Grateful Dead 1972-10-18

The (Fabulous) Fox Theatre, St. Louis
SBD recording can be streamed on archive.org
(The most interesting part of this post is the part about the 2nd set ;)

I recently read a great review of this show at the Grateful Dead Listening Guide (a highly recommended blog), and figured it was about time I gave it a listen myself. Or gave it another listen - I have lost track of exactly which shows I've heard and which I've not, since I have 300+ GD shows in FLAC format, and maybe just as many on audio cd. At one point I was working on a system to keep track of just which shows I'd heard as well as personal comments for each show, but I kinda gave up on that and figured that at one point or another I'll have heard them all and remember roughly the outstanding ones. And then there's this blog, where I can write and publish my thoughts about individual shows and other music topics.

Anyhow, let's get on to the show! Bertha kickstarts the evening, a slightly laidback version, which I think is nice. After Me and my uncle Phil strums some deep notes, which makes Bobby remark that "those happy sounds are just Phil exorcising the evil spirits from the amplifiers." :) Don't Ease Me In follows, a song which always makes me think of Primal Dead. The show continues with Mexicali Blues, Brown Eyed Women and Beat It On Down The Line, and in my ears they're all well done with nothing to complain about, yet there's nothing to write home about so far. BIODTL has a 14 beat intro and after those 14 beats the entire band stumbles before they pull it together.

As one could expect in '72, the first jam excursion comes in a mid-1st-set Bird Song. I've loved this song since I first heard it covered by the Norwegian band The International Tussler Society (that was before I got to know the Dead). Focused soloing from Garcia, some really dynamic drumming and the rest of the band in a jazzy mood makes this a good version, but maybe not spectacular. (It must be noted that I didn't pay attention to it all of the time - multitasking is something I try to avoid, but tonight it happened). After the second chorus there is another improv section, with some great interplay between Garcia and Weir!

Big River is next, and it's one of very few Dead covers I find somewhat boring. This one, however, has some very cool Philness, a kind of funky, smooth-rolling bass playing, which makes it slightly more interesting. The two next songs, Loser and Jack Straw are two of my (many) favorite Dead tunes, and they're both beautifully executed. Loser still has "Sweet Suzie" intact (after 1972, Garcia usually sang "Last fair deal in the country" without the ", Sweet Suzie" tag at the end of that line). Jack Straw is tight and enthusiastic.

Big Railroad Blues is a song which occasionally pops into my mind, but it's rare that I choose to listen to it. This version is, as usual, jumping along the tracks, another enthusiastic performance. El Paso is great as always, preceded by a "Merry-Go-Round (?) tuning". Personall I dig the story and even more I dig Garcias great background playing.

Well, now comes the real beef of this show. They finish the 1st set with a China Cat Sunflower -> I Know You Rider which, of course, is great.

And then, and now I listen in anticipation, the 2nd set. Playin' In The Band -> Drums -> Dark Star -> Morning Dew -> Playin' In The Band - now that's what I call a mighty fine sequence of music! As one expects they drop into the jam after the second chorus, and Weir holds it up while Garcia turns on his Mutron and starts some delicate, soft soloing. He sounds like a lion lying back there, moving in slowly, locating the exact point of attack. And Weir walking around, holding up the structure. 5 minutes into Playin' they're moving towards each other, with Phil & Billy providing the ever-changing structures around them. They slow down slightly, but very quickly find themselves taking off again, then taking it down slightly again, and back into the high gear. It's funky and textured, and hey, there's Keith as well! Ah, I love to hear how they all synch up to each other, how extremely well it all fits! I'm once again convinced that this band had a collective conciousness, they must've had, I don't know how else to explain it. At about 13 minutes into it, something happens, they're moving towards something now, the flavor is different. Soon the drums take over, and I know that Dark Star is coming.

My god. Dark Star. Is there anything better than a Dark Star? I don't think so. At least not musically. The intro comes perfectly and goes straight into a familiar-sounding territory built upon Weir and Garcia's beautiful interplay. It stays there, and eventually goes into a smooth, jazzy and somewhat sad landscape, with Garcia making some wailing sounds with his guitar which sounds almost like a pedal steel. They move out of this, and back again. It's wonderful. After 6 minutes they drop into a hollow, dark place, and I'm curious at how they'll get out of this. They wander around for a while, and then Phil leads the way out into what is probably the first verse of this star, approx. 10 minutes into it. I can feel the energy while listening now, it's groovy, it's good, it flows smoothly and yes, here's the first verse. It never ceases to amaze me, how they can flawlessly weave together the few constant elements of this song with such amazing improvisation! Wow!

The way continues and oh boy, listen to Jerry at 14 minutes into the star and let the melody that folows caress your spine. Breathtaking skin-tingling beauty in my ears.

At around 21 minutes, Phil has his moment of delicate, fat bass soloing, something I really dig! And after a couple of minutes he starts a rockin' riff! Supercool, and Bob & Jerry are still waiting, while Billy joins in for a Drum & Bass session which rocks like waves upon a shore. Jerry smoothly joins the fun, complementing Phil's soloing. After that we get the 4-chord jam which has been labeled a.o. "Feelin' Groovy" and which later became prominent in the transition from China Cat Sunflower to I Know You Rider.

And not much later. Oh, wow. Out of nowhere comes the intro to Morning Dew. Ah. Isn't it one of the most beautiful songs ever? I have never heard Bonnie Dobson's original version, but I can't really imagine any version of this song being better than the Dead did it. Period. Garcia's sweet voice and heartfelt empathy is more than perfect for this song, and coupled with the rest of the band's just as sweet playing, this one's a winner every time! This October evening is no exception. It floats and swirls wonderfully, truly a song that's born to soar the sky! Yet again the interplay is perfect and you can really hear Jerry singing from his heart, Keith adding even more sweetness at the just exactly appropriate points. "I guess it doesn't matter..." sings Garcia, sweetly, and then they slowly start the build up. They take their time, there's no rush. And oh! Just when you anticipate the ultimate climax - what happens? I don't know if this was planned or what, but hey!! There's no "I GUESS IT DOESN'T MATTER AAAAANYYYWAAYYYYYY!" - no, they smoothly jump into - yes! - a jam that leads them back into the starting point - Playin' In The Band! Whoa! Well, I knew it, because I've read other reviews of this show, but still! If I'm not mistaken it's a unique event.

Well, after this 1 hour jam trip, I certainly understand their need to do some "regular" songs, and there's really no need to go out on another far out journey at this point. They continue the 2nd set with a very funky and jumpy Deal, a song I really like. The Promised Land is quite boring in my ears, as I've grown tired of it. Next up is, luckily, one of the most beautiful songs ever to grace this earth: Brokedown Palace. And I really have no words for this song. It's so beautiful, there's nothing to do but listen to it. Live, it's not quite the same as on American Beauty, but it's still wonderful and heartfelt, with great harmonies and beautiful playing. Garcia delivers a beautiful solo, before the greatest part of the song.

Fare you well, fare you well, I love you more than words can tell

They end the evening on an up-beat feeling with One More Saturday Night and Casey Jones.

I'm left with one thought which, as so many times before, seems to sum it all up:

...listen to the river sing sweet songs to rock my soul

The Arrow

(Yeah, long time, no blog, sorry about that!)

When I was a kid, I used to think of a song as a song. Period. A song was a fixed entity, and it was supposed to be identical every time. In retrospect I can't really understand why I thought like that, maybe it's because kids want/need things in their life to be stable and predictable? Well, "why" doesn't really matter that much. I don't know exactly when, but at some point I became aware of the fact that music was much more fluid than that - hey, jazz musicians are improvising - and that a band can include one song inside another! Or, similarly, instead of stopping to play when a song ends, why not improvise something on the spot which ties that song to the next one? I knew about this to a small extent for quite a while - e.g. Motorpsycho who in 1998 started doing the "Super/Wheel" which was in other words "Superstooge -> The Wheel". The "->" is an arrow, and means that the first song segues into the following. I would find out later, when I started collecting live recordings that Motorpsycho had done segues for years before that.

So. The Grateful Dead. I remember when I first got "Live/Dead" I listened to it a lot, but I could never understand where one track ended and the other began! Of course I was a "newbie", but still. Most songs were obvious if you just listened to the lyrics, but e.g. the "St. Stephen -> The Eleven" - that was incredible. Where did one end and the other begin?

This changed my view on songs and music quite fundamentaly, especially when I started listening to Grateful Dead a lot. The wild twists and turns and improvisations that band pulled off are more often than not too good to believe.

So far I've identified 3 (or 4) main kinds of segues/transitions. Or, that is slightly unprecise. Let me elaborate:

1. When a song's normal parts/sections are finished, the band continues to play, and improvises their way into the next song. (A variant on this is when a song finished normally and the next one immediately starts, without anything inbetween. This is a lot less exciting.)
   
2. Before a song is completely finished, the band jams their way into another song, and when that one finishes the band jams their way back into the previous song. This rule may be used recursively, so that the sequence contains 3 songs or more. The Grateful Dead did this a lot, Motorpsycho has done it (not too often, but it has happened, in varying degrees), Phish has done it (many times, probably) and another good example is the Disco Biscuits, e.g. this one. This kind of segueing is often called a "sandwhich". It can be both symmetric and asymmetric. Here is another wild example: The ending of Disco Biscuits 2002-07-26. Quite something! This also demonstrates a variation: the band starts a song, but jams into something else, and when they pause, it seems they have forgotten about what they originally started. But then, after a while, they jam out of a song later in the show, and into the originally unfinished song, so they can finish it.
   
3. This is less common, but happens every now and then: A song is for some reason not finished during a gig (mainly because the band gets carried away and jams into something else and forgets all about it) - and then they finish it the next day! I don't know what term to put on this - a trans-performance segue? Of course, this can be seen as a variation on the above. Notably, Motorpsycho did this during the spring 2006 tour: on April 30 they ended the show with a unfinished version of "Hogwash", but the next day in Berlin they spontaneously finish it (it wasn't on the setlist that night, it just came out of the end-jam in "Bonny Lee") - see Alex' superb Motorpsycho blog for details. Another good example, tied to the previous point, is again the Disco Biscuits. Several of the songs started in the above mentioned example (2002-07-26) were left unfinished that night, but they finished them the next night (2002-07-27). (Note: I haven't actually heard these two DB shows, but I've heard other shows by them, and I trust the comments and setlists for these two shows.) Grateful Dead also did this, but I can't remember any dates from the top of my head.

It could also be noted that both Ratdog and Phil & Friends have become masters of playing shows where the songs intertwine and one or more songs becomes the "frame" for a show, much like the literary device where the author lets one story be the frame for a multitude of sub-stories. A good example is "Canterbury Tales" by Geoffrey Chaucer, where a lot of characters are assembled together and they haven't got much to do to pass the time but tell each other stories.

So, here are, from the top of my head, some of my favorite segues so far (but hey, there's a lot I haven't heard!):

• Grateful Dead 1972-04-08: Dark Star -> Sugar Magnolia In addition to being a scaringly good Dark Star, the transition into Sugar Magnolia is simply put the definition of smooth. It's incredible. Too incredible to be true. It's hair-raising every time. Every baby's ass envies this one. It's totally incomprehensible! Go listen, and melt. (Btw, 1972-04-14 has a similar sequence of "Dark Star -> Sugar Magnolia", which is just as good as -04-08.)
  
• Grateful Dead 1977-05-19: Playin' In The Band -> Uncle John's Band AKA How To Do Uncle John From Behind. I believe this is the only time they did this: They jam from Playin' into the ending of Uncle John's Band, and then they continue with the song from the beginning as normal. But the jam and the transition into UJB is phenomenal. Man oh man. I think this is the only time they "entered UJB from the behind".
  
• Grateful Dead 1972-01-02: Good Lovin' -> China Cat Sunflower -> Good Lovin' I believe this is another one-time-only, but the transition from Good Lovin' into China Cat is superb, with a great example of the entire band turning around on the spot, and some really beautiful interplay between Garcia and Weir!
• Grateful Dead 1974-03-23: Playin' in the Band -> Uncle John's Band -> Morning Dew -> Uncle John's Band -> Playin' in the Band I mean - come on!
  Look at that sequence! They only did that a few times, and this one is totally over the edge. As someone on a forum somewhere once remarked: "This one wrote the textbook on 'How To Do Transitions Between Songs'!" - I remember one time I had a really bad hangover, and I put this one in my discman and went for a walk. Seriously, I was immediately cured!
• Motorpsycho 2006-05-14: Triggerman -> Manmower -> Triggerman OH yeah. They really did that.
  
• Grateful Dead, Fall 1971, The Other One -> Cowboy song -> The Other One In this context, "Cowboy song" means "Me and My Uncle", or "El Paso", or "Me and Bobby McGee", and "The Other One" could also be "Dark Star", depending on the jamming vehicle of choice a particular night, but usually it was TOO.
• Grateful Dead 1972-05-25: Uncle John's Band -> Wharf Rat -> Dark Star -> Sugar Magnolia A quite unusual sequence, but super-smooth segues! The transitions are beautifully seamless, and it's both a huge listening pleasure and a good way to show off what this band was capable of!
• Grateful Dead 1973-02-19: He's Gone -> Truckin' -> The Other One -> Eyes Of The World -> China Doll This is one of my favorite pieces of GD music ever. "Eyes" & "China Doll" are picture perfect, and all the jamming and transitions inbetween these songs (there's a lot more than it seems!) is just gorgeous!
  
• Motorpsycho 1993-09-18: 21st Century Schizoid Girl -> Giftland -> Blueberry Daydream -> Free Your Mind Wow, this shows off MP's ability to do strange things. Especially the Giftland -> Blueberry segue is cool, mainly 'cause they play a long & heavy version of Blueberry Daydream instead of the normal quiet acoustic version.
• Motorpsycho 2006-04-22: The Wheel -> Plan #1 I was there. OK, so maybe the segue wasn't an amazing pull-off, they just made sure they were in the right key and triggered the Matt Burt sample, but holy c-rap! After that huge and powerful "The Wheel", which was the first I ever experience live, I got another huge first - "Plan #1"! I'd never experienced it live before. This combo is one of the greatest things i've experienced in live music, even thought the sound at the venue was crap. I swear, I was trembling and shaking and had tears in my eyes during this. Wow-o-wow!

Ya, okay. That was some of the best segues I could think of from the top of my head. I'll probably continue this subject later, I definitely need to include some Phish in that list, but for now this'll do.

Later!

Grateful Dead 1985-11-02 (set 2) & more

I've heard the 1985-11-02 show (set 2 mostly) several times, and tonight I watched it (set 2 only) on DVD (audience shot, available at www.thetradersden.org ) and felt like writing this piece. This post will be a little serious as well, so bear with me...

For a very long time I was very reluctant to listening to any of the GD's 80s output. One thing was the fact that it was their 60s & 70s shows that got me hooked. Another was my somewhat strange feeling that the 80s was a dark, strange period of GD, a sort of wasteland, something I can't quite describe. I knew that Garcia's health was bad especially mid-80s, so that was one reason. And I felt drawn towards this great depth of mystery and darkness, but I wanted to wait. I don't remember exactly when or how, but at some point it struck me: Yes. Now. The 80s. It felt just right. I must have been a heavy period of my life, with my mind in the darkness and things in general being difficult. Anyhow, all I remember is that my first encounter with this was very much as expected! The darkness and sadness, and at times brilliant beauty, was there. Just exactly right. And sometimes they fuck up things so bad it's a shame, but usually Garcia manages to pull out all his powers and deliver something truely wonderful filled with truth and beauty, even during this dark age.

1985-11-02 is no exception. I would want to "dedicate" this review to a friend of mine who commited suicide last November, a little more than 20 years after this show.

Set 2 starts with "Iko Iko", a nice and inspired version, although Garcia's voice is kinda shot. Next comes an "Estimated Prophet", wher Weir is certainly in the mood, jumping around and waving his hands in the air. Garcia starts to get his fingers going here, and they jump into a very nice, jammed out "Uncle John's Band". After the last chorus Garcia hints at "Playin' in the band", but quite quickly draws everything down to the minor scale, and hey! A great, and unusual transition into the perfect song. And so damn good executed. Yes, it's the omnipotent "China Doll". And what a version! Garcia suddenly sings good. Really. And his solos are true perfection, pure haunting beauty! This is art imitating life, I suspect. "China Doll" during the mid-80s was something spectacular, and can't really be compared to the 70s-versions. OK, and here's the suicide-link. The working title of this song was "The Suicide Song", according to Robert Hunter (I believe). Reading the lyrics, it's not hard to understand at least that the song is about death.

After that they jam a little bit and Garcia once more hints at "Playin'", but they decide not to, and the drummers get to do their thing. This of course leads into "Space", out of which comes a powerful "Morning Dew". This song never disappoints, does it? At least Garcia's voice is even better now than before, and he sings with a lot of emotion, as well as playing the guitar magnificently and very inspired. All in all, a great "Morning Dew", although not the best one I've heard. After the final climax, not surprisingly, they dive straight into "Throwing Stones". This one nicely segues into a "Lovelight" which of course isn't the same as a 60s-Pigpen-Lovelight, but you gotta give it to Weir for trying. He does really do a good job, no doubt. And he's very theatrical on stage, doing lots of cool moves :)

The "Baby Blue" encore is also nice. Personally, speaking of GD doing Dylan covers, among many I love the few performances of "She belongs to me" they did in 1985.

Jerry Garcia + Merl Saunders 1974-09-02

One can probably think long and hard about the Grateful Dead and their connection with jazz. I'm not gonna try to analyze that any further right here and now, except to say that this gig must be one of Garcia's finer moments, even though that's just a stupid statement on par with "Yeah, today the sun shone particularly well!" - but anywho/anyhow:

Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders 9/2/74
Marx Meadow (Golden Gate Park) San Francisco, CA

I Second That Emotion / Expressway (To Your Heart) / Sitting Here In Limbo / Neighbor, Neighbor / La-La / Mystery Train / How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)

What can i really say? A beautiful soundboard recording (atm available at least at www.bootcity.org) and the music is just beautiful! "Expressway" has got Jerry playing in a style I can't recall having really heard before, it's very different from anything he did with GD. And, holy cow, "Sittin' here in Limbo" is simply the sweetest, most beautiful version I've heard so far! (It must be said: I am no expert on the JG solo bands and I haven't really heard super-much of Garcia's solo bands, but hey, this is a blog and what you get is my subjective view on this! ;) ) "Neighbor, neighbor" is a little bit more blues/rock-ish, but the second true highlight this night is "La-La" - what a wonderful tune! This night it's performed thoroughly beautifully, with flutes and everything, everyone in the band hitting every note just right - at points, small points, in a way, it reminds me of GD's "Eyes of the world" and the jazzier renditions of that one, and at times Garcia's guitar playing is very recognizably in that mood.

So far, so jazzy.

Next comes a funky, rocking "Mystery Train" that's sure to kick some life into your dance muscles! After that one Jerry informs us that the time is almost up, but they got time for one more tune. "How Sweet It Is" is a wonderful song - sit back and enjoy!

Motorpsycho 1993-09-21

Motorpsycho, Rote Fabrik, Zürich, SUI - 21.09.1993
Source: Unknown audience > ana? > CD-R > FLAC

Setlist: Home Of The Brave / Flesh Harrower / Feedtime / Mountain / Giftland -> The House At Pooneil Corners / Demon Box -> Step Inside Again -> Walk On Guilded Splinters -> Demon Box / The Golden Core / Nothing To Say

The sound ain't on top of the world here, but it's quite clear, maybe lacking some bass, but in any case it really manges to capture & transmit the wild energy unleashed by Motorpsycho this september evening back in 1993. They are simply on fire, on the verge of complete meltdown!

"Home of the brave" is raw, pure, kick-ass horse power, with a potentially deadly, intense & insane noise jam in the middle, and also some Matt Burt-samples here & there. After some inaudible jokes from Bent and monkey-like screams from someone in the audience they head into "Fleshharrower", a rendition covered in barbed wire. "Feedtime" is no less so. I'm wondering if maybe the "Rote Fabrik" got its name because of getting red hot after Motorpsycho played there? It wouldn't surprise me! This gig is btw the first one at this venue, and they didn't return before 2002 I think (or maybe 2001). Anyway, the reader is probably not surprised to learn that the next song, "Mountain", carries on the show with an equally heavy force. The middle part of the song jumps right out into space, with the familiar "Echoes"-ish groove, and Snah doing some really delicate and melodic soloing, and Geb keeps the train perfectly on time and helps fill out the sound at the same time. Is that Deathprod I also hear there? If I'm not mistaken he was with them on this tour, and judging by the sounds here that's very much possible! In any case they build up their mountain to a big and powerful one, in a masterful way. The overall structure is very much as one expects.

After "Mountain" they quickly get the "Giftland" intro-loop starting, and Bent announces that "This is a powerballad" and everyone should light their cigarette lighters (I think that's what he says). Well, the word "powerballad" certainly gets redefined here! But in a strange way it fits - i mean - "Giftland" can be called a ballad, but it's damn powerful! The song had its live debut less than 3 weeks earlier (september 2.), and of course wasn't officially released yet. Luckily Bent's voice is in better shape now, so Snah doesn't have to sing it this time. This has got to be one of the coolest of the early versions of "Giftland" that exists on tape - it's quite simply gorgeous - because just when you expect the song to explode into the magnificent climax - it doesn't! Do you wanna know what happens? Without a warning they take a detour straight into "The House at Pooneil Corners"!!! How strange, and cool! It leaves "Giftland" as simply a gorgeous, and somewhat strange, ballad! And with the way cool and unexpected segue into "Pooneil" this gets 5 stars in my book!

"Demon Box". Ah. Yes. That one. There's not much I feel I can say! Take all the power and energy displayed earlier this night, add it together and multiply the result by your favorite high number, and you're close. And oh, they end up enteraining us for over 24 minutes with this "Box". Please fasten seat belts. Noisespacenoisecrazynoisemeltdownmindblowingyeah! The middle jam is heavily dominated by Deathprod and various synths - way cool actually! And yeah, then we get "Step Inside Again" coming out of that semi-chaotic jam, a somewhat noisy, scary version. It continues into a "walk on guilded splinters" before they explode back into the Box. It ends quietly, and they go almost straight into "The Golden Core". Or, that is, they start the Core, but stops, perhaps to let the monkey-impersonator do his thing? (He does!)

Disc 2 starts here, and the sound is slightly different. Different source? Or perhaps just the taper moved to a better location? The sound is now quite a bit clearer at least. "The Golden Core" starts its magnificense, and what can one say? There are really not many words capable of doing this song justice. Perhaps the germans have one? Anyhow it's a bit disappointing that Snah sings, but this time he actually does a quite decent job! And it all gets sweeter when Bent joins in on the "a time for everything" part.

They end it all with "Nothing To Say", which is missing from the official setlist at the unoff.

My favorite Grateful Dead songs

OK, here's an impossible task: list your favorite Grateful Dead songs!

Here's mine:
(I omit the obvious ones - Dark Star, The Other One & Playin' In The Band.)

1. China Doll
2. Terrapin Station
3. Scarlet Begonias > Fire on the Mountain
4. Help on the Way > Slipknot! > Franklin's Tower
5. Eyes of the World
6. Weather Report Suite
7. Althea

uh, crap. This is impossible! I think only the first 2 are correct. The rest should all be on a shared third place! And yes, a lot more songs should be there! This is just a tentative list.

The Grateful Dead anno 1977 (and some more)

I can't help but ask - what in the world was this band doing in 1977? I mean - how is it possibly to play such majestic, perfect music? Any song the Grateful Dead played in 1977 seems to be able to raise the dead, create world peace & cure cancer - to say the least! OK, my enthusiasm is enormous, but - listen! How can one, if one has heard this, a sufficient amount of times, not agree that it's the best thing ever? The complexity & the emotions, the synchronicity, a band shock full of creativity & synchronized like an atomic clock! And the most beautiful songs EVER!

Hell yeah, I've come to love every era of the Grateful Dead, be it the psychedelia of '69 or the haunting ghostly darkness of the mid-80s or the bursts of genuine brilliance that were more or less present in 88-95. But: 1977. How can anything beat this? Ah yes, everything is just as fantastic - 1972 Dark Star, 1973 Eyes of the World, 1984 China Doll, ...

Ah, it's impossible to say what is better... Just enjoy it all! :)

Motorpsycho 1993-09-02

motorpsycho - democrazy, gent, belgium - september 02, 1993
source: Front-of-the-house recording made with a tape deck.

1 intro/home of the brave [aborted] (6:20) / 2 home of the brave (7:32) / 3 sheer profoundity & flesh harrower (7:31) / 4 nothing to say (6:10) / 5 giftland (7:53) / 6 demon box (19:16) [incl. "step inside again"; "walk on guilded splinters" & "free your mind"] / 7 the golden core (14:50)

"Hello, we're Motorpsycho and we fucked up again." says Bent after Home of the brave is aborted due to being out of tune. They restart it after getting in tune, and we're treated to a thick, heavy and wild version! In the middle they suddenly play some sample of Matt Burt reading one of his poems, one I've never heard before. I don't know if that was normal back in '93. After the song a banter-happy Bent tells us that he broke a string, and "Okey, this gonna be one of those nights, huh?" He continues talking about that he's having a cold, so the audience shouldn't stand too close to him. "Sheer Profoundity" is introduced as "a little song" which I find most inappropriate! It's a heavy metal beast! Anyhow it's not too exciting for me personally, except Bent's hilarious lyrical twist in this performance: "I've waited all my life, sir, to tune my guitar for you, sir!", keeping up with the out-of-tune-guitar theme which seems to become a running joke of the night. The following "Flesh harrower" continues the heaviness and screaming, and there is something about this quite simple and angry song that catch my attention!

Btw, the sound of this recording is very good for a MP audience recording.

"Nothing to say" is introduced by joker Bent as a song from Demon box called "Nothing at all" and kicks off just like it's supposed to do. It moves along with no major fuck-ups of any kind. Finally, after a while, Snah goes into a short solo, and they take it down "to the river". Nothing big happening so far, as opposed to later versions where they went into great impovisational spaces. This night though, they keep it safe and close to the album version, perhaps because they are afraid of fucking up more...?

"Giftland" is a real treat - still banter-happy Bent informs us that it's a new thing "we've never ever played live before"! The intro is different, it lacks the deathprod-noise-loop, and it's somewhat fast. For some reason Snah sings lead, and confesses before that chorus that he can't remember the words! Snah's voice back then wasn't very good, so it's nice when in the chorus Bent joins in, and after that Bent keeps up singing, doing lead on the next verses, which gets strangely funky, mainly driven by Gebhardt serving us some delicate drum-work! The big climax kicks in just as expected, but Snah's solo/playing is slightly different from the finished version, but that's no surprise. but then comes something I've never heard before! An ending part that fits nicely into the known climax, with Snah singing, unhearable words, but a very nice melody! They must have dropped this afterwords, or maybe it was improvised there and then?

"Let's party!" Bent says after "Giftland", and then they kick into "Demon Box", which is a good 19 minutes long this time. It starts like one expects, it's an angry & heavy piece! It's a screamer, and a great one! The "Demon Boooox!"-part kicks hard with backup vocals probably by Snah. Bent delivers a very rythmic second verse, like "I - saw - you - carve - Love - on - your - knuckles"! Now I expect the space out portion of the song to emerge, in the post-chorus aftermath which for a while here continues grooving on, before things fall down into unknown territories. They seem to go for space this time. Noise. Space. Synth. Aia! I suspect Deathprod is there. And whaddaya know? "Step Inside" emerges from this spaciness! And it's a very space rendition of this multi-faceted tune. After a bit Bent converts the lyrics into "I walk on guilded splinters" & further quotes Hawkwind (?) - "Free your mind & your ass will folllow!" - and then, after some ad lib vocalization, they jump back into "Demon Box" to finish it! A truly wonderful version of this motorpsychodelic anthem!

After that excursion, Bent announces that they'll finish with another unreleased thing called "The Golden Core". Why on earth Snah sang that song back then is uncomprehensible to me, but he did. Too bad he couldn't sing particularly good back then! Nowadays he's improved his voice a lot, but back then it was quite ... uhm ... not good. The song picks up when Bent kicks in on backup vocals though! Those moments are magnificent and witness of times yet to come! The structure of the song was at this point in time very much as we have come to know it through "Timothy's Monster". The build-up is quite glorious, it's very impressive to hear what this band was capable of as early as 1993! A strange memory just popped into the consciouspart of my1 mind, btw. Strange. Anyway, they build up "The Golden Core" into something extraordinary, and it becomes clear why they quickly gained a great reputation/audience after releasing "Demon Box" and the subsequent touring. What a band!

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Grateful Dead 1977-04-23

OK, the "Help on the way > Slipknot! > Franklin's Tower" on this one is stupendous. Slipknot alone, 9 full minutes of it, can bring tears to your eyes! The GD Taping Compendium comments that it's particularly long for 1977. It sure is a perfect giant, shock full of confidence, truth & beauty! In the end they pull of the transition roll into "Franklin's Tower" - and my god!!! What a raging, fire breathing, insane creature that has taken place in the Tower this night!

"If you get confused, listen to the music play!" INDEED!