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Series 10
7/21/72
Paramount Northwest Theatre - Seattle, WA
Much as I like the Grateful
Dead, sometimes it seems I've heard enough for the time being. Have
I heard enough?, I wonder. Have I maxed out? Have I heard all I
really want to hear, and the rest -- though very good -- will only
feel like more of the same?
Then comes 7-21-72, and I
realize the answer is a hearty "No!" -- I just needed to
put my head back in 1972! This month is easy to overlook --
overshadowed by the European tour that preceded it, and the inspired
August shows to follow.
First up is a typical 1972
"Sugaree", and the boys already appear inspired -- notice
Keith's well-mixed piano on the right, opposite Bobby's interverse
guitar fills on the left. Billy's crackling in the middle. Perhaps
these are the real secrets to this show: Billy blam-blamming at the
heart of things. Bear's superb mix. Everyone's new songs:
"Black-Throated Wind" takes mighty flight, and they halt
for the usual equipment malfunction (as Bobby informs us). Got that
fixed, and VOOM! -- they're off again, soaring strong. Such
confidence!
Every track is looking like
a keeper: "Bobby McGee" showcases Keith's sensitive side;
he almost steals the song. Not that Garcia's napping, just still
warming up. "Loser" and "Mexicali" find him
getting there, though, so "China Cat" follows. Jerry's
guitar alternately spits out the riff & cries out the solos; the
jam he leaves to Bobby and Keith, waiting till the "Rider"
groove settles in to inject his own melodies. If anything peculiar
to this evening is to be inferred, this seems a likely place to
infer it (just as at Veneta, a month later). Jerry's
"headlight" line gets nice punctuation from Billy and
Keith, though Phil's bass seems lost in the mix. The audience isn't
lost, though -- we hear them quite clearly at the song's conclusion.
Bobby announces Pigpen's
illness, and the band then mangles the intro to "Beat it on
Down the Line" like the bunch of pikers they are. No matter;
Bobby starts singing, and they all jump in; those unfamiliar with
the song might not even have noticed. Keith jazzes up the second
chorus with an eyebrow-raising piano sweep; it's handy to have a
rock-and-roll song in C once in a while, right, Keith? :-)
Confidence clearly
established, Jerry tackles their newest entry, "Stella
Blue" -- beautifully sung and played. Bobby then introduces the
newest member of their family, Donna Jean, and you know
"Playing in the Band" is next: neither too long nor too
short, deep waters are thoughtfully tread. Donna, of course, howls
for all she's worth, and one is left to wonder what anyone in
attendance thought of that. Jerry follows this amazing musical
journey through the group subconscious with "Casey Jones",
of course, and .... OK, I lied: it's "Tennessee Jed," a
strange follow-up to such a jam-a-rific PITB. Turns out it's quite
fun, as the band plays it with great enthusiasm. A broken string
[according to Bobby] ends the set [& consequently the first
disc].
Disc two, buckle your shoe;
what should we expect from summer '72?
First up, the "Casey
Jones" that didn't end the first set. It starts with some murky
Phil throbs, then memorably begins just as someone (in the
audience?) lets out a glorious shriek of freakdom. Most notable for
Keith's wonderfully upfront piano, it is followed by a quiet
interlude that defies description, or purpose: think of the
mysterious chords that begin "Stella Blue", or the intro
riff to the WRS Prelude. Very short, but tantalizing, as if it was
something not seriously intended. Then Bobby guffaws to the
microphone (as if caught daydreaming), describes the next song as
"history", and strums up "Me and My Uncle" --
complete with "cracked him in the jaw" lyric.
"Deal" is next,
perhaps most notable for Billy's cymbals (especially at the end of
the last verse). "Jack Straw" likewise shows Billy pulling
more than his weight, and Keith backs up the vocal nicely. Jerry
puts a little more spirit into his "Tulsa" line than we
usually hear. "He's Gone" follows, still played at 1972
mid-tempo, and Donna's back to harmonize. It's fine until the
bridge, where rough harmonies make for a small cringe factor. Ah
well; things are better during the "Nothing's gonna bring him
back" harmonies, and they pull a nice onstage fadeout (despite
DEADBASE's claim of a segue).
After some cryptical
comments from Mr. Weir, we're finally ready to jam: Donna leaves,
and "Truckin" takes wing. Too bad Phil's bass is so low in
the mix [perhaps his stage volume was unusually loud?] but at least
it can be heard here. Ten minutes of bluesy swing, but nothing
really stands out till after the vocal reprise; then the band
downshifts into something like the fantastic jam heard on EUROPE 72,
but only for a minute; this proves to be just a transition into a
solo spot for Billy, which he attacks with unusual energy. Hey Bill,
I though you didn't care for this sort of thing? Phil soon joins in;
though barely audible as mentioned above, it's clearly the same riff
better heard on other dates (10-24-72 comes to mind).
A few minutes of this, and
the mood turns serious again; the rest of the band rejoins to spear
into "Other One" ruminations. No roll [at least, none
heard], no pronouncement; they just ease into it as if it had
already been started some time earlier. Which possibly they had, in
some nonmusical sense; "The Other One" isn't so much a
song as a perspective, so it might well have started off stage, or
in the minds of the other musicians while Phil & Bill stomped
their groove. It might have started when some guy in the audience
remembered he had a phone number written on a piece of paper in his
pocket and, attempting to pull it out, he dropped it; bending to
pick it up, he bumped the girl dancing in front of him, causing her
to move in a lightly jerky way, which was noticed out of the corner
of Parish's eye, causing him to turn away from Phil's stomp just as
Phil looked over to see if Steve caught that last cool lick.
Synchronicity, serendipity, and all clear chance; if a mosquito may
cause an army to fall, and a drop of water may build an empire, what
slight event might bring into being a long sublime jam at a 1972
Grateful Dead concert? It's another eleven minutes before Bobby
sings the first verse; you'll have to fill in the gap with your own
ears.
Immediately after that
verse, the band returns to the groove, making the lyrics seem almost
superfluous, but soon drops that U-turn to ditch their vehicles
entirely. Lost is all rhythm, melody, groove; it's the jungle, and
we shouldn't be surprised if we encounter a tiger. Very tense. Yikes
-- there it is! No, it's gone. Help!
Not surprisingly, this
leads to some near-"Dark Star" jamming which manages to
morph back to the "Other One" riff. They seem a little
uncertain which song to go with for a few minutes but, once decided,
they're firmly back on the road to the second verse, during which
Bill sounds like two drummers trading ideas. The second verse starts
dragging tempo, suggesting they were truly done with this space, and
it ends with finality.
Not so much a segue as just
picking up from the ashes, Jerry strums the opening chords for
"Comes a Time". As always, Jerry's singing is the key, but
Bill ranges from gentle to firm behind him, and Keith is nicely
restrained.
After that, we move on to
disc three, where Bob surprises everyone in the audience who had
never before heard the band (three Carmelite nuns and a Russian
interpreter) by pulling out "Sugar Magnolia", instantly
followed by "Ramble On" -- a good rendition
instrumentally. Not so good are Phil's harmonies on the chorus --
;-) But they're no worse than [ahem!] anyone else's, I suppose, so
there ya go ....
We fade in on a storming
"Going Down the Road" already in progress, about a minute
before the second verse begins, so this is clearly
"unusable" for professional release. Which is why it's so
great they include it here: the band is on overdrive, with Keith
prancing out piano flurries and Donna wailing to wake the, um, Dead.
This eventually downshifts to an introspective moment practically
interrupted by Bill's resumption of the NFA beat which surely
preceded all this. They bring it up again and Bobby howls his last.
Too bad most of this NFA>GDTRFB>NFA encore wasn't recorded!
** bonus material from
7/22 **
Phil is thankfully more
audible here than the 21st. A fine "You Win again" starts
us off, then it's "Bird Song", celebrating it's return to
rotation just four days earlier. This, of course, is mere public
service on the part of the Vaultmaster; every 1972 "Bird
Song" should be available, even if the show in which it is
embedded isn't necessarily deserving of release. I don't know about
you, but I listened to this track three times running before I went
on to the rest!
The rest then turns out to
include another public service: a 1972 "Playing in the
Band" -- arguably even more important than "Bird
Song", being of similar pedigree but never lost from rotation.
Bobby first introduces Donna Jean, and then invites the audience to
attempt what can only be described as a humorous yoga position. The
formalities being complete, the band launches into PITB, soon to be
lost in an intense exploration of the musical landscape. Hell, this
is more like four-wheeling over unknown terrain at full speed --
dust flying, wheels spinning dirt, the roar of the engine determined
to conquer a fiercely challenging grade.
Could it get better than
that? :-) Possibly yes, if you enjoy stand-alone renditions of
"Morning Dew", which announces itself as thunderously as
ever, and features a very busy Bill Kreutzmann. Especially enjoyable
are Phil's flights up the fret board behind the verses as Keith
splashes and tinkles in the background. Oh, does that not sound
interesting? All right then: how about some judicious Phil
power-chords, alternately pushing the sound, then holding back to
slam down again? This is Phil's moment all the way, with Jerry
alternately crooning and crying out in front. Evidently Led Zeppelin
weren't the only band that could use this effect to wring an
audience dry; this Dew speaks with authority from the first note,
whether a whisper or a growl. The end buildup is no anticlimax
either, but absolutely fulfills the promise implied by the
performance as a whole.
Wow! Put this one up with
the May '77 Dews in my book.
After that, anything is
likely to be anticlimactic, yet two tracks remain: "Uncle
John's Band" and "Saturday Night". UJB suffers the
usual harmony challenges, but - to be fair - it sounds right after
that elephantine "Dew": emotionally drained, yet subtly
recharged; post-intensity, yet still vital. As a rule, I don't find
UJBs to serve well at the end of a show, and I can't say how it
would sound if we had just fast-forwarded to it cold, but -- like a
cold lager on a hot day -- it's just the right thing at the right
time here.
That would have been a good
ending -- it even felt like an ending -- and Bobby bids the audience
goodbye, before quickly correcting himself ("-- right after
this next one"); evidently someone felt they could or should go
one more. Despite sounding as if they'd already given all they had,
they do in fact rise to the occasion. Marred only a little by the
fact that Bobby's vocal is rather too loud, we can't help but enjoy
this final blowout. Not bad at all for being filler!
Review by Ramble On Joe
