181. 1979-01-10

113446 ** Nassau 18:24



Main theme at :07.
First verse at 9:09.
Goes into Drums.


Having revived Dark Star at Bill Graham’s request, they briefly kept it in the repertoire, playing it again 10 days later, then once in 1981 and another time in 1984, before finally bringing it back in the fall of 1989. They again go right into the main theme out of the intro riff, and they hammer away at the two chord pattern for a while—the beginning of Dark Star has become a more predictable groove now rather than the launching pad it once was. Garcia’s playing is starting to evidence the flurrying style that will become more prevalent—perhaps too much so—in the latter part of the year. Godchaux is much less discursive then he once was; since his playing is not quite as rote here as it was on the New Year’s version, however, the chord framework is a bit less foursquare this time. In short, the early innings see them getting into a somewhat looser groove this time, although they’re still pretty close to home.


By the five-minute mark the potential for things to get interesting is manifested. Two factors seem to keep them earthbound, however—the relentless two-drummer groove, and the relative quiescence of Lesh, who is quite low in the mix here, and seems to be playing almost like a bass player in any case. Nevertheless, Weir is throwing up some tense chords, and Jerry’s busy guitar work is never without interest. By the time we’re seven minutes deep Dark Star has evolved into a hefty and propulsive jam, compensating with forward momentum for a lack of real surprises. By 8:30, however, Jerry is broadly hinting at the theme, and it seems like we’ve traveled as far from home as we’re likely to get before the verse hits.


Once again, Garcia doesn’t actually state the theme again before singing, but we’ve never left it very far behind. Might I say that I kind of like Donna’s harmonies on the refrain? I have a feeling I’ll be in the minority on this. On the other hand, it does seem to contribute to the more “normal” feel of the whole thing in this era of the band. For whatever reason, they bring back the usual post-verse lick—maybe they discussed it after New Year’s Eve—and they crank right on into a jam that isn’t too far from where they left off.


As they go on, they allow themselves to get away from the two-chordedness of it all; they hit a remarkable peak starting at around 13:00, with Garcia blasting a tremolo and then crashing them back into the chord pattern for a bit. The drummers keep plugging away—we’ve sacrificed exploration for power. At around 14:40 the jam settles down and becomes more diffuse, and we’ve entered what will become a familiar space for the rest of their career—a liminal place between a full-blown improvisation and a drum break, with the band adding what feel like addenda to the main body of the piece, with one foot out the door.


At 15:45 Garcia gets into one of post-Sputnik rolling figures we sometimes encounter, and he stretches it out for a couple of minutes. Weir mirrors him, but Lesh is at this point inaudible, although at a few points he pops back in—I get a sense that he’s been playing a bit, but that he’s not coming through the amps, because his line is very quiet in those few spots where I can detect it. The unravelling of this pseudo-Sputnik section takes us all the way to the drum break.


There’s nowhere near enough Phil, and the drummers keep the beat nailed down in a way that’s somewhat stifling. On the other hand, we get the late-70s Dead pursuing an extended instrumental segment in a pretty satisfying way—it’s good music, man! I suppose I’m trying to say that it’s not a peak-era Dark Star, but it’s not half bad.




**Note that I've moved to Relisten. I hope this is temporary, but the Internet Archive is currently unusable, as they've removed the timer bar. For previous versions, the timings on Relisten should be the same.




What was said:

180. 1978-12-31

139554 Winterland 12:26 (1. Dark Star 11:21; 2. Dark Star Jam 1:05)

Main theme at :00
First verse at 6:48.
Verse melody at 2. :23.

Goes into Other One, then Wharf Rat.


Four years have gone by; apparently it was at the request of Bill Graham that they dusted off Dark Star for this New Year’s show after not playing it in their previous post-hiatus shows. The intro sets a quick and bouncy pace. They start with the theme, which Keith keeps tinkling away in the background. Garcia lights into some fine cascades, and Keith joins him for a bit approaching the minute mark, but the band is still cranking out the two-chord pattern.


At 1:56 Garcia plays some beautiful variations on the verse melody. It’s not an inauspicious beginning, and Garcia is outstanding, yet one wonders if they still have the wherewithal to break out of the basic theme pattern and move into some more adventurous territory, which may prove more difficult with a second drummer back in the fold. Lesh plays some intriguing little runs to mirror Garcia, for instance at 4:40. At about 5:00 Jerry’s tone rounds off into a hornlike sound; in later years, he’d have switched on the MIDI here. The band gathers intensity; at 6:00 they are peaking, and Garcia is playing something very like Bright Star; they take it back down into the theme pattern here, and move right to the verse, complete with harmonies from Donna Jean on “Shall we go…”


They play the beginning theme after the verse, and go right back to a two-chord jam. Again, most of the focus is on Jerry. At 9:30 Phil pushes them away from the chord pattern a bit, but they don’t stray very far. At 10:10 Garcia initiates a Sputnik-like pattern that seems to herald a change; the thing could really take off here, were they not almost out of it. But it doesn’t end as quickly as the tracking indicates—they’re still in no man’s land at :20 of Other One when Lesh starts pushing toward the latter-named song, and the transition is still fairly gradual until 1:20, when there can no longer be any doubt. Similarly, there is no definite return to Dark Star where it is tracked to be; at 2. :23 Jerry plays the verse melody a few times before heading into Wharf Rat.


This cannot be said to be a particularly adventurous version, and in a way it feels even shorter than it is. It wouldn’t be fair to call it perfunctory, however; it must have been wonderful to hear Garcia spinning out his lines with confidence and power, and for what it is, this is fine and dandy.


What was said:

179. 1974-10-18

110771 Winterland Jam 11:47>Dark Star 23:51

Main theme at 5:42 and 7:21.
First verse at 7:45.
Goes into Morning Dew.


This is the final version from the golden age of Dark Star, played during the legendary run at Winterland which served as a tentative farewell for the band as they were going on indefinite hiatus, perhaps never to return (as it turned out, they played their next show five months later, although they were mostly inactive as a live unit until June, 1976). Lesh and Ned Lagin start this segment of the show with a 26-minute run through Seastones, a regular feature of late 1974 Dead shows which is quite variable in quality, but which generally deserves far more attention than many Deadheads seem to be willing to give it. I recommend starting with this track, particularly since Garcia and Weir pitch in well before the break, so the developmental arc of the improvisation that will become Dark Star begins here.


This is all rather spacey stuff, as one might expect. The track titled “Jam” begins as Kreutzmann enters with some cymbal work, and then some flourishes on the skins; everyone besides Godchaux is soon in evidence. They shift into a tentative funky bit after about a minute, with Lesh playing more recognizable bass sounds now. Kreutzmann works it hard, but mostly only Phil is coming along at first. Soon it’s pared down to just the drums, but not for long…the rest can’t decide whether they’re in or out at first, until about 3:45 when Garcia and at last (I think) Godchaux start to get something going.


This is a loose and ropy jam, but we trust that it’s headed somewhere. Weir is more hesitant than usual, darting into the spaces between the other guitar and the keyboards and fading out again; he vacillates a bit between getting something funky going and answering Garcia’s line. Slowly but surely, though, it’s congealing, with almost imperceptibly gathering momentum, into a groove. By about 7:30 this diffracts into something more melodic and again more tentative, at least at first, but also somehow more interesting—the Dead are cooking something up, now.


At 9:20 Jerry starts working a melodic idea that starts to sound convincing, but they’re still in no hurry to pull it together. They keep bouncing off one another at odd angles, which is not without its appeal, interspersed with moments of concord. At 11:30 Garcia’s line takes on a Dark Star-like cadence, and the track switches, somewhat arbitrarily. By :50 into the next track Weir is suggesting the theme, Kreutzmann drops into a familiar swing, and by 1:20 this is somehow recognizably Dark Star; although they still haven’t passed the point of no return, the tracking seems justified now, anyway.


Listen to Jerry’s slide at 3:32, which he repeats several times. He doesn’t play the theme, but he doesn’t have to—that’s what he’s alluding to now, and everyone knows it: we can now infer with a fair degree of confidence that the whole band is now consciously playing Dark Star (if such a thing matters). There’s a beautifully lazy peak that begins at 5:12 when Jerry climbs to the G and hangs us up there until we’re ready for the glorious ascent to A, the expected and familiar gift of the tonic lifting us finally into unequivocal Dark Star consciousness, a resounding “yes” whose echoes tumble us down joyously toward the theme, as if we are being rewarded for the past 42 minutes with a reminder that the return home is often the most transcendent stage of a journey. The point is punctuated and then hammered home; first there is a repeated walk-up to the tonic, followed by a more emphatic return to the theme at 7:21.


They come out of the verse in much the same mood, sliding directly back into a mellow but focused Dark Star jam. Weir is particularly assertive here, at times surmounting Jerry’s line, still equivocating between a second lead and soul guitar flourishes. The band is very soon in full flight, and for the first time in what seems like forever in the post-verse section there are no gestures toward a space jam or a meltdown. Lagin and Godchaux are both very active now, without crowding the soundstage; they buoy up an ebullient Garcia, who at 11:53 starts crashing into an A power chord to punctuate his line, 1969-style. They come over the top and float down into a glimmering keyboard bed; there are hints of a shift toward a minor tonality, and the jam begins to disperse a bit, relaxing into an almost post-coital atmosphere of satisfaction.


At 15:10 we’ve crossed into a new territory, a gorgeously unhurried minor-key jam. Lagin has receded quite a bit again; Godchaux, Weir and even Lesh lay down a springy base; at first Garcia softly bounces on it like a mattress before subsiding at 16:50. Now Weir is in the lead, and Keith and Phil are getting funkier. Jerry sees something there he can work with, and he comes back with some support. Syncopated sounds are popping up everywhere, and Garcia eases his way back into the lead. Lagin comes back into the picture now with an uncharacteristically loud and basic emphasis that underlines what’s already there.


At 20:00 it sounds like it’s starting to disperse a little, and they let it start slipping away, with a few last flares as Lesh briefly takes the reins. Now at 21:30 the jam has reached a point of exhaustion; it simmers on, like water on a burner that has just been switched off. At 22:18 Jerry initiates a tentative meltdown, but we’re still going off the boil; Jerry fritters around and then gently crashes into Morning Dew.


There is a temptation to emphasize extra-musical considerations here—a kind of victory lap for the band; a farewell to the audience, and/or to Dark Star; a bittersweet finale to a glorious era of music, etc. However tempting it may be to try to ignore all this in favor of a more “pure” consideration of the music, it nevertheless seems undeniable that there is a kind of valedictory mood communicated by the music, regardless of the occasion, although I can’t deny that extrinsic factors may be influencing my judgment. It is simply staggering to consider what the Dead achieved between 1968 and 1974 with Dark Star alone, and this is by any measure a worthy addition to the canon. The arc of this sequence is best considered when we begin with Seastones, since the band gets most of the weirdness out of its system before Dark Star even begins. In another sense, the arc that begins in 1968 seems to provide the appropriate vantage; the focused and melodic jamming of this Dark Star signs us off with a sense of justice and completion. Of course, this doesn’t mean that we will ever be satisfied; fortunately, there is more to come.


What was said:

178. 1974-09-10

135699 London 31:18

Bright Star at 20:15.
First verse at 22:29.
Goes into Morning Dew.


The intro riff takes us into a deliberately paced jam with Lesh very high in the mix. Everything is otherwise very balanced and clear. Weir plays a rolling triplet figure at 1:24 that I feel sure we’ve heard numerous times before, although I don’t know if we’ve ever discussed it. He uses this as a template and builds out from there, subtly pushing the jam along. Godchaux adds color on the Rhodes.


The jam gathers steam, moving along cohesively, with Garcia picking up the triplet theme. This gives the music a surging feel, with several small peaks occurring in the first five minutes. At around 5:20 they start to get restless though, and the edges start to fray. Lesh is hunting around for a lick, playing something sort of Footprints-like several times, but at a very slow pace. They seem to be hovering, waiting for a new direction. Garcia spins off some frenetic runs, and at 6:55 Lesh starts the Elastic Ping Pong lick, but he doesn’t stick with it.


Garcia launches into some high triplets at 6:13 and Lesh and Godchaux find something to work with here as the jam ascends to a new plateau. Phil brings the Elastic Ping Pong back at 8:42, which they take in stride—they seem disinclined to build a whole jam segment around this now. The jam gets kind of weird instead, with Phil edging them into adjacent tonalities. Various modular possibilities are hinted at, but they opt to keep it free. They are creeping toward more conventional territory, though, and at about 11:10 Lesh and Godchaux have converged on a basic groove in A.


At 12:14 Lesh slips in the King Solomon’s Marbles lick a few times. Godchaux has been building a head of steam, and at 12:50 he takes flight; he’s mostly grooving along, but he starts elaborating his part with some healthy flourishes. The jam has taken on a fusion flavor. It all seems to wind down at 14:45, and there’s an interlude with a minor cast to it, with Lesh pushing them in sort of a Spanish Jam direction before leaving the scene for a bit.


Kreutzmann subsides, and Lesh bows out again. At 16:35 we’re down to a duet between Jerry and Keith. Lesh and Weir come back pretty soon with some subtle additions, but Kreutzmann stays out until 17:30. There’s a melodic minor sort of Spanish Jam theme continuing throughout, although at a very relaxed pace. Kreutzmann gets a little backbeat going, with a similar feel to Death Don’t Have no Mercy. Keith duly brings in some ghostly organ tones, and it’s turning into a really beautiful jam, but at 19:20 Garcia declares that it’s all over and leads them back toward the Dark Star theme.


They pivot very smoothly, bringing the energy up and edging back into Dark Star territory, and as the jam swells Garcia breaks into Bright Star at 20:15. They take their time getting to the verse, though; Bright Star aside, it seems like it’s been awhile since we’ve had this kind of Dark Star jam. They draw it out, and eventually Garcia sings the verse without ever explicitly stating the Dark Star theme.

They enter what at first seems like a place of swirling indecision after the post-verse lick. Garcia sets the agenda with his rolling wah-wah line, and they let it build into the next thing. Garcia, Weir and Godchaux play triplets, and Jerry nudges them toward a meltdown. The band gains focus and cohesion on the way there, hitting a thunderous peak at 27:30; as soon as they hit it, Godchaux drops in a funky riff, endorsed by Lesh and Kreutzmann. Jerry is emitting otherworldly sounds, and Weir is of a similar mind. The band, then, is half grooving and half melting, until at 28:33 both camps suddenly subside. A space jam ensues. Godchaux still seems inclined to groove, but now everyone else has decided to melt. They hang around like this for a couple of minutes until Garcia starts Morning Dew, which (spoiler alert) will be the best one of the year.


This is a tremendous Dark Star.


What was said:

177. 1974-07-25

12656 24:00 (1. Dark Star 20:57; 2. Slipknot Jam 3:03)

Goes into Stella Blue.


This rendition feels a tad slower than other recent ones at the outset, although these things should of course be scientifically measured. Garcia is doing some outrageously great things in the first couple of minutes; otherwise, it feels like a holding pattern at first. Lesh is very active and assertive in the higher registers of his bass, which generates a little excitement. Overall the first five minutes of jamming has lots of pleasurable twists and turns, although it doesn’t have a lot of direction yet.


At about 4:50 the band threatens to break into a groove, with Lesh pumping an ostinato line, but then he drops out and things get more dispersed. At 5:40 Kreutzmann seems to be bucking for a drum solo, and everyone plays as if they’re just tossing in a few more ideas before subsiding. Lesh returns at some point between 6:00 and 7:00, but only to throw in a few scattered comments. At around 7:20 Garcia has thoughts about instigating a frenetic jam, and as Lesh cooperates this comes together for a little while. But Phil doesn’t really commit and it gets scattered again.


At 8:25 Garcia and Weir have a Sputnik-like idea, and they let this play out for a little while. Lesh is mostly absent again. At 9:23 Weir starts playing Let it Grow, or something very like it. This brings some cohesion, except that Lesh wants no part of it. By 10:45 they seem to have no ideas left, and the jam is sputtering to a halt. Lesh is nowhere to be found. At 11:12 it’s down to Godchaux and Kreutzmann.


Weir gamely starts comping at 11:29, but he can’t really get it going and he drops out again. Garcia and Lesh remain absent. At 12:05 Lesh tries to pick up on what Keith is doing. Weir invents a little descending part, and Garcia adds some chiming chops. It seems to be getting somewhere now, a kind of fusion jam that doesn’t quite take off but isn’t half bad either. By 14:15 it seems to have run it’s course, but they’re all still working together, and now a frenetic jam is layered over Kreutzmann’s heavy beat.


This runs down at 16:25, and Lesh lays out again. Jerry is tremolo picking, perhaps hinting at a Tiger although his tone is as yet relatively clean. At 17:45 Keith wants to get funky, and there is a desultory attempt to oblige him by the others (save Lesh, who seems to have left the building) but this doesn’t really take off, and we are left with a kind of aimless chaos. Garcia kicks on the wah pedal, perhaps thinking a meltdown can pull this one out of the fire. It seems like it’s about to get there, but the energy drops again, and at 2. :15 Jerry starts playing Slipknot! licks. This pulls them together a bit (just a bit), but there’s still no bass and no real center of gravity.


As always there are interesting moments, but overall this one is a mess. It’s too scattered to ever really hit, and it has to be regarded as one of the lesser versions of the era.


What was said:

SUPPLEMENTAL: 1974-06-28 (JAM)

139780 Boston ~31:07 (Weather Report Suite 47:02, from about 16:05 on; Dark Star-like segment begins at 26:00).


Mind Left Body jam at 20:40.
Dark Star chords at 26:00.
Tiger at 37:58 and 40:43.

Goes into US Blues.


A raging version of Let it Grow blazes along until about 16:05, when they switch gears and settle in for a long jam. Garcia and Weir start winding around each other, with Weir playing the kind of duelist role usually occupied by Lesh. The latter chimes in a bit at first, with everyone else laying out. Phil eventually drops out as well, and from 18:30 it becomes a lovely guitar duet. Jerry kicks on the wah at 19:15, and Bob accompanies him with chords, harmonics and arpeggios. Beautiful washes of melody roll across the hall—it’s a thrilling segment.


At 20:40 or so the guitarists start to slide into the Mind Left Body chord sequence. Kreutzmann strikes up the beat, but it otherwise stays a Weir and Garcia production until Lesh and Godchaux start to slide back in at around 22:35. Lesh is playing very softly at first. If you listen very closely, you can hear a small hiccup at 23:08 when he briefly takes it to the E chord, but the others aren’t ready for that yet. I’m not sure if they ever count this part, or how they keep track, but it doesn’t always line up! They somehow all agree on the E at 24:00 and the jam gets more insistent, with Lesh at last fully present again.


They ease back on the throttle again, leaning into it each time they reach the E. MLB starts to get less defined, and at 26:00 the Dark Star framework starts to poke through a little, but then it starts to disperse--even though they don’t keep the A/E minor change going long, now we’re in a place that could be part of the intro section of a Dark Star. By 29:30 this all starts to scatter, and one of the very loose jams that we’re now used to starts to spread itself out. A very loose exploration of minor chords leads to a repeating two-chord pattern in 6/8 by 30:15, and the band pulls together again.


At 31:18 Garcia takes off! and now everybody takes off. This segment is somewhat reminiscent of some of the jamming they did during Clementine circa 1968, only with a more forward beat. The band is playing with an intense focus, and this becomes an extended peak with Garcia leaning on the wah pedal. From around 34:00 Jerry’s it seems to me there are some oblique hints at Dark Star in Garcia’s lead, although these might be vague enough to be anything. It’s not so much that he plays a Dark Star melody as he seems to be winding up for something, and if this were a Dark Star it might be the main theme.


By 36:45 or so, however, we seem to be heading toward a meltdown instead, with Garcia’s wah effect becoming more pronounced amid Tiger-like expostulations. I pinpointed a Tiger at 37:58, which is somewhat arbitrary because Garcia actually pulls back a bit at this point; call it a quasi-Tiger if you must. The immediate sequel is weirdness, as for the second this remarkably focused jam scatters out and gets multi-directional. They veer back toward Tiger again, and this time they fully commit. Godchaux starts to play some very funky Rhodes to bring them back, and a fast and bubbly fusion jam starts percolating through the hall.


Who decides that they are now playing US Blues? Probably Lesh; in any case, it happens rather suddenly at 43:35, and no one is slow on the uptake, which makes the instigator difficult to identify for certain. They draw it out for a good 3:35 but eventually Garcia starts singing, and we are back in the realm of somewhat, relatively, more or less normal rock and roll, or whatever you want to call that other thing the Dead do.




Although this is probably not really a Dark Star—no main theme, no verse—it is, if anything, more Dark Star than Dark Star. Accordingly, I've written up the entire thing rather than zeroing in on the brief section with Dark Star chords. I haven’t given this its own number, but if anything is in the spirit of this project, this surely is. This is not just one of the high points of 1974—it’s one of the high points of Grateful Dead music, which is to say it’s one of the high points of human life on earth. If you don’t dig this—well, I was about to say that the Dead aren’t for you, but what I really want to say is, listen to it as many times as it takes until you do.




What was said:

176. 1974-06-23

122269 Miami 22:04 (1. Dark Star 17:21, 2. Spanish Jam 4:43)

Spanish jam at 2. :31.
Goes into US Blues.


This counts as a Dark Star, I say, particularly as it starts with the intro riff, although there’s no verse. The band sounds quite focused at the outset compared to some recent versions. Weir has gone harmonic crazy, and this works well here, providing a springy bed for Garcia and Godchaux (on Rhodes). Lesh drops in and out, and he gives us a particularly long break from about 1:25 to 2:13. The playing is still somewhat diffuse, as we often see in this era, but at the same time it has momentum and drive, although this can vary from minute to minute.


Between 3:00 and 5:00 the groove dawns falsely a few times before a mostly Garcia/Godchaux interlude spins us out into rather uncertain territory. Lesh seems disinclined to establish a groove, inserting sporadic commentary instead; Weir tries to get one going once or twice, but soon subsides. The music has become quite scattered as we pass into the seventh minute, but now Kreutzmann seems determined to get something going. At first there isn’t a concerted response, but at 6:23 Garcia gets a lightly prancing Latin thing going, and it comes together a little. This doesn’t last, though, and Bill moves on to something else.


The eight minute brings spacier thoughts of impending doom, and this seems to fire them up a bit; at about 8:10 Jerry decides this is going in the direction of a meltdown, and this gives them a sense of direction. There’s a crazily askew groove brewing now, but it peters out by 9:15 without ever having culminated in a meltdown or a groove…then suddenly, from around 9:30, it’s coming to a peak…not exactly a Tiger, but some kind of cataclysm. This calms down into flat-out weirdness, and again there are nascent grooves bubbling under, mostly instigated by the indefatigable Weir. Also again, none really catch on.


Between 11:00 and 12:00 there is a further unraveling; Garcia plays some chirpy stuff, then gets into one of his Sputnik-adjacent outpourings. Again, Lesh is in and out, contributing but staying on the sidelines, at times laying out. Some kind of crazy groove emerges, mostly driven by Jerry and Keith, and at 12:48 it’s ratified by Phil, and now things are popping off. Garcia is again threatening to take us to the Tiger. But Phil is not a driver of grooves tonight, even if he is participating; his role is more (than usual) that of another lead player.


This makes it more striking at 14:45 when he lays down a brooding undercurrent and then at 15:10 finally bursts into some funky riffing. Now the band really takes off! They hammer on it, regroup at 16:10, and then hammer some more. By 16:30 Garcia has some power chords going, then some chiming double stops higher up the neck, culminating in pellucid high tremolo bursts, and then at 17:08 there’s an allusion to Dark Star before they come down into a brief interlude that makes room for a soaring Spanish jam, kicked off by Garcia this time with a heavy minor chord.


If you listen to Phil’s musical declamations at 3:45, you may become enlightened. His playing is viciously heavy as at 4:19 he smashes out some power chords and Keith pedals along until at 4:30 a shuffle beat announces the next jam, an extended intro to US Blues that is now justly famous.


Those of us who have been a bit disgruntled by the more abstract and wandering nature of Dark Star jams lately will doubtless not be entirely convinced by this performance, but once again I cannot but endorse it. This is mostly very free jamming, and grooves are largely (but not entirely) shunned. But, as the Rolling Stones say, I like it. It should also be noted that this whole sequence must be considered, as there is an arc here from somewhat chaotic improvisation to the focused blast of Spanish jam and the driving US Blues intro section. Verdict: essential.


What was said:

175. 1974-05-14

163764 Missoula 26:40

Main theme at :00 and 12:14.
First verse at 12:56.
Tiger at 19:45.
Goes into China Doll.


A vigorous Let it Grow jam drops into a brief interstice and then they kick Dark Star off with the main theme, eschewing the opening riff. The jamming, typically for the era, is rather loose and multidirectional. Godchaux has a wah effect on the electric piano at times. At 3:05 everyone but Kreutzmann, Garcia and Weir drops out; this goes on until about the five minute mark, when Lesh and Godchaux come back.


At about the six minute mark, Kreutzmann drops back to the cymbals and the jamming gets more tentative and spacey, with Phil laying out again. The latter comes back at 6:45, and Jerry starts a Sputnik-like roll at 6:55. He stays with it, and at some point we lose Phil again. There’s a pretty long bassless jam up until 9:30. The ministrations of Weir and Godchaux on each side of the mix give this a kind of fusion feel.


Even with Phil back, the jam stays kind of diffuse; at 11:00 it starts to get heavier and at the same time spacier, but this quickly gives way to a kind of pointillist interlude until at 11:38 Jerry seems to be edging toward the theme and they pull together. The theme duly arrives about 45 seconds later, and Lesh leans into it, giving it a ponderous feel. They don’t linger over it, though, going right to the verse.


The exit from the verse is very heavy at first with loud, overdriven bass. Garcia jumps right in with some slightly distorted lead that sounds a bit different from his usual approach in this segment, and in general things take a somewhat different direction. It’s a kind of space jam with everyone playing drawn out notes, generating a dramatic, atonal, and somewhat anxious soundscape.


This shifts into a mellow variant on the Tiger by around 19:40, but by ten seconds later it is full-blown and vicious. They come down the other side, landing on a funky beat as Lesh comes out front. Jerry supplies some piercing leads as it becomes clear they’re committed, and as they come together they generate some excitement down the back stretch, getting extra weird and then coming to a rousing peak prior to the slide into China Doll.


This might be as scattered and diffuse as Dark Star gets, but it never fails to be gripping. The last few minutes are particularly stunning, and overall this is a great stretch of music.


What was said:

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: