2 posts tagged “live dead”

The Grateful Dead were quite erratic during the 1980s, as the band members' various enjoyment protocols started to catch up with them. However, they did manage every so often to pull their shit together enough to play a good show. The year when it seemed to happen the most was 1989, including their legendary three-night stand at the Alpine Valley amphitheater in East Troy, WI. In this selection, "Scarlet Begonias" is liberated from its usual pairing with "Fire On the Mountain" and instead sandwiched between "Sugar Magnolia" and "Man Smart, Woman Smarter" which works surprisingly well.

Last Wednesday night I saw the Dark Star Orchestra, a Grateful Dead tribute band of some renown, although calling them a tribute band is like saying Jerry Garcia enjoyed being in an altered state of mind. These guys did by far the best musical recreation of any musical act I've ever seen, Grateful Dead or otherwise. Although they didn't really look like the Dead, if you closed your eyes, it really sounded like them .Scarily so. And not burned out, sandblast Jerry off the stage 80s and 90s Dead either, but the prime 70s edition of the band, when they were young, hungry and capable of producing some of the most sublimely complex music of all time (but that still rocks.)

Anyway, the Dark Star Orchestra's thing is that they recreate Dead Shows song for song, note for note, as precisely as possible, even going so far as to use vintage amps and equipment. In a way it's sort of strange, trying to so precisely duplicate a band whose basic metier was messy, improvised and later in their career, downright sloppy. You can't argue with the results, though, perhaps evidence that enlightenment can be achieved by precise discipline just as much as through unfettered freedom. 

This is the set list from the show (what I thought were highlights of the show in bold.)

Show #1,379 - Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at Great American Music Hall, San Francisco, CA
Performing 2/24/1974 Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA
1:U.S. Blues, Mexicali, B. E. Women, BIODTL, Candyman, Jack Straw, China Cat> I Know You Rider, El Paso, Loser, Playin
2:Cumberland, Roses, Big River, Bertha, WRS Prelude> WRS Part 1> Let It Grow> Row Jimmy> Ship of Fools, Promised, Dark Star> Morning Dew, Sugar Magnolia, NFA> GDTRFB> NFA
Encore: Baby Blue
Filler: Walk In The Sunshine
DSO with Donna Jean Godchaux - with special guest Rob Barraco - Entire show with Donna Jean Godchaux

Here's an mp3 of the original Grateful Dead show that the DSO recreated, of Not Fade Away into Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad back into Not Fade Away (NFA->GDTRFB->NFA in setlist-ese.)

Unfortunately the mp3 I downloaded of Dark Star->Morning Dew exceeded Vox's size limit of 25mb for audio files. You can find bitorrents of the entire show pretty easily, though, thanks to the Dead's liberal policy on show trading via the Internet.