During this brief time period, Grateful Dead concerts featured rare acoustic sets to open the show, with a set by New Riders of the Purple Sage (with Garcia playing pedal steel) in the middle, followed by a full-blown electric Dead set.
Despite the incredible quantity of music that has been played over the course of the evening, the Dead still has a few good hours in them and deliver one of their greatest sets of the year.
Following Bill Graham's intro, they bounce off into "China Cat Sunflower" which develops into a smoking jam before tearing off into "I Know You Rider."…entire summary
"Pigpen" McKernan - vocals, organ, percussion
Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals
Bob Weir - guitar, vocals
Phil Lesh - bass
Bill Kreutzmann - drums
Mickey Hart - percussion
Guest: David Nelson - mandolin, vocals
Guest: John Dawson - vocals
During this brief time period, Grateful Dead concerts featured rare acoustic sets to open the show, with a set by New Riders of the Purple Sage (with Garcia playing pedal steel) in the middle, followed by a full-blown electric Dead set.
Despite the incredible quantity of music that has been played over the course of the evening, the Dead still has a few good hours in them and deliver one of their greatest sets of the year.
Following Bill Graham's intro, they bounce off into "China Cat Sunflower" which develops into a smoking jam before tearing off into "I Know You Rider." "Cumberland Blues, a song they played acoustic in the early set, gets the full electric treatment here, and again, they're all cooking. Pigpen takes center stage for Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" whipping everything up a notch in the process. Next they resurrect "Beat It on Down the Line," an old jug band tune they electrified for the first album. They play 14 opening beats before take off, instead of the usual one or two. A second nod to their oldest fans is "Morning Dew," another track from their first LP. This is one heavy performance, with Garcia singing passionately and the band playing with intense concentration.
Pigpen returns to front/center for "Good Lovin" which propels the band into the first serious jam of the set. Moments of this are blistering and everyone gets a workout.
They settle down a bit with "Dire Wolf," another of the great new Garcia/Hunter tunes to surface in 1970, and then go into the rocking blues of "Next Time You See Me," again with Pigpen fronting the band and blowing blues harp.
There's some humorous interaction with the audience while they retune and prepare for the final sequence. Then out of the fray, "Dark Star," their most intentionally exploratory song vehicle, emerges. For the next 19 minutes, they journey into deep space. The improvisations continually shift and morph into surprising areas, at times extremely intense and at other times dissolving into free form space devoid of rhythm or melody but always captivating. This segues directly into "St. Stephen," which is tight, focused and has some incendiary guitar and bass work. A reel change occurred during "St. Stephen" with a minute or so missing.
Replacing "The Eleven" which had been the usual "St. Stephen" follower the previous year is Buddy Holly's "Not Fade Away," transformed into a wild celebration with the band rocking at full tilt. After six minutes or so, this rips right into the opening of "Turn on Your Lovelight," and Pigpen again takes over improvising vocals as well as any of the instrumentalists in the band. This cooks for almost half an hour before coming to a furious close, leaving the audience dazed.
After several minutes of standing ovation, Garcia, Weir, Lesh, Nelson and Dawson return to the stage with a few acoustic guitars in tow. They send everyone on their merry way with the gospel number, "Cold Jordan," another rarity and a spiritual close to one of the lengthiest nights of the Dead's entire career.
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