 8:45, then stretches and yawns, and then at 9:12 Lesh suggests the main theme.


There are no takers yet; instead, Garcia and Godchaux start rolling and trilling, almost like the end of a Sputnik; Weir joins with a tremolo, and Lesh succumbs as this reaches a crescendo at 9:21, subsides, crescendos again at 9:32, subsides again, and crescendos again at 9:47. As this last peak tails off, Phil again calls them back at 9:52, and they all slide into the main theme. This is rendered triumphantly, with the band kicking up behind Garcia’s elaborations. They bring it to a peak and let it come down again, keeping this powerful section fairly compact. Garcia is a bit off-pitch on the verse at times, but that doesn’t matter too much, does it? I hope not…


Coming off the verse, they hit the little turnaround and start to build on it, with Kreutzmann providing a forward-leaning beat. Garcia immediately kicks on the wah and start futzing around like he wants to go to a meltdown, but the rest of the band settles into a relaxed groove. Garcia complies by playing some melodic stuff, and they start to build a focused jam with more drawn out statements. Once this gets going, at about 15:25, Garcia starts to lean toward a meltdown again, and Weir seems eager to go along this time. But they aren’t falling back on any formulas, they’re taking their time and maintaining a groove.


Lesh starts double timing at 16:30, but rather than picking up things seem to be coming apart a little, which could portend a meltdown after all. They content themselves for now with a less harmonious jam that again builds in intensity, until at 18:15 Garcia starts a Tiger motif, but this does not last for very long, and he soon shifts to the kind of the kind of thing we’d get in the aftermath of a Tiger. It seems, then, that we’re heading somewhere else.


Even though there was never really a meltdown, the Dead are more or less in “We just played a meltdown” territory as we reach the 20 minute mark. One might expect them to come together for a more mundane jam at this point, then. This doesn’t seem to be happening, however, as Lesh starts booming out chords of doom at 20:50. He’s on his own by 21:10, aside from Weir who stays in for a little while longer, and Kreutzmann who is doing some rather minimal work.


Lesh rather dramatically takes a long breath, and then breaks into the first Philo Stomp at 22:41. Kreutzmann immediately picks it up, and they rock it out. I’ve sometimes wondered why the band doesn’t come together on this more, and this time they do provide some accompaniment, starting at around 23:53. Garcia gets some soulful licks in; by the time Godchaux pitches in at about 24:35, Weir seems to have given up.


Phil finally lets the riff go at 24:55, and they hover around for a bit. Not wanting to let it all just peter out, Lesh kicks up Feelin’ Groovy at 25:22, and the band all comes together again at last. They give it a rather subdued but pretty reading tonight, without trying to drive it over the top. The mood is light; their work on Dark Star is done, and everything feels very relaxed. This plays out by 28:05, and I think it’s Lesh who suggests Morning Dew.


This is part of a classic sequence, and it’s a classic Dark Star. The first section is a real tour de force, with the band weaving a polyphonic spell that nicely showcases the unique power of their playing in this era. The second half is restrained, with neither the meltdown nor the Feelin’ Groovy segment reaching for the kind of intensity that they sometimes achieve. Nevertheless, it’s a very satisfying and engaging piece of music, all in all.


What was said:

145. 1972-09-27

18106 NJ 30:11

Main theme at :07 and 23:51.
First verse at 24:12.
Goes into Cumberland Blues.


This one starts right off with the main theme; it begins at a deliberate pace, but moves with a confident and subtly swinging gait. It seems to gain momentum as it goes, and maybe even speeds up just a tad in the early minutes (I’m not sure of this). At 2:45 Garcia starts a rolling triplet figure which the band picks up on, and for a while they launch into moments of intensity and then pull back again, ebbing and flowing, but always moving ahead with a sense of determination.


At 4:20 Garcia plays a figure which Godchaux and Weir keep bouncing back to him, while Lesh does his own thing. The framework that has been established allows a lot of interplay and fosters a variety of ideas, while the overall feel remains much the same. Weir is particularly playful tonight, with little slashes and bursts of harmonics abounding. They hit something of a peak approaching and right after the 7 minute mark, culminating at around 7:20; there are hints of an approach to the theme, but they remain unconsummated. But this is very much a Dark Star jam in the sense that the underlying structure is never far from the surface.


At 8:00 Garcia plays a little roll, almost like Sputnik, that may signal a turn away from the main structure. They start to subside into spacier territory, and then at 9:28 Godchaux suggests something with a bouncy and jazzy feel; this is assented to, and a bubbling jam emerges. This dazzling jam is intense but light and mobile, with the instruments firing off toward all points of the compass. (After a couple of peaks, at 15:13 Garcia starts playing the descending melody I pointed out a couple of times recently; I thought maybe it came from another song, but now I think that this is where I remembered it from).


At 16:10 Jerry plays a high, soft melody that signals the end of the jam, and brings them into a minor key and a more meditative space. As they near the 18-minute mark it seems like either a space jam or a drum interlude is in the works. Kreutzmann drops out at 18:49, and they take it down to almost nothing, with Weir playing some pretty chordal stuff while Lesh plays a plodding melody, which Garcia augments with some volume swells. Weir drops out for a bit at 20:18, and the field is left to Garcia and Lesh; the latter hints at a Spanish Jam-type progression for a moment, and at 21:26 you can hear a switch, which I think is Garcia putting on the wah. This suggests that perhaps this will build to a meltdown, but there are no other indications of this as of yet.


This transitional jam extends for quite some time. It’s almost a space jam, but perhaps a little more melodic and structured than the usual space passage. In any case, it’s quite a beautiful segment. Finally, at 23:36 Garcia starts strumming the Dark Star chords to bring us to the theme, which takes us into the verse with little delay. The latter is sung slowly, seeming to derive its character from the quiet jam that immediately preceded it.


As they exit the verse section, Kreutzmann starts a popping backbeat that indicates a return to the lightly swinging mood established in the first jam tonight. This time it’s a little more heavy-footed and emphatic on the beat, but overall once again the feel is relatively light. They work on bringing the energy up without altering the feel, reaching a peak at around 28:30 or so. By 28:50 they’re coming down the other side, and the jam starts to fragment just a little, but they keep more or less the same thing going, until they reach a point where they are pretty clearly pedaling and Lesh finally starts Cumberland Blues.


This is a really fantastic piece of music. It maintains a kind of momentum throughout, and the band never seems like they’re foundering or trying to figure out what to reach for. This one feels a little whimsical at times; it’s not laying out any huge cosmic statements, but it is entirely engaging and satisfying nonetheless, and must be included in the pantheon of worthy Dark Stars.


What was said:

144. 1972-09-24

2202 Waterbury, CT 34:32 (33:25) (DS 28:28[27:51]>Drums 1:58>DS 4:06)

Main theme at 11:03.
First verse at 11:14.
Tiger at 21:55.
Goes into China Cat Sunflower.


There’s a lot of Weir and Lesh on this recording. Things get off to a bouncy start, with Lesh deviating from the primary pattern fairly quickly while Weir keeps it pumping along. At 2:01 Bob starts to digress a bit himself, throwing in little tremolo runs in between his triad splashes. This intro provides a good example of the band maintaining a groove while each individual plays idiosyncratic and offset lines that would make little sense on their own.


At 3:31 Garcia launches into a series of triplets that culminates at 3:58 with some squalling double stops, and the band pauses a little on the tail end of this. Jerry comes back with some low runs and by 4:55 they’re working toward another of the minor peaks that often occur in the early going. The playing here is somewhat reminiscent of 1969, insofar as there is a rapid succession of dynamic shifts. Lesh brings us into the modern era, though, with one of his repeating jazz licks beginning at 5:22; as is often the case, this comes and goes without too much commentary from his peers, although it all fits together.


At about 6:35 Godchaux briefly switches to the Rhodes, I think, unless he just open the wah-wah pedal he sometimes uses with the piano. In any case, shortly afterward he seems to be back on the regular piano. At 7:27 Garcia starts a windup which brings them to another minor peak at about 7:43, and then the music slides into a more ruminative zone. They start to rise again, but something subtly poignant has entered the jam at this point. At 8:30 there’s a lull, and the phrases come back a little longer and less emphatic until at 9:05 Garcia crests and initiates a line that gestures toward Bright Star, and as he descends and then ascends again the rest of the band drops down to a whisper and the tempo slows; at 10:50 Weir decides it’s time for the theme; Jerry takes it for a couple spins and goes right to the verse, which is softly deliberate this evening.


The second half starts with some heavy and distorted bass to which the others add color. At times it seems Garcia is trying to latch on, and Lesh is changing it up, so a coherent jam is deferred. At around 14:40 Kreutzmann starts to lay down a groove, but the rest of the band comes to a virtual halt. Godchaux and Lesh are signaling their willingness to groove by 15:20, but nothing is coming together. As we get to the 17th minute Garcia has engaged his wah effect, and probably has a meltdown jam in mind. Kreutzmann gets on the toms and gently but emphatically offers the groove again. Weir is scritching, Lesh is trying to groove, and Garcia is indicating a meltdown; Godchaux sides with the weirdos, and Kreutzmann recedes back to the cymbals.


By 18:45 this is starting to coalesce, there is a groove but it’s a pre-meltdown groove. But they seem a bit uncertain with it or, to be more charitable, they are taking their time in any case. And slowly but surely, it is coming together, but Weir drops out at 20:35 and this takes some of the wind out of it, so Jerry gets more Tigerish, since the groove seems to be scotched. When comes back at 20:51 he’s switched to the meltdown team, and this seems to add the needed impetus to move things in some direction. By 21:22 they seem to be driving toward a Tiger, but then they pull back rather suddenly. At 21:55 Garcia goes all in and starts his Tiger roll, and the band follows suit. This Tiger seems a little bit restrained, but it will have to serve.


At 23:45 Godchaux is pounding a repeated note; if they all latch on, this will lead them out of the meltdown, but it doesn’t happen that way, and he finally releases it and a more drawn out expression of the meltdown ethos ebbs into an interstice at 25:00 that Garcia soon fills with a melodic line. Lesh is game, and they duet a little on a mournful melody. By 26:05 the band has arrived at a pretty little jam, and they milk it a little before Garcia starts bending it out of shape and they all start weirding out again.

They’ve left the jam, and they don’t want to go to another meltdown, so they seem to be at a bit of an impasse; they deal with this by stopping, and Kreutzmann is left to fill the gap with a short drum break. This goes on for a couple of minutes until Lesh joins back in, followed in short order by Garcia, and then Godchaux and finally Weir. What we have here is a choppy little jam that gets bouncing along pretty well, with everyone on the same page. They threaten to color outside the lines a few times, but it holds together, with Garcia playing some frenetic runs; as we approach the four minute mark, it start to shift, and somehow they smoothly drop into China Cat Sunflower and the Dark Star is over.


This is a well-known rendition, and it’s far from bad, but it seems to me to lack direction at times in the back half. As always, there is plenty to love here, however. At times they seem to be holding the door open for inspiration, but this can be stated negatively as a reluctance to commit. Either way, it’s another rich and rewarding improvisation, and relative judgments aside, it’s worth spending 35 minutes on.


What was said: