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Feature
Article - September 2000
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View From The Vault
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by David Rioux |
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"View From The Vault" - the Grateful
Dead
One thing is for sure, it was real good to see the boys together again. I
didn't even realize how much I had missed seeing them on stage together ? I
mean all of them on stage together, until I popped in this video.
Hearing them tuning up, as I had countless times, and knowing that always
signified the entrance into a night of adventure. An opening that may lead
to elation, sadness, revelation and many times... bliss. That spark of
nostalgia was instantaneously stuck.
Many a Deadhead has been overheard trying to call the song to his friends
-- dissecting discernable melodies from a half-dozen anxious musicians
impatiently hashing out the set list in real time. Now here I was,
purposely avoiding the set list on the back of the case, just so I can try
to pull it off one more time. Of course a little background information is
helpful: Is it Jerry's opener tonight? Or Bobby's? What did they do the
night before? For that matter, what had they been doing that whole tour?
I was doomed to blow it, and luckily they launched into the opener before I
had a chance to try.
Touch of Grey! Figures!!! Believe it or not, I actually thought...
"For Christ?s sake, they always open with Touch!" After all that
anticipation, and years of forced abstinence from the seeing them live and
Boom! it's back to being a picky Deadhead before they had even
gotten out of the chute. It didn't last, really. As a matter of fact it's
a pretty hot version. Seeing Garcia moving around, singing and playing
again... And man, is he playing! There is even an occasional
Townsend-style bowling move! It's real easy to see why they selected this
show after all. I don't think we saw Jerry smile often enough, and there
are a few opportunities here.
Now, I went to a few shows on this tour, but unfortunately not this one.
That's not to say that it?s the best show the Dead ever did or anything,
but there is a certain amount of justification in realizing "Shit, I knew I
had fun, but they must have had a pretty good time too to be releasing it!"
It's a fantastic thing to be involved with a band who cares so much about
their fans that they are still constantly trying to give it back to us.
Unfortunately, for reasons we may never really understand, that in itself
could be the ultimate demise to that family element that was the
true binding force of the Grateful Dead's music and their ability to do
what the did, the way they did it, for as long as they did.
OK, back to friends that are gone but not forgotten... Brent! To see him
sitting there, just to the right of the Big Black T-Shirt. There's even
some lively banter with Jerry, and oh those bittersweet harmonies he could
produce! It all here... well almost all of it. He doesn't actually have
any of his own songs on the video, but it is really good to see his face
and here his voice again.
As a matter of fact the song selection is a fairly representative sampling
of that back and forth style between Garcia and Weir, with the only real
break being Dylan's Just Like Tom Thumb?s Blues thrown in by Phil.
And it's warts and all as usual with the band, as Phil scrambles up the
lyrics a bit. But considering what I've heard Bobby do to Truckin?
on occasion, this is nothing. That's one thing I've always respected about
the Dead, their ability to get out there and hammer it out right in front
of God and everyone... good or bad they do it all live. The bad ones can
be quite a sight, but they seemed to have developed some pretty thick skin
to let those slide off of. On the other hand, when it all gels, words can
only complicate that feeling of "being a part of". That was the task I had
been charged with when I received this in the mail, try to put all of that
down in words... if it's there, of course.
I realized that fact during Let it Grow, as they explored the
netherworlds and I stopped writing, transfixed by the very thing that made
me use up all my hard earned vacation time, year after year, tour after
tour. That something in the jam CAN be transmitted via video! And
it appears a number of times throughout this show. The Jam after
Terrapin being one of the better examples. You just can't write
during this stuff and get its full effect at the same time!
The idea here is that the band is going to start releasing videos of shows,
from the direct video feed produced by all those guys running around in
front of the stage with cameras. What was on the big screens during the
show is what makes it to the tape. The first set is primarily straight
video of the band in action. Just a beautiful sunny day, and the Dead in
your living room. The second set on the other hand is a whole different
ball of wax.
All of the trippy little graphics and visuals that made it to the screen
during to the show, make it onto this as well. Of course, they quickly
threw this stuff together as the band was playing, which works great live,
but can sometime fall a little short for home viewing. When you are there
live, you have the whole experience that is a Dead show, to draw from.
The guy next to you trying to roll a joint and dance at the same time,
spilling it all over himself. Some girl's spinning so fast, for so long,
that you can't imagine why she isn't hurling... especially if she ate one
of those questionable burritos you saw being peddled from a converted
U-Haul in the parking lot before the show. And then there is always that
naked person... Those things never ceased to entertain me (some more than
other, of course!), but are definitely lacking in my tiny living room. The
video effects are overall pretty good, don't get me wrong, it's just that
at times I felt as though their level of technology hadn't gotten much
further than when they filmed "Dead Ahead", from the Radio City Music Hall
in '80. Yet at other times, the film clips where nicely distracting,
especially during Drums/Space. If I had to rate just the
video on the basis of its content: On a scale of 1 - 10, I'd give it a
seven. However, the quality of filming (clarity,
focus, etc.) of the band far exceeds anything the Dead has previously
released on video.
As an armchair Grateful Dead experience, I would have to say it's a nice
one. Most times in movies, the Dead have chopped things up too much. They
would break into songs for commentary, fade out during solos, and use the
music as backdrops to interviews. Here there is nothing but the show --
end to end, good or bad. 1990 was also a peak period in their jaunt
through time, as is evident from all the recent releases they have done
surrounding that time period. This is yet another gem from an already
lengthy necklace. If I had to sum it all up in one thought, I couldn't as
"statements just seem vain at last".
Set 1:
Set 2:
Encore:
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