1969: Live/Dead Review

THE GRATEFUL DEAD - LIVE/DEAD

Live Dead explains why the Dead are one of the best performing bands in America, why their music touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists.

A list of song titles would mean very little in terms of what actually goes on inside the album. Like the early Cream, the Dead in concert tend to use their regular material as a jumping-off point, as little frameworks that exist only for what can be built on top of them. In "Dark Star," for example, they give a token reading of the song itself, waiting patiently until the vocal drops and Garcia's guitar comes out front to begin the action. About ten minutes later, if you can manage to look up by then, you might realize that what is happening bears as little resemblance to "Dark Star" as all that rollin' and tumblin' stuff did to "Spoonful." But of course, by that time, it just doesn't matter, and when the Dead slowing bring the song back around to "Dark Star," each change made with care and a strange kind of tact, you can only marvel at the distance you've traveled in such a short period of time.

Live Dead also exhibits the group's quite considerable ability in tying together differing song-threads, letting them pass naturally into one another, almost if they had been especially designed for such a move. A jamming band (and the Dead are that, if nothing else) has to rely on its sense of Flow, on its talent in taking that small series of steps which will ultimately bring it to some entirely different place from where it started. On side two, they begin with "St. Stephen," working at that until they magically appear in "The Eleven," and then, just before the final tape cut-off, you can hear them changing again with "Turn On Your Lovelight." It's beautifully conceived and done, each piece clicking together perfectly.

One of the finer things about the record is that the cuts seem to have been chosen with a great deal of care. Even on the best of nights, the group as a whole has a tendency to be spotty, with the many good moments intermingled with the bad. This is not necessarily a minus factor; when you work on such tenuous ground as the Dead, where each note means holding a balance between seven very different people and a less concrete mass out front, it's only logical to expect a large number of misses. If you've ever seen them live, you know that there are times when they simply can't do it, when the thread that has been so carefully nursed is suddenly snapped apart, when they amble around, trying to find the key that will unlock the door again.

Live Dead contains none of this searching. It's all there, up moment after moment, everything snugly tucked in place, "Turn On Your Lovelight," the usual Pigpen show-stopper, is right to the point here, all the different sections coming together in a nice ripe whole, moving quickly with nary a jerk or piece left hanging. Even a long eight-minute section of feedback on side four is handled well, each individual howl pinpointed with unerring accuracy. And as in concert, a piece from the Incredible String Band's "A Very Cellular Song" is a perfect way to close out the show.

I'm not going to end this by using some overworn phrase about how this is possibly the best live album ever a must for your record collection something no fan should be without etc. etc. But if you'd like to visit a place where rock is likely to be in about five years, you might think of giving Live Dead a listen or two.

(by Lenny Kaye, from Rolling Stone, February 7 1970)

* * *

GRATEFUL FOR 'THE DEAD'

"Live Dead explains why the Dead are one of the best performing bands in America, why their music touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exist," [states] The Rolling Stone, with whom all hearers agree, understanding the truth in this statement. Picture San Francisco in the summer of 1968 at the peak of the psychedelic-love revolution, with the Airplane, Country Joe, and the Dead, the hippies, and all of the beautiful people that sent their message directly to every person under thirty, whether they care to admit it or not. Go and see the Dead and for a couple of hours you are there, with the music they are playing you feel every note until every muscle in your body is just itching to get up and dance, clap, just make any sound to try and move with the Dead. Ask anyone who saw them at Kleinhans last month and they'll tell you that what has just been said is not enough.

The titles of the songs are just a point from which they roam in the most incredibly together, flowing jam of which they are in perfect control at every moment - this is the miracle of the Dead. With seven excellent musicians, including two drummers, an organist, Pig Pen, who plays congas and organ, and also sings, three guitarists, and gong-like huge cymbals that give a curiously surrealistic effect. The guitarists are led by Jerry Garcia who is an underrated musician of rock, [who] holds them together with his floating, soaring leads that guide the direction they take. He also plays a great steel guitar. Being aware of the musical popularity of the seven, it is hard to comprehend their co-ordination when they jam (which is all they do as each cut runs from 6-25 minutes, reminiscent of the Cream).

The album opens with the 23-minute "Dark Star" in which all seven get together, and feel where the others are at that night. The beautiful "St. Stephen" sort of starts The Dead and the crowd taking off. Pig Pen's great vocal show on "Turn on Your Love Light" has everyone moving, with The Dead getting louder, faster, and harder. It reminds me of what sociologists try to learn from the communal, physical aspect of rock concerts. "Death Don't Have No Mercy" completes the trip with the circular, winding rhythm of The Dead. Without trite banalities of "how much you'd like it," or "why you should buy it," I refer again to The Rolling Stone, "if you want to know where rock music is going to be in five years, listen to this album."

(by Kevin Lovett, from the Griffin, Buffalo NY, 17 April 1970) 

Thanks to Dave Davis.