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BigFactory posted:After 67 or 68 the dead had pretty well structured shows. I don't think they were really as creative with sets as people give them credit for and that's probably a good thing. I'm a little more partial to the following night (Buffalo Memorial Amphitheater 9 May 77), on account of that opening Help On The Way -> Franklin's Tower never fails to give me chills. But it's all amazing, the soundboard recordings from that era where you can really hear Phil do his thing are all fantastic. I was in high school in 1987 and the first time I saw the Dead was 11 September 87 (lol September 11) at the now-demolished Capital Centre in Landover MD, a venue immortalized in the documentary Heavy Metal Parking Lot. It was a very solid show, being on Mickey Hart's birthday, a nice mix of covers like "Desolation Row" and "Dear Mr. Fantasy", along with an extended second set jam of Estimated Prophet -> Eyes Of The World -> Drums -> Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad. I saw them about 10 times between then and '90, the last show was 12 July 90 at RFK Stadium in DC. The first set was very solid apart from a number of technical difficulties between songs (it's an outdoor stadium and it'd been raining like crazy off and on all day). Queen Jane, Bertha, Stagger Lee, Cassidy, Tennesee Jed, and Music Never Stopped to finish the set. Great tunes. Second set opens with Box of Rain (perfect with the weather), then Victim or the Crime and Foolish Heart, neither of which are exactly heavy hitters, but are kind of underappreciated tunes. Foolish Heart has got almost a Motown kind of sound. So yeah, it's a okay start to the set. And then there's THAT RIFF. da DUN da DUN. And all these thousands of people staring at one another, baffled and incredulous as ever so gracefully and easily, DARK STAR IS HAPPENING. They had just pulled it out of retirement a few months before that, playing it just a few times since then, usually at smaller shows. I don't think anybody expected it, the possibility had never crossed my mind, but there it was. This whole sea of people under the open air, the rain had let up by then and it was a perfect breezy night, and Dark Star + drums/space is this massive hippie Cthulu-oid thing that literally goes on for over 45 minutes, finally to emerge with Watchtower, followed by Dear Mr. Fantasy and a rousing Hey Jude. Touch of Grey was kind of a meh note to end the set, but then they played The Weight as an encore, the whole place singing along and grinning. Holy gently caress. I never got around to another show after that one, and that's okay, that was a pretty okay note for me to go out on. h_double fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Aug 17, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 20:05
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BigFactory posted:Pigpen was the 2nd best keys player in the dead. Hornsby was the best. Keith would be 2nd but he brought Donna along. I can't remember if "Pigpen Killed Brent" was actual t-shirt I saw or just an idea I had. Arguably my favorite Dead t-shirt I DID see was just big block letters "IF I HAD A SHOTGUN, I'D BLOW YOU STRAIGHT TO HELL". HollisBrown posted:But the older I get I realize I am really more of a Jerry Garcia fan than a Deadhead. I really hate to go see these Grateful Dead spinoff bands go out and prostitute the legacy that Jerry killed himself cultivating. I'm sick to death of going and seeing the disgusting lot kids commingling with weekend warrior yuppies. Yeah I'm the same way. Most modern "jam band" music leaves me cold, both the music itself and the scene around it. I like to have a wild time every now and again, but so much about the jam band / festival thing is so homogenous and formulaic. At the same time, whenever I come back to the Dead (and Jerry in particular), it continues to wow me. For me, Jerry was a gateway drug to the likes of Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, etc. Jerry was playing a deeper game. HollisBrown posted:I have another controversial Dead opinion. I don't like Mickey Hart. I mean I like him as a person and Planet Drum is ok but I actually like a lot more of the shows when he was gone. I feel like Billy is tighter. Do you mean just their earlier (66-67) shows, or are there some later shows where it's just Bill? HollisBrown posted:Also I like studio Dead. No I Love studio Dead. American Beauty deserves to be in the same conversation as Kind of Blue or Dark Side of the Moon. Anthem of the Sun is also brilliant. I even like the albums most other Deadheads don't like such as Wake of the Flood and Blues for Allah. Also Garcia from '72 is my all time favorite album. What? Wake of the Flood and Blues For Allah are spectacular. I know they're a little obscure but I didn't realize there were people who straight up disliked them. The only album I used to flat out dislike was Shakedown Street, but even that I've come to have a soft spot for. h_double fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Aug 17, 2013 |
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Aug 16, 2013 20:17
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HollisBrown posted:Brokedown Palace is also a very nearly perfect song It's stunning how beautifully it intertwines themes of death and loss while still managing to be profoundly uplifting. quote:Gonna leave this Brokedown Palace Broken down and alone, crawling to the river's edge to die, that's as good as it gets. And that's really lovely. Wharf Rat is another one a little bit like that. So full of loneliness and despair, and the sense that even when all your senses and reason tell you that you're a penniless drunk lying forgotten in the gutter, there's that perverse spark that's somewhere between hope and escapism. Clinging to a lost love, clinging to a sense that things can still turn around. quote:Everyone said, I'd come to no good, I knew I would Pearly, believe them. and then the twist in the final verse, where it's revealed the narrator is stumbling around with the same sense of loss and emptiness as August West. quote:Pearly's been true, true to me, true to my dyin day he said, THE WHARF RAT, IT IS ALL OF US  Juaguocio posted:Look up the lyrics to "St. Stephen" sometime, and marvel at the way the band made those labyrinth passages catchy and singable. I love how the main verse has that great do-si-do square dance cadence to it.
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Aug 19, 2013 05:31
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HollisBrown posted:I like most of Shakedown Street, the first dance at my wedding was to "If I Had the World to Give". I just really don't care for the song itself. I mean it's not the song itself I guess but I hate that it's the only Dead song people put on the Jukebox at bars. I had a hard time with Shakedown Street because it was my first Dead album, picked out based on the cover art and that I wanted to expand my horizons beyond Casey Jones and Truckin'. I was hoping those horizons would include some heavy Hendrix/Floyd style psychedelic jams, but instead I got something suspiciously close to disco, and Donna vocals.
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Aug 21, 2013 19:53
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I was clicking links on youtube and came across this, it's 15 minutes of Bob & Jerry on David Letterman, from 1982. They play "Deep Elum Blues" and "Monkey & The Engineer", and the conversation with Dave is a lot of fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ss-i2VgcPw HollisBrown posted:I've really been in love with "Row Jimmy" recently, recommend me good versions of it! http://archive.org/details/gd77-03-20.sbd.miller.25610.sbeok.shnf  This one is pretty decent too http://archive.org/details/gd1988-09-05.sbd-set1.miller.80630.sbeok.flac16 "Broken heart don't feel so bad / You ain't got half of what you thought you had." h_double fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Sep 5, 2013 |
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Sep 5, 2013 03:21
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Lately I've had a fresh appreciation for Brent, and while digging through the archives and playing "this day in Dead history", I came upon this mid-late 80s loveliness: 09/09/87 Really tasty first set, Jack Straw and Cassidy are especially terrific. Also HollisBrown, you've got me good and obsessed with Row Jimmy, much obliged.
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Sep 10, 2013 05:21
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Hey thread: please put me up on some killer soundboards of Terrapin Station?
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Sep 10, 2013 10:22
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I was looking at the "inappropriate 9/11 tributes" Photoshop thread in GBS and yeah anyway
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Sep 11, 2013 08:09
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HollisBrown posted:I guess this a good time to post my favorite youtube video of all time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcJUuxv8oCE. The part at the end with the audience dancing to Lovelight is the best part. Pigpen singing Lovelight is such a heartbreaking thing of beauty.
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Sep 19, 2013 00:56
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