Grateful Dead Records 4050
Grateful Dead Records 4090
It's been ten years since the first Dick’s Picks, so
it's not surprising to see the GDM crew hauling out
the big guns for the occasion. And these are big guns
indeed: the CD/DVD release of the famous Winterland
closing show, and March 28, 1972, one of the very few shows
stimulating enough to prompt a hardened,
computer-equipped collector like this writer to fork
money over for a DP these days.
A bit of explanation about DP30: just before the
start of the Europe '72 tour, the Dead played seven
shows at New York's Academy of Music. One would have
to think that a long run in New York in March '72
would have yielded some strong playing, yet only poor
audience tapes circulated from these shows for many
years, and it seemed uncertain whether soundboard
recordings existed at all. However, the "Dark Star"
set of the run suddenly emerged a year ago, and now
the archivists have seen fit to fill in one of the
most intriguing missing chapters in Dead history.
After all of these DPs, it's not surprising that
most of these four CDs aren't that special. The first
half of disc one (from an informal Hell's Angels
benefit on March 25th) is skippable unless you're a Bo
Diddley fan, although the disc later offers some
worthwhile Pigpen jamming ("Smokestack Lightning") and
then jumps to March 27th for a howling "Playing in the
Band." Most of March 28th, which appears in complete
form on the next three discs, is simply the same set
that the Dead would spend the rest of the year
perfecting, with the expected pluses (more enthusiasm)
and minuses (less polish) compared to the later,
familiar shows.
However, set two of March 28th justifies the purchase
price. It starts with Garcia digging out the heavy
psychedelic artillery for another "Playing" (marred,
like the "Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad" later on, only by some truly
hideous
Donna-wails. I've always been a Donna sympathizer,
but this set, documenting some of her very first
performances with the band, will make no converts).
The peak, though, comes with an unusual "Sugar
Magnolia > The Other One" combo. The 28-minute "Other One" is
worthy of many paragraphs, but suffice it to say that
this may be the very performance where the Dead kicked
open the door to a new realm of improvisational depth
which they would spend the next few years exploring.
Hype justified.
The Closing of Winterland, from the other end of the Godchauxs'
tenure with the band in 1978, is a different affair.
Here "Sugar Magnolia" leads not to a lysergic jam but to
the Caribbean-tinged, arena-ready "Scarlet Begonias > Fire On The Mountain."
Older, wiser but wearier, the Dead were offering more
mainstream fare. Granted, watching parts of set one
on DVD on the same day as listening to it on CD, I
noticed how different details emerged each time,
making clear how much subtle interaction one can take
for granted even in these later performances.
There's plenty of worthwhile music in this long show
(note especially the wild ambient adventures of
"Rhythm Devils" and the way the third-set jam slips
between "Dark Star" and "The Other One" with uncommon
fluidity), but for this reviewer, the DVD is the way
to experience December 31st, 1978. It brings home more of the
event-ness of the occasion; seeing the band members
doing their best to guide their multiple onstage
guests, for instance, makes it easier to justify the
otherwise tedious 19 minutes of "Not Fade Away." It's
also worthwhile just to see the members, particularly
Phil, enjoying the perhaps-too-relaxed grooves of many
of the songs.
After more than a decade of exploring the vault, the
archivists once again give us some worthwhile new
information about the Dead. Only one nagging
question: are there any more aces left in the deck?
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