GRATEFUL DEAD!!!
Almost a year ago The Grateful Dead made their way to a much over crowded Allen Theatre. This year, however, with Public Hall as their shelter, The Grateful Dead should have enough room to play for all of their thousands of fans.
They will play Public Hall on Saturday, October 28th at 7:30 p.m. Also on the bill will be the beautiful, mellow and aspiring Rowan Brothers, who had a little help from The Dead on their debut Columbia LP.
Tickets for this memorable occasion (and I'm not being presumptuous) are $4.50 in advance and $5.00 the day of the show.
After a few years as a quintet - more or less - The Grateful Dead is back to being a six-man band. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, and Billy Kreutzmann remain the core of the band. However, with the six month absence of Ron McKernan (aka Pig Pen) on keyboards, Keith Godcheaux was his replacement. When "Pig Pen" returned, Godcheaux remained.
Today, they are six. Or seven (if Keith's wife, Donna, sings with them on harmonies). Or eight (if ex-drummer, Mickey Hart, happens by).
The additional adventures of The Grateful Dead may be evidenced by any one of their solo (used loosely) albums: Bob Weir's ACE; Jerry Garcia's GARCIA; Mickey Hart's ROLLING THUNDER, or on any number of other artists that are augmented by members of The Dead.
As wars wage back and forth as to who is "the greatest rock and roll band on earth," The Grateful Dead spend most of their earthly hours just "Playing In The Band," as the song goes.
The evolution of The Grateful Dead, from one of the forerunners of the 1967-68 psychedelic era to San Francisco to an internationally accepted cluster of well-respected musicians has been an amazing one: they are now among the leaders of the rock establishment.
Chris and Lorin Rowan are one of Jerry Garcia's favorite new acts - one that hasn't soured, gone heavy or turned political; they are fresh and innocent, but possess complete control of their music. At the invitation of The Dead (just as The New Riders of The Purple Sage were "debuted"), The Rowan Brothers are on tour with them and will certainly make a strong supporting act.
(by Jim Girard, from the Scene, 26 October 1972)
https://archive.org/details/gd72-10-28.sbd.cotsman.20301.sbeok.shnf
Thanks to jgmf.blogspot.com
I don't have an actual review (or even audience account) of this show, but the announcement is interesting in itself. It was on the front page of the Scene, a Cleveland entertainment weekly.
ReplyDeleteThe writer thinks Pigpen is still with the band - he evidently didn't get the band newsletter, which announced that Pigpen wasn't going to be on tour. He's also uncertain whether Donna (or even Mickey) will show up.
He mentions that the Dead's last show in Cleveland, 10/29/71 at the Allen Theater, was "much overcrowded" - the Allen had about 3000 seats, the Public Hall had 10,000.
He doesn't give any personal reaction to seeing the Dead before, or what to expect, other than to say that any Dead show is going to be "a memorable occasion" and that they're "among the leaders of the rock establishment."
This is our only contemporary evidence that the Rowan Brothers opened for the Dead on this tour. Garcia had spoken highly of the Rowans in his Rolling Stone interview (Columbia used his comments to promote their album), and he & Kreutzmann had played uncredited on their album: http://deaddisc.com/disc/Rowan_Brothers.htm
Garcia also played pedal steel with the Rowans on a couple occasions (7/2/71, 11/3/72). But apparently they did not go over well on the Dead tour - their manager Richard Loren recalled in his recent memoir: "At the insistence of Columbia Records, the Rowans went on tour as the opening act for the Grateful Dead. With their boyish charms, delicate Simon & Garfunkel-Everly Brothers harmonies, and catchy commercial songs, the Rowans could not have been more dissimilar to the Grateful Dead. The Dead's audience wanted to like them because Jerry had said they were great, but the match was all wrong." (High Notes p.114)
A reviewer who'd seen them open for the 8/5/71 show was also not impressed: "In spite of all the Rowens' hokum dating back to the early days of rock and their attempt to have an audience-participation show, the kids did not join in. They listened and some of the pieces evoked mild approval but there was no real communication. As musicians the brothers were okay."
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/07/august-5-1971-hollywood-palladium.html
The last time the Rowans opened for the Dead was on 12/12/72 (when both bands wore Nudie suits). I don't know how many shows in the fall tour they opened for - haven't found any posters or audience memories of them.
For that matter, I don't have reviews of any fall '72 shows. So this will conclude my run through 1972 for now - next month I'll post some older articles, then continue with 1973.