7/31/71
This Dark Star is something special. The Stars we've seen so far in '71 wouldn't make any of the 1970 versions break a sweat - but this is the first '71 Star to pass 20 minutes, and it finds the band on a new level. (Either they did a lot of practicing since April, or they're much more confident.)
Until recently, the only recording known of this boisterous show was a decent but audience-heavy AUD, until an SBD miraculously surfaced for the Road Trips release, revealing new depths in the music. (The AUD tape used for a patch here, perhaps the master, sounds good enough to have been an excellent release on its own....) One thing the Road Trips omits is Playing in the Band - one of the early, heavier jam-free versions, which the audience claps all the way through. Surprisingly, the moment it ends, the Dead launch right into Dark Star.
Though it's been three months since they last played Dark Star live (and only five shows in the interval), it's clear right away they're getting to a new space. The playing sounds much more dense, even jazzy, the band diving into the depths of the music - in the first few minutes they flirt with several jam ideas without settling on anything. As they start the verse riff, Garcia changes his mind and they wander off again into a mini-space, the momentum suspended for a little side-trip into the void, where the music floats over a dark sea. (The audience loves this.) Lesh nudges the theme again as the music gets heavier, but Garcia is reluctant, and instead pushes the band into a remarkable, heavy little sheets-of-sound jam - finally singing the verse over 10 minutes into the song!
They're playing roughly, forcefully - the space is menacing, Lesh booming, drums rattling, Garcia doing volume swells and weird glassy chimes, the tension building up. The jam that ensues is more turbulent and raging than usual. Garcia marches out of this with a run of anticipatory notes, which in no time becomes a triumphant, soaring Feelin' Groovy that's like rockets bursting in the air. (It's worth checking out the AUD just to hear the audience shrieks here!) Garcia is so energized at this point he almost bursts into Bertha (!), but they manage to channel their focus into a new melodic jam that sounds like a new song being born. This slowly settles down into a Lesh-grounded pause, out of which Garcia starts the Dark Star theme again as the audience goes crazy. He sits out for a while as the others gently groove on the theme, and comes back for yet another jam, calmer this time, sounding more like a soothing Bird Song... Then the unbelievable happens - Garcia decides to screw the second verse, signals the others to stop, and they BLAST right into Bird Song instead!
As it happens, they're too revved-up for Bird Song to have that enchanting lullaby quality it had in the spring; but Garcia plays a mighty nice solo to end it. (And they still haven't finished the first set of the show!) There were two more Bird Songs this summer, on 8/5 (not on tape) and 8/23 (AUD only); they even rehearsed it with Godchaux, but it wasn't played live again til 7/18/72. (http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/03/dark-star-1971.html accessed 9/29/15)
― adam, Tuesday, 29 September 2015 15:23 (ten years ago)
1970-05-08. one of those recordings where the recording is as bad as the performance is good. (see also: roxy music, "if there is something", 1972-11-19 croydon)
― rushomancy, Tuesday, 29 September 2015 19:15 (ten years ago)
one month passes...
Man, when they hit that funk shuffle after the first verse, about thirteen minutes in, yowzah. Chicken skin.
― austinato (Austin), Sunday, 8 November 2015 03:46 (nine years ago)
two years pass...
five years pass...
eleven months pass...