[20 June 2008]
by Stuart Henderson
There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert. There are imitators,
sure. There have been tighter live acts, certainly. There have been
more consistent performers, absolutely. But, no other band has ever
achieved the kind of devoted following that trailed the Grateful
Dead's live tours. Thousands, indeed, tens of thousands of people
spent weeks, months, years and even decades following this storied
band around the U.S., moving en masse from concert hall to concert
hall, sleeping in RVs and tents, living on parking lot grilled
cheeses, ziplocked mushrooms, and tailgate beers.
From 1965 to Jerry Garcia's sudden death in 1995, the Dead covered
the United States back and forth dozens of times, and so did their
unwavering fans, friends, and the moveable feast that was their
scene. They tripped, show to show, like a traveling circus of
weirdos, poseurs, fun-loving partyers, and 1960s refugees, all of
them hoping that this time they'd get to hear their favourite tune,
or maybe catch a really hot Playin' jam, or find that crystalline
moment of pure, unadulterated bliss, usually hidden somewhere in the
middle of a "Dark Star", a "Terrapin Station", or a lonesome "Stella
Blue". They didn't follow the Dead, as the saying went: they toured
with them. In a philosophy harkening back to the early San Francisco
Acid Tests (when the Dead served as the house band at Ken Kesey's
wobbly Haight-Ashbury happenings), the audience was always just as
important as the band. The music was integral, sure, but it was the
people who made the scene. If the Dead were at the centre, the
Deadheads were the Universe that gave the centre meaning. In every
way, this is the key to understanding the enduring fascination with
the Grateful Dead concert: everything about it was designed to
reinforce the relational, community-focused ethic of the Deadhead community.
But doesn't every band do this? Try to "give the people what they
want"? Sure. But, the vast majority of bands do this by labouring to
nail down the tightest, most intense, most complete concert
experience they can. They compile a carefully thought-out setlist,
and stick to it most every night (with a few provisions for
spontaneity, usually around the encore). They tell similar stories
most evenings, and even jokes that they've worked out to a comedian's
timing and precision. The result is a hot show, night in and night
out, but also (even if it's working gangbusters) a generally
surprise-free experience.
And herein lies exactly what is so hard for non-Dead fans to get
their heads around. Tightness, perfection, mistake-free execution,
all that stuff, is anathema to the Grateful Dead experience. Not that
the Dead were sloppy, or lazy, or didn't give a damn about the kind
of performance they put ina casual look at interviews or
biographical material on any member would quickly put that assumption
to restbut they understood that, for the benefit of both their own
aesthetic interests, and their audience's continued curiosity and
participation in the tour, they had to work without a net. They had
to take risks, try new things, switch up the setlists every night,
dive into lengthy freeform jams, slow tempos to a crawl, speed up to
a breakneck pace. There was no other way to get there.
Indeed, they had to do these things, night in night out, because this
was the very essence of the Grateful Dead thing. In the early 1970s,
while contemporaries like the Band worked their stage shows down to a
pencil-point precision, sometimes reproducing live versions of songs
so cleanly that they were near note-for-note matches of their studio
versions, the Dead went out there and stretched three-minute songs to
20-minute jams. They offered radical reinterpretations of numbers
they'd been playing another way for years. They let Donna Jean
Godchaux sing even though she couldn't hit any of the goddamn notes!
(This is, incidentally, a totally acceptable reason to detest the
Grateful Dead. She was married to their '70s-era pianist and, even
though she had no voice for the stuff, they let her join the band,
and step all over some of the tunes. Indefensible.) What it comes
down to is that the Grateful Dead didn't hesitate to try something on
stage that they had never discussed, and their audience respected
them all the more for it.
Don't get me wrong. Very often these risks didn't exactly pan out.
There is no Dead show that I have ever heardand I've heard
hundredsthat doesn't have a few scratches here and there, a few bad
notes, a few forgotten lyrics, a few missed cues. Butand this is
again the thing that you only get if you getthat's the point. At
their very best they were risking it all out there and their audience
was responding with joyful appreciation. Even when they royally blew
it (which happened all the time, let's face it) the audience would
generally express encouragement rather than frustration. They
actually cheered when Bob Weir forgot the words to a song, Jerry
Garcia hit a bum note, or Phil Lesh hammered a way-too-loud bass
bomb. This was partly about being supportive and expressing some
good-vibey hippie idealism, but it was more importantly about the
collaborative understanding about what the Dead were trying to do,
and where the audience knew they could go when it all started to
happen. They knew that when it was working, when it all came
together, when that engine of theirs was firing on all cylinders,
there was little more thrilling in the world of live rock 'n' roll.
This is the basic point behind the bootleg thing. I remember as a
teenager my father commenting on the growing collection of Maxell
tapes I had amassed, all of them Grateful Dead shows, legally
recorded by "bootleggers". (Taping at Dead shows was encouraged,
which was another huge factor in the development of the shared
understanding that united much of their touring audience.) "Why would
anyone want fifteen versions of 'Friend of the Devil?'" my Dad
demanded. It's a good question. In fact, it's probably the key
question: if you have a good version of a song, why look for another?
Why would you want to hear an inferior version, or a merely OK one,
or really any other than the one you already have and love? And this
is where we get down to subtleties, energy, performance, and all
kinds of other stuff that just dies on the page in explanation. But,
if every night the Dead are out there trying old things in new ways,
if one night the drummer is a bit jazzier and the next more rocking,
the rhythm guitar is one month a bit more fluid and then the next
month maybe more crunchy, the lead guitarist is loud and fast one
night but soft and groovy the next, then every Maxell tape conveys a
whole new series of meanings. Night to night, this was a different
band. So, night to night, it was almost a different song.
This is especially true of the longer, more jammy numbers, but even
an ostensibly tight, go-nowhere tune like "Me and My Uncle" can sound
completely different depending upon the tempo, the intensity of the
bass lines, or the passion of the vocal performance. This is why
those apparently insipid debates about which was the best year for
the Grateful Deadas though folks are talking about fine wine or
Vincent motorcyclesactually make perfect sense. Every year for the
band marked a new approach, a new series of tours, and a new list of
concert-ready songs. While the band was all about psychedelic rock in
1969, by 1973 they were more of a country-rock outfit; by the late
70s they were delving into bigger sounds, exploring progressive
arrangements and even reggae and disco; by the mid-'80s they were
revisiting early-'60s Motown and soul numbers, reinventing them for a
new generation of Deadheads; by the early '90s they were more
formulaic, for sure, but still introducing new songs, textures, and
approaches (like Garcia's MIDI which made his guitar sound like,
well, like not a guitar).
Ultimately, what I am trying to say is this: The Dead can be
appreciatedindeed, probably must be appreciatedas a kind of
continuing, evolving, shifty performance of "The Grateful Dead".
Every night delivered a new version of the band, a new skin for the
old ceremony, as (in bassist Phil Lesh's famous phrase) band and
audience alike continued "searching for the sound".
How else could a music reviewer introduce a nine-disc box set
chronicling three consecutive nights at San Francisco's Winterland
arena in November, 1973? Nine discs! Retailing for around a hundred
bucks! I could tell you that the set is packed with extraordinary
music, sure. But, let's face it, no one is buying this thing unless
they are a) already a serious fan and get the whole
there's-always-more-to-hear thing, or, b) they want to massively
jumpstart their Dead collection by making a weird, risky purchase. If
you are reading this and fall into category b), then I'm here to tell
you: enjoy. And, for those folks in category a), who's kidding who:
you already ordered this beast off of Dead.net.
Either way, buying this box is generally a good idea. For every
reason listed above, this set demonstrates the very essence of the
Grateful Dead thing. It is vast72 songs over nine discsand it is
particularly volatile. The band, only six months after losing their
beloved keyboardist and vocalist Ron "Pigpen" McKernan to alcoholism
(at the holy shit age of 27), is brimming with tumultuous energy,
driven by a reinvigorated repertoire dominated by country-rock and
spacey excursions, and buoyed by the recent completion of one of
their best records to date, the jazzy Wake of the Flood. In every
way, this box set represents the Grateful Dead in top form.
From wild takes on fan favourites like "Sugar Magnolia", "Bertha",
and "Truckin'", to powerful renditions of some of their darkest, most
enduring ballads like "Black-Throated Wind", "Stella Blue", "To Lay
Me Down", and the incomparable "Loser", the setlists sparkle with
excellent songs. The years 1972-73 represent the Dead at the height
of their songwriting power, and it is everywhere on display, with
Robert Hunter's perpetually underrated lyrics spinning evocative
Americana throughout this entire set. Occasional, well-chosen covers
(of Johnny Cash's "Big River", Chuck Berry's "Promised Land", Marty
Robbins' "El Paso") pay tribute to the forebears of this earthy
approach to American music. And, when they experiment (during the
first half of the second set each night), they demonstrate an intense
commitment, a vital yearning for transcendent musical release, that
is unparalleled on many of their other officially-sanctioned live collections.
Highlights are many, and varied. If the first night is somewhat less
memorable than the second, it still boasts some gorgeous guitar work
from Garcia on a funky "Here Comes Sunshine", and a hot bit of band
interaction on the first of three Weather Report Suites over the
three nights. The second night (so, discs 4 through 6) offers the
first ever attempt at one of their most exciting suites, the rare,
nonstop performance of "Playing in the Band"/"Uncle John's
Band"/"Morning Dew"/"Uncle John's Band"/"Playing in the Band". This
extraordinary run of songs, segueing seamlessly into each other to
what must have been the delight and fascination of the no-doubt rapt
audience, is as fine as it looks on the page, and as good a reason as
any to pick up the whole set. Still, the third night does boast an
uncanny version of what was the Dead's most coveted number: a
blissful take on "Dark Star" that stretches beyond the 25-minute mark
before sliding into an epic, and deeply moving, "Mind Left Body" Jam.
Slipping from here into "Eyes of the World", perhaps the best new
song in their repertoire (and a highlight of the Wake of the Flood
LP), the band moves into an extended encore set, seemingly unwilling,
unable, to let this top-flight three night stand come to an end. The
spooky, soft-textured "China Doll" gives in to an unhinged "Sugar
Magnolia", which in turn moves through an "Uncle John's Band", and
into a boisterous take on Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode". The
screaming crowd is finally carried away home to the strains of a
sweet a capella version of Garcia's favourite lullaby: "And We Bid
You Goodnight".
Thrilling, incomparable, and utterly rewarding. There is nothing like
a Grateful Dead concert.
--
Stuart Henderson, PhD, is a Toronto-based historian, professor,
musician, pacifist, and journalist. He is the singer-songwriter for
the independent folk-rock band Ghostwalk Creek. His forthcoming book
is Making the Scene: Yorkville and Hip Toronto in the Sixties and he
is presently at work on a history of censorship and the naked body in Canada.
.
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