April 29, 1972: Musikhalle, Hamburg, West Germany

 GRATEFUL DEAD IN HAMBURG

Anyone who reads the relevant English press from time to time already knew a few months ago that the Grateful Dead were going to tour England. And one or the other harbored the silent hope that the Dead would perhaps extend their English tour to a European tour and even stop in Germany a few times, but at least once in Frankfurt. Unfortunately, it seems to be the norm that the big American bands only give one concert in Frankfurt, most recently the Steve Miller Band, Manassas, or Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band, and soon Rita Coolidge, Kris Kristoffersson and Joni Mitchell. Well, not quite so with the Grateful Dead. After all, they gave three concerts in Germany at the end of April, namely in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt, and Hamburg; on May 18th they will still be in Munich, and on May 27th those who couldn't see the Dead in concert will be able to see them at the Beat Club.
But now to the concert in Hamburg. The Music Hall at Karl-Muck-Platz was almost sold out. At 8:00 p.m. the bell rang for the third time, which meant: everyone in your seats. So there I sat and waited for the band that I had always wanted to see and hear "live". Ten minutes later the Grateful Dead appeared on stage: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Keith Godcheaux, Pigpen, and Donna Godcheaux. To get straight to the point, Mrs. Godcheaux was only used on a few tracks.
In the beginning, Jerry Garcia and his men played a lot of little songs which weren't exactly outstanding, and people clapped for the sake of decency, after all they were the great Grateful Dead, what else could you do. The audience didn't know what to do with the music. Many probably only knew the Grateful Dead by name and associated with the term Grateful Dead: Hippie Communes, Freaks, Rock'n Roll, Happenings, or the devil knows what; but that they now played strongly Country & Western inspired music, to which you could just about tap the beat with two fingers, you wouldn't have expected that. It was actually like that, for those who didn't know the Dead, the first 90 minutes were boring, the first track sounded like the last. And then Bob Weir announced the next track: St. Stephen. Many knew the piece well, because shouts of bravo and applause could be heard from everywhere. It was only after almost two hours that it was worth listening more intensively, St. Stephen was the beginning. Jerry Garcia played one of his unique guitar solos. Jerry pulled everyone under his spell, his fellow players and the audience. After the final chord, everyone clapped their hands enthusiastically. The intensity of the applause rose many times.
After that, the Dead took a little break. They had given the audience a little taste of what was to come with St. Stephen.
After ten minutes they were back. They were playing faster and faster pieces now. Satisfied, the audience nodded and sometimes clapped their hands to the beat. Eventually "Know You Rider" came along with beautiful vocal arrangements and instrumental passages. At this point I would like to particularly mention the pianist Keith Godcheaux, who handled his piano like Nicky Hopkins, he played the typical honky tonk sound you can hear in any village pub in western America.
A blues piece followed, Jerry Garcia played an A1 blues solo. But the band didn't let anyone forget that they were on stage, the typical Grateful Dead style was unmistakable. Pigpen got up from his organ, which was hardly heard anyway, and stood at the microphone. His singing showed very clearly that he grew up with the blues. Now it was the turn of Rock'n Roll. The piece was called "Good Lovin". Maybe someone still knows the piece. The Young Rascals once had a big hit with it. The Dead used "Good Lovin" as the framework for a Rock'n Roll medley. In the middle you could hear some classic Rock'n Roll melodies. The audience was 100 percent satisfied. "It's a good thing I stayed," everyone thought. Some people cried out for the better-known Dead songs "Dark Star", "Turn on your love light", and "Death don't have no mercy." Well, the Dead felt persuaded to play "Dark Star." They obviously enjoyed playing this piece very much. Everyone improvised off the top of their head. No one stuck to a particular rhythm or beat or even to a harmony. It turned into musical chaos. The audience was slain in their seats. It was like a trip into outer space. After 30 minutes "Dark Star" was over. The audience could hardly calm down. A modest "Thank you" was heard from the stage.
Two or three more pieces followed, which proved once again how well the individual group members are attuned to one another. They've known each other for a number of years, so it's no wonder. But unfortunately you don't see that very often. In the English trade press, terms like "relaxed" and "together" will certainly be read more than once.
Shortly after midnight the Dead left the stage. The audience stood almost as one on the velvet armchairs and yelled for an encore. But it wasn't until a few minutes later when the light in the hall went on again and the roadies started dismantling the system that you knew that the Dead wouldn't be coming back. They were probably at the end of their physical strength. After all, they had played four full hours.

(by Wilfried Lilie, from Flash #12, July 1972)

https://archive.org/details/gd1972-04-29.141886.aud.wolsander.dalton.miller.sirmick.flac1644 

Thanks to Dave Davis. 

* * * 

The original German article (pardon the lack of umlauts) -- 

GRATEFUL DEAD IN HAMBURG

Wer ab und zu die einschlaegige englische Presse liest, der wusste schon vor einigen Monaten, dass die Grateful Dead eine England-Tournee unternehmen wuerden. Und der eine oder andere hegte die stille Hoffnung, dass die Dead vielleicht ihre England-Tournee auf eine Europa-Tournee ausweiten wuerden und dabei sogar ein paarmal in Deutschland halt machen wuerden, zumindest aber einmal in Frankfurt. Es scheint leider Gottes ueblich zu sein, dass die grossen amerikanischen Bands nur immer ein Konzert in Frankfurt geben, zuletzt die Steve Miller Band, Manassas oder Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band und demnachst Rita Coolidge, Kris Kristoffersson und Joni Mitchell. Nun ja, nicht ganz so bei den Grateful Dead. Sie gaben Ende April immerhin drei Konzerte in Deutschland, namlich in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt und Hamburg, am 18. Mai werden sie dann noch in Munchen sein, und am 27. Mai werden diejenigen, die die Dead nicht im Konzert erleben konnten, sie im Beat-Club sehen koennen.
Aber jetzt zum Konzert in Hamburg. Die Musikhalle am Karl-Muck-Platz war nahezu ausverkauft. Um 20.00 Uhr klingelte es zum dritten Mal, das bedeutete: Alles auf die Plaetze. Da sass ich denn nun und wartete auf die Band, die ich schon immer gern "live" sehen und hoeren wollte. Zehn Minuten spaeter erschienen die Grateful Dead auf der Buehne: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Keith Godcheaux, Pigpen und Donna Godcheaux. Um es gleich vorweg zu nehmen, Mrs. Godcheaux wurde nur bei einigen wenigen Stuecken eingesetzt.
Anfangs spielten Jerry Garcia und seine Mannen viele kleine Liedchen, die nicht gerade ueberragend waren und man klatschte anstandshalber, es waren schiesslich die grossen Grateful Dead, was sollte man auch anderes machen. Das Publikum wusste nichts Rechtes mit der Musik anzufangen. Viele kannten die Grateful Dead wohl nur vom Namen her und assoziierten mit dem Begriff Grateful Dead: Hippie-Kommune, Freaks, Rock'n Roll, Happening oder weiss der Teufel was, aber dass sie nun stark Country & Western inspirierte Musik spielten, zu der man gerade so mit zwei Fingern den Takt mitklopfen konnte, das hatte man nicht erwartet. Es war tatsaechlich so, wer die Dead nicht kannte, fuer den waren die ersten 90 Minuten langweilig, das erste Stueck klang wie das letzte. Und dann sagte Bob Weir das naechste Stueck an: St. Stephen. Viele kannten das Stueck wohl, denn von ueberhall her hoerte man Bravo-Rufe und Applaus. Erst nach knapp zwei Stunden lohnte es sich, einmal intensiver zuzuhoeren, St. Stephen war der Anfang. Jerry Garcia spielte eins seiner einzigartigen Gitarrensoli. Jerry riss alle in seinen Bann, seine Mitspieler und das Publikum. Nach dem Schlussakkord klatschte alles begeistert in die Haende. Die Intensitaet des Beifalls stieg um ein Vielfaches.
Danach machten die Dead eine kleine Pause. Sie hatten den Publikum mit St. Stephen einem kleinen Vorgeschmack auf das gegeben, was nun folgen sollte.
Nach zehn Minuten waren sie wieder da. Sie spielten jetzt immer schnellere Stuecke. Zufrieden nickte das Publikum und klatschte auch mal mit den Haenden den Takt mit. Irgendwann kam "Know You Rider" mit schoenen Vocal-Arrangements und Instrumental-Passagen. Besonders erwaehnen moechte ich an dieser Stelle den Pianisten Keith Godcheaux, der sein Piano bearbeitet wie Nicky Hopkins, er spielte den typischen Honky-Tonk-Sound, wie man ihn in jeder Dorfkneipe im Westen Amerikas hoeren kann.
Es folgte ein Blues-Stueck, Jerry Garcia spielte ein la-Blues-Solo. Die Band liess aber nicht vergessen, dass sie auf der Buehne Der typische Grateful Dead-Stil war unueberhoerbar. Pigpen erhob sich von seiner Orgel, die man sowieso kaum hoerte, und stellte sich ans Mikrophon. Sein Gesang liess ganz deutlich erkennen, dass er mit dem Blues gross geworden ist. Nun war der Rock'n Roll an der Reihe. "Good Lovin" hiess das Stuecke. Vielleicht kennt jemand das Stueck noch. Die Young Rascals hatten damit einmal einen grossen Hit. Die Dead benutzten "Good Lovin" als Rahmen fuer ein Rock'n Roll Medley. Mittendrin hoerte man dann kurz einige klassische Rock'n Roll Melodien. Das Publikum war 100prozentig zufrieden. "Man gut, dass ich noch geblieben bin," dachte sich jeder. Einige Leute schrien nach den bekannteren Dead-Songs "Dark Star," "Turn on your love light" und "Death don't have no mercy." Nun gut, die Dead fuehlten sich ueberredet, sie spielten "Dark Star." Sie spielten dies Stueck offenbar sehr gern. Jeder improvisierte frei von der Leber weg. Keiner hielt sich an einen bestimmten Rhythmus oder Takt oder gar an eine Harmonie. Es wurde zu einem musikalischen Chaos. Das Publikum hing erschlagen in den Raengen. Es war wie ein Trip in den Weltraum. Nach 30 Minuten war "Dark Star" beendet. Das Publikum konnte sich kaum beruhigen. Bescheiden hoerte man von der Buehne ein "Thank you".
Es folgten noch zwei oder drei Stuecke, die noch einmal bewiesen, wie gut die einzelnen Gruppenmitglieder aufeinander eingespielt sind. Sie kennen sich ja auch schon etliche Jahre, kein Wunder also. Aber so etwas trifft man leider nicht allzu oft. In der englischen Fachpresse wird man Begriffe wie "relaxed" und "together" bestimmt mehrmals lesen koennen.
Kurz nach Mitternacht verliessen die Dead die Buehne. Das Publikum stand nahezu geschlossen auf den samtbezogenen Sesseln und schrie nach einer Zugabe. Aber erst als nach einigen Minuten das Licht in der Halle wieder anging und die Roadies anfingen die Anlage abzubauen, da wusste man, dass die Dead nicht wiederkommen wuerden. Sie waren wohl am Ende ihrer physischen Kraefte. Sie hatten schiesslich vier volle Stunden gespielt.
WILFRIED LILIE

April 1972: the Dead arrive in London

PLAYING IN THE BAND

 

For the second time in the last two years, psychedelia's number one band, the Grateful Dead, have come to Europe to play for their fast increasing legions of devotees both here and on the Continent. Two years ago the Hollywood Festival appearance was a let-down for them, but not for the five hundred or so who trekked up to Staffordshire to see a band that were already a legend. Today the Dead are fresh from two sell-out extravaganzas at the Wembley Pool and with their last three albums have upped their appeal to that of 'a really big band.' Danae Brook, a longtime friend of the band, takes a look at the Dead of the old days in San Francisco, and of today.

 

Well the Grateful Dead are here. Mythic mystical revolving crystal globe from the history of psychedelic rock. Purveyors of energy through lapsed time. Mothers of invention surrounded by children. The Grateful Dead must have hovered in the minds of many English people confronted by the paradox of their simply chosen name - Garcia opened a dictionary one day and there sat Grateful Dead in perfect juxtaposition on the page. The two words stayed not only with the band, but with those who have tuned in to their music at any junction over the past seven years, or those who once upon a long time ago took the fearsome acid trail and found out not to be afraid of the unknown. 

The Dead were into acid before it became illegal. In 1965, Bob Hunter, the Dead's songwriter, and Ken Kesey, writer friend of Garcia, later to become leader of the Merry Pranksters and instigator of the Acid Tests, sampled l.s.d. under hospital guidance. 'They gave Hunter acid, psylocibin, and mescalin and put him in a little white room to watch,' says Garcia. The same thing happened to Kesey. 'They paid him to get stoned,' Pigpen remarks. Which started the pursuit of psychedelics, the Merry Pranksters, the Acid Tests where dances were held at the Family Dog, with the Dead's music and two bowls of punch set side by side, one spiked with l.s.d., one not; there were the Mime Troupe benefits, the Trips Festival, the Dead taking over the empty Carousel Ballroom for party nights and good times, the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park, Haight Ashbury the street where the first freaks lived on love dope discovery and not much else because the time was right, the sun was hot, beautiful Golden Gate Park stretched to the ocean, and through it all the Dead's music swelled and grew with each new adventure. After that came the Monterey Festival where San Francisco's sound was heard for the  [line missing]  pretty soon the San Francisco hippies were legendary, the Dead among them. 

So we have a skeleton hung in the cupboard of English minds, but only briefly, at Newcastle two years ago, brought out and dusted in public here. But this Easter Sunday saw the arrival at London Airport of forty-five of the Grateful Dead family, and on April 7th and 8th they filled an ice-pool with liquid fire. 

Each of their two Wembley concerts lasted four hours and packed in an 8,000 capacity audience. Considering the obstacles hurled in their path, it is amazing they arrived at all, let alone filled Wembley at ten days' notice.  

 

The journey here has a tangled history we have come to expect from this band. So many rumours in the past few years of their advent here, which have come to nothing. Most disappointing of all was their failure to show up at the Glastonbury Festival last year. 

'Don't know why we didn't make it,' Garcia says now. 'It just wasn't right at the time.' But they are much interested in energy centres of the earth and the ley lines, and not only plan to visit Glastonbury when they come back to England after their European tour ends in the last week of May, but may also record a side of the double L.P., to be put out as a benefit for Glastonbury. 

'So far we haven't gotten round to cracking Europe,' said Bob Weir when they arrived in London. 'But now we've finally made it! We're bringing everybody because it seemed like the thing to do. It makes it like a party going through Europe rather than a working tour.' 

But even this time it was hard to get it on. First tour manager Sam Cutler, ex-roadie to the Rolling Stones, came over to smooth the way and set up gigs. He arranged a deal with producer John Morris for the band to play four nights at the Rainbow. Morris set up meetings with the European promoters, Cutler made a lightning tour of six countries - Germany, Denmark, France, Holland, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, returned with details to San Francisco, and sent back word that the band was ready to go. Then the Rainbow collapses under dire financial strain. Impossible to find a way round the situation, so Morris suggests the Hammersmith Commodore, a pretty art-deco theatre that holds 2,200 and is used as a Bingo hall. The band is about to leave for New York. The family road trip has begun. They say yes. However neighbouring residents in Hammersmith get wind of proceedings and fearing for their sleep, put a council damper on those plans. By now the band is playing the Academy of Music in New York. Only alternatives are afternoons at the Lyceum and a night at the Roundhouse (which won't appeal to the roadies who have over 7 tons of equipment to move), or the marathon effort of Wembley's 8,000 capacity pool for two nights. At least there is time to set up at Wembley. Rock Scully, one of the Dead's managers and oldest of friends from Haight days and the Diggers, arrives to check it out. He gives the okay. There are only ten days left to performance time, with slothful Easter weekend falling in the middle. But Scully's arrival made it all real, and released a shock of energy that built and built until Wembley was hung with parachute silk and the band turned on 16,000 curious British Deadheads. 

Two years ago, on their one other visit to England, they played the Hollywood Festival at Newcastle-under-Lyme on a day of bluebell brightness. They say they didn't get off playing there, and were disappointed in the audience reaction. As musicians their dependence on audience feedback is marked. They set up a vibration and to get high themselves like to feel it come back. To me the Hollywood audience seemed very enthusiastic. But then I'm used to English undemonstrativeness and Americans aren't. It was a three hour set and at the end it seemed a whole field of waving bodies would deluge the stage. They smile at their disappointment now, because Wembley amazed them: 'It's the same as at home,' said Garcia in delight. 

When they arrived in London, most of the old ladies were still blown out by [the] reaction to their band in New York. It seems they caused near riot. Every night the audience knew the words of all the songs, it was impossible to keep the stage clear, and, which is new to them, members of the band were stopped in the street confronted by autograph books and 'hey man!' wherever they turned.

'I guess the Grateful Dead is a big band now,' said Susila, wife of drummer Bill Kreutzman. 'It's surprised us all!' 

 

But if they weren't a big band they wouldn't have enough money to take 45 people on a tour of Europe. 

'This is what we do when we're rich,' smiles Garcia. And not long ago they were broke. Their manager, father of ex-drummer Micky Hart, dipped his hands in the till so deftly that it left the Grateful Dead thousands of dollars in debt. It is only in the past year that things have eased up enough financially for them to take a holiday, take on another musician (Keith Godschaux the pianist joined them last summer), and bring the family on tour. 

It is not only financial reasons which make it an unusual event for all the old ladies to be on the road. It is also because they have children. Susila and Bill Kreutzman have a son, Justin; Garcia and Mountain Girl have a two year old daughter, Annabel, and raise Sunshine, Kesey and Mountain Girl's daughter. This time the kids have been left with friends and the few members of the family left behind to cope with the office in California. Ramrod, the Dead's quippie who used to be a Merry Prankster along with Mountain Girl and was busted with Kesey in Mexico, is the only one to bring a child, and that's because his son is at the manageable six month stage. 

They have two sleek coaches to take them through Europe. One coach has a small kitchen in the rear with facilities to brew coffee, store glasses, and keep coke cold. The other has a lavatory and a bilingual Danish driver who speaks no English. Journeys are made as comfortable as possible by stocking up with musical instruments, cards, food, books, plastic masks, and drinks. 

Seven tons of equipment goes in trucks, while the ten quippies ride on the bus. Reason for the large crew is that Bob Mathews, who runs Alembic studios, the Dead's recording outfit, has brought all the equipment necessary for 16-track recording of performances. So there are his people as well as the Dead's own equipment handlers. The office too, is on the road, including road manager Sam Cutler, managers Rock Scully and Jon MacIntyre, business manager David Parker, Allen Trist who organises the Dead's publishing company - Ice Nine, [the] Dead's personal tour photographer Mary Anne, their lighting lady, Candice, several secretaries, plus Dale Franklin who is also secretary to the New Riders of the Purple Sage, the band for which Phil Lesh played bass at the beginning, and Garcia played pedal steel. 

Added to this array now is Donna Godschaux, wife of Keith the pianist, who, since New York, has begun to sing with the band. She used to do back up sessions on albums for singers like Presley, Joe Tex, Wilson Pickett, and Dionne Warwick, but until the Academy of Music has never been on stage. It is new for the Dead, and new for her, but she expresses no fear, only elation. 'I have no words for how much I love them,' she says. 'They have changed my whole life.' 

 

Her passion for this family of freaks is symptomatic of the fervour they inspire both within their own membership and from those close enough to get close. Perhaps part of the reason the bonds are so strong is that they go back so far. Hunter met Garcia in 1959. In 1961 they met up with Pigpen, Phil Lesh, Allen Trist - now in charge of the publishing company - and a couple of years later, Bob Weir. 

Weir, still only twenty-four, recalls the first time he and Garcia formed the idea of playing together. 

'It started on New Year's Eve, 1964. I went into the music store where Garcia was teaching guitar and banjo. That night he was sitting in the back of the store waiting for his students to show up and couldn't understand why they didn't. It occurred to me that it was New Year's Eve and the kids would figure it a holiday. Garcia took the point and we just more or less rapped all night and figured it might be nice to start a jug band just as an obscure side-line. Garcia was then playing in a pretty good bluegrass band and he thought he might like to start something new just to fill in the idle hours. He'd known Pigpen a long time, and they'd played together in the Zodiacs. He thought jug band music would be right up Pigpen's alley. 

'So we started the jug band and it just worked itself into a rock and roll band with short interim personnel changes. We got Billy Kreutzman our first drummer, and for the first couple of months the bass player was the owner of the store, who got us all our equipment. Then it got to the point where we became a serious hard-working rock and roll band and he couldn't make it any more. He had to run the store. Phil was a trumpet player at the time. He came to see us play and Garcia said hey - you've got perfect pitch - if you can learn to play bass how would you like to play with us? He did. 

'The Warlocks were conceived around New Year's Eve 1965. We've been together since then, although we changed the name to Grateful Dead a few months later because there was another band called the Warlocks. 

'I guess that's [a] quarter of my life. We were all born and raised in the Bay area except for Keith who was born in Seattle and raised in the Bay area. When we got together we were all from Palo Alto, with the exception of Bill, who just visited there with regularity.' 

Weir hies from a well-off upper middle class family who sent him boarding school hopping at an early age. Palo Alto was where he wanted to freak out and drop out and all those falling from tradition things that went with the first period of turning on. 

'We got with the Acid Tests when we were living at the Chateau, a big house only a few blocks away from where Kesey lived on Perry Lane. They were giving a party, a real high fun party, and a good party needs a rock and roll band. Somebody went up to Kesey and said there's this group of freaks that's a bug-eyed rock and roll band. It sounded like just the thing, and it was fun hanging out. I guess that's more or less the sum and total of how we got together. We were drawn together by good times.' 

After the Acid Tests they moved to L.A., then back to San Francisco, stayed there a while, then everybody started to drift back into Marin County where they've been since. 

For the future, they'll continue changing: 

'We've just added a piano player,' says Weir. 'Donna, his wife, is a great singer and we're working on bringing her into the act. Then Garcia and I were talking about doing a tour with maybe a brass section or a string section. But generally we'll just be the Grateful Dead, doing what it is we do.' 

What exactly it is they do, people are at odds to define. Garcia has said: 'In the popular...media...world, we're just a rock and roll band. We play rock and roll music, and it's part of our form, our vehicle - but it's not who we are totally...' 

According to him, the function they fill in their own little society, which is really not so little, is to act as a signpost to 'a new place.' 

If they do in fact do this, it is not so much because their music is exceptionally good, with a wide range from blues through country and western into rock and roll and then space-age electronic composition, but because they set an example to those who have talked about and tried to form an alternative way of living. They have managed to survive with a certain purity, both musically and ethically, the constant hype and bullshit surrounding what has now become the Music Business - an octopus with countless tentacles. Ploughing what profits there are straight back into their own co-operative will eventually make them independent of external powers such as record companies, publishing companies, and agents. The inevitable expansion of Alembic studios and Ice Nine Publishing will see to this. They do not work for vast sums of money to keep the musicians in luxury, they work for enough to keep a community of well over forty five people alive, working, and happy. They seldom quarrel among each other, and if tension builds up are familiar enough with each other's private mechanism to know where to blow the fuse. 

No one member of the band has a superstar complex waiting to be unleashed on the public. Garcia, I suspect, would like to relinquish some of the Mr. Goodvibes limelight people insist on handing him - Weir is ready and able to move into a more forward position on stage and off, and does - Keith Godschaux has brought another dimension to their sound. The balance is easy, its secret perhaps that it constantly changes. 

It will be nice to see them get a good run for their time at Bickershaw. It is the music they use for a language, and with as much time as they like, virtually, to set up and warm up, it should be a long hot summer evening - with a lot of grateful heads. 

(by Danae Brook, from Frendz magazine, April 1972) 

Thanks to Simon Phillips.

March 1972: Jerry Garcia Interview

 GARCIA: MASTER OF THE DEAD

 

Jerry Garcia phones SOUNDS from the States

 

It looks as though the Grateful Dead really are going to make it to England this time. 

It's been a long wait since their last (and only) gig on English soil, at the Hollywood Festival at Newcastle-under-Lyme - a wait of nearly three years. Curiously all the talk then was of Mungo Jerry's incredible crowd-stirring, rather than of the Dead. 

But it's said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and in the intervening three years the Dead's legendary reputation has continued to grow. Which is, on the fact of it, surprising. 

Their centrality in the West Coast music scene has made them a sort of touchstone for all American bands, particularly at the outset when the tales of long, euphoric sets started to filter through, and this was confirmed by their earlier album releases with continuous, complex but flowing pieces, "Anthem of the Sun" and "Aoxomoxoa". 

Since then the music has evolved into [a] slightly subdued, relaxed country vein with R. and B. overtones - not surprisingly, as this is the point from which they started. 

Jerry Garcia in particular has taken to playing a pedal steel, which is moving out of its original country music habitat and is being used increasingly by rock and roll bands, much to the disgust of the real Nashville cats, who do not believe that steel can be used for rock and roll and don't rate Garcia highly on the instrument anyway. 

The Dead, it hardly needs adding, don't record IN Nashville, but San Francisco. So they really have no greater claim to authenticity or originality than, say, our own Brinsley Schwarz. 

But on the principle that the grass is greener, English fans have faithfully bought Dead albums and found them pretty easy to live with. 

The latest development - in common with other well-established permanent bands - has been for individual members to do solo projects. 

This has resulted in Jerry Garcia making an album with organist Howard Wales, which featured him playing some funky, striding guitar, and his own solo album which sounds so like the Dead that it made you wonder whether the rest of the band was really necessary. 

The latest project is Bob Weir's solo album, which has just been completed and - surprise! - features the Grateful Dead...this is the background to the Dead's impending European trip, mooted for so long that a faint air of incredulity still surrounds the confirmed dates. 

 

Taking the Grateful Dead and entourage out of the country demands great organisational skill, as Jerry Garcia pointed out when he phoned from L.A. last week: 

"It's an incredible undertaking. In addition to all the usual gear, guitars and amps and so on, we're going to bring a sixteen-track with us and we hope to come back with another album. There are really huge problems in logistics and communications though. Also the way the whole scene happens is a non-decision-making basis - it takes a long time for everyone to decide that they really want to go anywhere." 

Was this the reason that only now were we getting to see the Dead play a full-scale tour, discounting the flying visit in 1969? 

"The timings have always been unfortunate before, when we were all involved in other things. It's an amazing decision for us to leave the country, but we're looking forward to making a lot of contacts on the British leg of the trip - people we've been in touch with but never really got acquainted with." 

Much of the Dead's reputation as a leading band has been earned for their long live sets, and several of their albums have been recorded in performance, notably their latest, "Grateful Dead", and "Live/Dead", so recording a live album in England and Europe seems a logical extension of what's already been happening. 

But the studio albums have an altogether different feel. What exactly was happening in their music? "We still do the long sets, but it's difficult to describe what's happening. 

"We have a new pianist, Keith Godchaux, and gradually that's started to create effects." 

So it looks like you'll just have to wait and find out. Meanwhile, what about the solo records? 

"Well, all that's a long time ago - we were working on the Howard Wales record over a year ago, and we were doing my solo record last summer. 

"There's an enormous delay between completion and release. The latest thing we have been working on is Bob Weir's solo album, which we expect to have with us when we come." 

But as it features the complete band as well, surely the distinction between another Dead album and a solo album was really pretty fine?

"It's his because it has all his songs and because he's the guiding inspiration behind it. It features him solely - our role is just that of studio musicians." 

In that respect the Weir solo album will be more of a "natural" album, like recent studio efforts. Garcia's recent solo epic was more of a manufactured record and uses many of the techniques pioneered on "Anthem of the Sun." 

"I played everything on it, but it was less of a personal thing than an experiment - I was using sixteen-track as an instrument." 

What was all this business about dealers, cards, the wheel, that occur in the music and on the cover-art and give the album its slightly fatalistic streak? 

"Well, it's sort of the idea of the Cosmic Wheel, the Wheel of Fate. The fact was that I made the record to pay back the loan that Warner Brothers made me to buy a house, so it was my own wheeling and dealing as well, in a way."

Did he inherit some of the techniques from his experiences with "Anthem"? "Yeah...my own album is a continuation of that spirit, though not so artful and somewhat limited. We wanted 'Anthem' to be our own record without producers and engineers and all that other stuff. 

"We knew what we wanted to arrive at. Technically it's about the most complex record ever made. We fired the producer while we were working on the basic tracks, and we spent eight months in the studio assembling it and putting it on eight-track and putting together different musical pieces for it. 

"We just about played it as we were mixing it, that's why it's got that homogeneous quality - it's a musical assemblage. Since then we've been learning how to achieve that on a musical level." 

A final comment on the tour plans? "I'm really excited about it, though we don't have any firm plans. Whatever tentative plans we do have are bound to be modified. That's the reason we never got over there yet. This time it's going to be different...we've got the tickets in our pockets."

(by Martin Hayman, from Sounds magazine, April 1, 1972)

Thanks to Simon Phillips.

April 17, 1972: Tivolis Concertsal, Copenhagen, Denmark

Grateful Dead plays Stakladen tonight. Tomorrow the San Francisco band appears on direct TV from the Tivoli concert hall, Copenhagen, at 9.30 – 10.00 PM.
This covers the whole of Denmark and specifically Aarhus. Not since Iron Butterfly in January 1971 has an American rock band visited Aarhus. Incidentally, DR has never before aired a direct transmission of a rock concert.

(from the Aarhus Stiftstidende, 16 April 1972)

*

NO TALENT, NO KNOWLEDGE

Very few people probably noticed it, but last night TV debuted a brand new format. For the first time during the ten years rock music and TV have co-existed, Danish TV threw itself headlong into the dizzying experiment of a direct transmission from a rock concert. Incidentally, this occurrence – like it is in other countries – ought to be as common as the transmission of a football game.
And Danish TV, which has never viewed rock music as anything more than a call signal, let an invisible announcer declare that now, now, Now, Now follows a transmission from the Tivoli concert hall with the supergroup Grateful Dead! Supergroup...hah! Which smart-aleck spun TV that yarn? Much can be said – and is said – about the American band Grateful Dead, but a supergroup, who has never sold more records in these parts than the sale of Christmas trees after Christmas, has surely never been seen in the world.
And what did TV do to the band? Yes, did to! No keeping in the background and relating the events in professional camerawork. No, put big, nice, talentless Edmondt Jensen on the stage. TV can do anything. Even interrupt an ongoing concert. Good evening, everybody. Welcome. Have a good time.
He didn't say "Welcome to the sandbox", but that was the gist of it.
Then a song of an undefinable style, then a Country & Western song, followed by an old-school rock song, and that was it. Oh yes, we certainly got a good impression of the American band Grateful Dead. What it is capable of, what it stands for, where it wants to go.
And while the three songs constituted what is known as a warm-up in the world of rock, three cameramen tested their zoom-lenses. Closeups drawn out to totals. Totals zooming into closeups. No pause – constant movement. Not one striking picture. Not one original camera angle. Nothing, except blatant amateurism and ignorance.
Exactly like an article in this paper some days ago, written by a lady who must have returned to Earth and to life after a prolonged stay somewhere else. The name is Gerda Vinding. As some might have noticed, she postulates a connection between narcotics and rock music.
As some might also have noticed, the connection is denied by nobody...only the lady's premises are questioned. Of course, there is a connection. Many of us were talking and writing about this when the subject was hot, some four or five years ago, when the Beatles started it.
At a time when narcotics were all the rage among young people, it was only natural that a style of music that reflected the youth culture – or the lack thereof – would intermittently deal with drugs.
Today, drug-taking is no longer "in", and narcotics have long been out of the picture where music is concerned.
Calling what we heard tonight "acid rock" can only be justified by ignorance.

(by Paul Blak, from the Aarhus Stiftstidende, 18 April 1972) 

https://archive.org/details/gd1972-04-17.136685.sbd.sirmick.flac1648 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkznlP29TjQ (partial Danish video of the show - this is a combination of later broadcasts, not the short original live broadcast) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU30HpQlV94 (brief excerpt of a Garcia interview by Edmondt Jensen)

Thanks to Bjørn for the article & translation.

See also https://www.dead.net/deadcast/europe-72-denmark  for Garcia's interview by Dan Turell & Peder Bundgaard in MM magazine.

April 16, 1972: Stakladen, Aarhus University, Denmark

 THE LOVE AND WHAT REMAINS

The Grateful Dead at Stakladen, Student House:
a new clarification, here is the alternative culture in synthesis

CONCERT IN AARHUS

They are astronauts in inner space, said William S. Burroughs. And the journey was endless, for its goal was to capture life itself in a drop and keep it forever.
Last night they gave a concert in Stakladen, Student House: Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Ron Pigpen McKernan, and Bill Kreutzmann - The Grateful Dead.
And now the act seems accomplished - the act they must clarify according to legend, because they may belong to the category of "the grateful".
Here was the banishment, the inner calm; it was the alternative culture in synthesis. The love and what was left of Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, and where it was now.

The basis of The Grateful Dead is country & western music, but it is free of horse manure and primitive skirmishes.
The result is subdued, at times monotonous - for Phil Lesh, Ron Pigpen McKernan, and Bill Kreutzmann lay a strong rhythmic foundation to Jerry Garcia's and Bob Weir's expansions.  
The center figure is Jerry Garcia, whose guitar playing moves to the outer limits (no big deal, he just does it, that's all).
The characteristic west coast sound is not absent, but it has matured. Hallucinogens are no longer needed - The Grateful Dead takes nourishment in the realization.
All these influences seized the whole hall, and the clarification spread. It was less music than it was close interaction with the audience.
The three and a half hour concert gave the facets that The Grateful Dead has put together; the numbers ranged from traditional blues to country & western to rock paraphrases.
"Our love will not fade away" sang Jerry Garcia - Bob Weir (Norman Petty-C. Hardin's classic). Our love will not fade away.  
It is possible they are dead. We are grateful.

(by J.R.J., from the Aarhus Stiftstidende, April 17, 1972)

https://archive.org/details/gd72-04-16.sbd.miller.18103.sbeok.shnf (partial) 

*

Some background from the Aarhus University history site: 

The review is presented here with kind permission from Jørn Rossing Jensen.

The author of the review above, Jørn Rossing Jensen, tells the following in 2010 about the review from 1972:

"Unlike so many others, I remember it clearly: when it had been in the newspaper, I received by courier a note from the editor, asking if it wouldn't have been more convenient to send it on a postcard to those especially interested, instead of burdening indifferent readers with incomprehensibility."

On April 16, 1972, the American West Coast group The Grateful Dead gave a concert in Stakladen. Earlier, newspaper columnists in the daily press had called for the group's performance to be banned, believing that these veterans of Ken Kesey's acid tests in San Francisco in 1965 could affect the concert audience in an unfortunate direction. But Jerry Garcia, the group's lead guitarist and informal leader, declared in the press: "I do not give LSD to anyone!" 

 

...The group's historian Dennis McNally tells his readers about the concert in Stakladen, that "the show was in a low-ceilinged cafeteria, people hanging off wooden trusses all over the place." (A Long Strange Trip, p. 429).
 

It is true that the audience took advantage of the room's special construction with the high beams to secure seats with a good view on this Sunday evening in April 1972, where the Grateful Dead according to experts delivered one of the European tour's finest performances of "Truckin'>The Other One" - however, something similar happened at least at most rock concerts around this time: in Aarhuus Stiftstidende's review of the concert with the British group Family, it is stated that a large part of the 800 people present had placed themselves on the beams.

April 1972: Jerry Garcia/Bob Weir Interview, London

HONOUR THE DEAD

 

This year will go down in rock and roll at least as one when the more legendary American talents finally flowered abroad. 

Steve Miller has made it to Britain at long last. Captain Beefheart, who had played here before only briefly (and disastrously), wound up a triumphant tour in Newcastle last week. And now the Grateful Dead: two months of European dates, and behind them a couple of shows at Wembley's massive Empire Pool - a chance for them to show their paces more fully than at that one Hollywood festival appearance two years ago. 

The return of the Dead and the re-emergence of Beefheart - both with trumpet fanfares this time - is another stage in the de-mystification of rock and roll, signalling the difficulty these days of remaining at cult level. A good thing, too. As Jerry Garcia himself notes, there may be a tendency to homogeneity, to everything becoming one music, but what that means really is that everything becomes all music. 

Out of an obscure jug band whose principals were Garcia, Bobby Weir, and Pigpen, the Grateful Dead has grown in nine years to become America's best-loved group, with its chief spokesman, Garcia, as the paternal head of the U.S. music scene, doling out good vibes in all directions. 

The Grateful Dead is now not just a band but an American institution. They're the successful survivors of the acid/flower power days, a dependable landmark in the shifting sands of American politics, culture, and lifestyle. 

Above all, their name has been as synonymous with the drug culture as Owsley's. In the past at least, it's been acid that has quickened The Dead, certainly stimulating their performances and records in the early days of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and related San Franciscan scenes. But one of their main achievements has been to prove that in the long run the energy behind their music has been more real than chemical. 

The truest definition of psychedelic music is music that's heard while under the influence of LSD. It's easy to assume, but wrong, that what the Dead have attempted is to duplicate musically the acid experience. For nobody, says Garcia, would be able to listen to it. "Can you imagine what it was like to have a whole band completely stoned out of their heads on acid, and it's out of tune and the timing is all peculiar. That's not what we're trying to do." 

Garcia, joined by Weir the rhythm guitarist, is talking in one of the two small London hotel suites booked for the Dead and their entourage. It's said that 40 or so people travel with the band wherever they go, and all the communicating rooms are certainly buzzing with the sound of Americans and the occasional lone English voice of an interviewer. 

There are Americans lounging in chairs, hunched against walls, lying on floors, and sprawled across beds. Garcia and Weir sit round a table, the former smiling agreeably through a beard as shaggy as bear's fur, the other - long hair tied at the back, his face as studious as a college boy - blowing thick smoke rings that wreathe and hover in the already dense atmosphere. 

Weir, now the subject has been broached, is referring back to the days of the San Francisco Acid Tests, before LSD was declared illegal, and when participants would pay a buck to commune with the cosmos while listening/playing music. Acid, he reflected, generated an excitement that made the music sound better at the time than it perhaps really did, because at that time at any rate they were only just learning how to play. 

Out of that old acid scene, remarked Garcia, "consciousness" had changed entirely: "Consider how many long-haired people there are for one - that's the most superficial thing - and consider how many people there are that take drugs of any sort. The US has changed entirely in six years, and it's because that whole first psychedelic thing meant 'here's this new consciousness, this new freedom, and it's here in yourself.' 

"I think we're beginning to develop new capacities just in order to be able to save the world from our trips - you know, pollution, etc - if for nothing else. Just for survival. The biological news is that in 100 years from now life on earth is finished, so what has to happen is this organism has to adapt real quick and develop new capacities to stem this flow, to maybe head it off somehow. In this scheme of things, politics and all those things belong to the past. They're meaningless, going down the drain.  

"There aren't going to be any power centres in that sense anymore. Politics is a dying system. That's why it's kicking and hollering so loud. The reason that Nixon is president is because that's what he wanted, but for anybody in the US right now the idea of being president is not an interesting prospect. The idea of being a politician doesn't appeal to any young person. 

"I've spoken to a coupla people over here, and I've found out for example that the framework of America they're speaking to me about is like Jerry Rubin's, Abbie Hoffman's, framework, and those things, man, are misguided and misleading. They're so far wrong, in fact, that none of those guys are into them anymore. Abbie Hoffman isn't into politics now, and Jerry Rubin is playing in John Lennon's group. They know that those things are bankrupt, that nobody can believe them. They're not soulful, they're not communicative, they're not real." 

 

The point about music in this situation, he goes on, is that people can trust it. Though it's been obscured by the financial aspect, it has a real, true function in people's lives. He cites, for example, the fact that in medieval times and before, music was supported by the church because of its spiritual connotations, it had a function. And in primitive societies it was part of magic: "I think those are more the real functions of what music is in a good, solid, working society. It's music that gets you high. If you're a shepherd it makes it easier to bring your sheep in. That's what I'd like to see happen. That's my dream. To see music re-established in its proper relationship to the rest of society. It's got so many day-to-day functions: music you can work with, music for celebration, and so forth." 

Garcia and his band, however, seem less dreamers, more pragmatists. Or, as he puts it, "We're just geared for doing stuff, and then we hash it out later." Almost every aspect of what they do, adds Weir, is virtually "a mindless effort." 

Despite the large numbers involved, therefore, no one person organises the Grateful Dead entity. There's no boss. There are business managers, accountants, road managers, and so on, but nobody operates in the usual rockbiz vacuum. Together they are one organism that flops along. "It's got batwings and three elephant legs, it's cross-eyed and breathes fire, and that's us," laughs Garcia. 

So what do all those many people do? "I'd be at a loss really to say," replies Weir. "I can't begin to remember all the roles the people have to fill." 

Certainly, the group is the power drive, however. They've got the goody. But then if everybody doesn't have a nice job, points out Garcia, something is wrong. The ethic is, don't do something you don't want to do. 

This extempore attitude is reflected in their records, naturally. They don't like to labor their music. If a track is not working out in the studio, then they go on to another and then backtrack. The cuts are usually done in a few takes. Their first album, for instance, "The Grateful Dead," which was made in 1966 in LA on three track, was rushed through. They just went in and played what they were doing onstage. The reason their next two albums, "Anthem of the Sun" and "Aoxomoxoa," took something like eight months was because they realized they had to gain experience of making records. Successive albums have been less monumental in construction.

"Workingman's Dead" has been their transitional album. Before they made that they were highly conscious of the process of recording. This was the one where for the first time they felt really relaxed in the studio and sounded like themselves. Moreover, it represented a changeover from heavy blues and hard rock to vocal harmony. 

At that time, explains Garcia, they were just becoming more of a singing band. "Crosby and those guys were hanging around a lot and nothing turns you onto singing more than three guys who really can sing good. They would start singing a song and we'd start watching." 

Since then, as well, The Dead, along with a considerable number of American bands who played essentially rock, have included country music as a main influence. Garcia says they started out with a certain amount of country-type material. Later on they decided they'd embrace the country and western approach to recording, which was a pretty basic rather than a complex, psychedelic way of making records: 

"We thought, wow! why don't we try making a simple record (that's "Workingman's Dead"). But really, the only thing country about that record is "Dire Wolf." It's got pedal steel on it. The way I thought of even that song was like a folk song, rather than a country and western number." 

In fact, what has happened in the late sixties, of course, is a cross-fertilisation between rock and country. The C and W stars are still the old Nashville types, but they're employing more and more longhairs for their bands as increasing numbers of rock and rollers head off towards country music.

 

Garcia digs a lot of country musicians, generally the ones that like going out and playing: "There are certain musicians, like George Jones, who bears the same sort of relationship to country music in terms of his integrity as B.B. King does to the blues. Area Code are a good example of the current synthesis. You can hear a lotta rock and roll in their music. But those guys are professional back-up musicians in Nashville. They're basically career studio musicians, not experienced performers, and they're used to being professional and competent rather than getting high and blowing everyone's minds. It's just a difference in ethos. Like, a country audience just goes wild when a band plays tight and clean." 

Garcia believes that rock and roll has moved toward a country sound in recent years because many of its audience are becoming older and getting into more of a regular life, a life that has seasons and changes and more or less consistent emotions: "Country music, or that sound, is the kind you can live with day to day. It doesn't require that you listen to it with great concentration, for example. You can just sorta be around. I think that's something." 

"Not to mention," interrupted Weir, "the fact that a lotta rock and roll musicians evolved out of being folk musicians, which is that far" - he spread his fingers a short distance apart - "away from being country musicians, and a lot of 'em even evolved from being country players. It was always around." 

All of a sudden somebody, like Dylan, got to be successful putting out country music: "So it was soon, 'hey, we can pull good ole country music into our act!'" Garcia laughed. "Too much. It's like an old friend, see. And then I think a lotta white guys felt weird about playing the blues because they were taking blues audiences away from the guys who really understood the blues, who meant the blues. I've gone through those kinda changes myself. I've tried not to be in any one bag overmuch, if I could help it. I've tried to be whoever I am, but I've been conscious at times of feelings like 'whatever can I say about the blues that Albert or B.B. King doesn't say? What real contribution can I make?' Now I play a good percentage of studio sessions with black players and it's like I have a voice of my own in that world of music, which is groovy. It means that I haven't been just another blues guitarist." 

Garcia has sessioned in various contexts outside the Dead, of course. He has recorded with the New Riders of the Purple Sage, an assembly of himself and friends of The Dead, which arose out of his casual pedal steel playing in a San Franciscan coffee house with one of these friends, Marma-Duke (John Dawson). 

And then there's his album with Howard Wales, one of the countless Marin County musicians, who used to play organ with a band called AB Sky. It was Garcia who brought Wales together with Alan Douglas, owner of the New York-based Douglas Records, which released the album. 

Now there's a solo album emerging from Bob Weir, featuring the Grateful Dead ensemble as a back-up band but with brass and strings as well. Weir wrote the songs with a couple of friends, Robert Hunter, the Dead's lyricist, and a writer named John Barlow. And it's Weir who has written the single they're releasing in Britain, "One More Saturday Night," backed with "Bertha" off their last anthology album. 

The point about the Dead is that it's flexible but cohesive enough to accommodate these spin-off activities. Right now, at any rate, it's difficult to think of a band with a greater hold on the public's affections. 

Garcia tries to explain it. 

"We're not doing it," he says, "not for careers, not for money, not for any of those regular reasons - we're doing it for this other reason, and we know what it is but we don't know what its name is. 

"I guess it's like a pretty good trip and there are so few of 'em going on anymore."

 

(by Michael Watts, from Melody Maker, April 15, 1972)  

See also other interviews from the tour: 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/09/march-1972-jerry-garcia-interview.html (NME) 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/09/april-1972-bob-weir-interview.html (NME) 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/09/april-1972-weir-pigpen-interview.html (Disc)

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/09/london-1972-sam-cutler-speaks.html 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/09/may-1972-bob-weir-interview.html (NME) 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/09/spring-1972-weir-kreutzmann-interview.html (Beat Instrumental) 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2015/06/spring-1972-jerry-garcia-interview.html (Rock) 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/10/april-1972-jerry-garcia-interview.html (Pop, from German) 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/09/april-11-1972-jerry-garcia-interview.html (Muther Grumble)

April 7, 1972: Wembley Empire Pool

THE GRATEFUL DEAD IN WEMBLEY

 

Six years after they helped lead the underground/drug/rock phase on the West Coast (call it what you will, they were part of it) the Grateful Dead have finally come to London. As arch-exponents of drugs they have somewhat ironically been intellectualised, and taken so seriously that their musical roots seem to have been almost overlooked. They started as a jug band, then an electric blues band, and their music is still largely based on these original influences. It may be more sophisticated now, but much of it is still good-time music at heart. 

At the Empire Pool, last night, they slid casually into a set that was to last over three hours. They played an all-American fusion: blues, country, rock, and ballads, sometimes separately, sometimes merged together with improvised, meandering guitar solos from Jerry Garcia. Their approach to it all was so unspectacular and some of their first material so unoriginal ("Big boss man" yet again) that it took the first hour before the quality of their playing could be appreciated. It is often argued that they are the best live band in America, and last night it was easy to understand why. 

They respect their roots and dip in and out of them. A long drawn out, delicate Garcia solo crashed suddenly into the sentimental cowboy ballad "El Paso" and then back into a long blues. The Dead have to be heard live, their immediacy, skill, and variety have never been fully captured on record.

 

(by Robin Denselow, from the Guardian, April 8, 1972) 

 

* 

 

OUT OF HIBERNATION  [excerpt] 

 

[Following reviews of Jethro Tull & Captain Beefheart...] 

 

The Grateful Dead, as seen in their hugely successful concerts at the Empire Pool last week, are the American dream as opposed to the nightmare. Contrary to their cult publicity, they are modest to the point of self-effacement, with only their guitarist, Jerry Garcia, occasionally tapping [a] foot or swinging his shoulders. All the movement is in the music, like a fleet of golden Cadillacs cruising down a motorway. Apart from a few spaced-out interludes, they play mainstream American rock with such assurance that they never have to exaggerate an idea to drive it home. They could extend a song indefinitely without it ever showing the strain: textural rather than thematic music, a superb demonstration of extemporised counterpoint in the idiom of rock which Palestrina might have envied had he known about electricity. They are playing a mammoth session at Bickershaw, near Wigan, the first of the summer festivals, May 5-7, which includes several other famous American bands in its programme, like Dr. John, J. Geils Band, and Country Joe....

 

(by Duncan Fallowell, from the Spectator, April 22, 1972)

 

See also: 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/09/april-7-1972-wembley-empire-pool-london.html

https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2022/05/april-7-1972-empire-pool-wembley.html   

April 11, 1972: Newcastle City Hall

 GRATEFUL FOR THE BEST

The Grateful Dead is the best rock band in the world. It may seem a slightly prejudiced view, but that's how I feel after their long-awaited North-East appearance at Newcastle City Hall last night. 

Their music is a unique blend of rock, country, and folk, combined successfully with psychedelic electronic avant-garde music. 

For many fans, this concert will be the musical event of the year. The inter-weaving inventive guitars of Weir, Lesh, and Garcia were a joy to listen to. 

(by Harry Cohen, from the Northern Echo (Darlington), April 12, 1972) 

* 

 

...IN TUNE  [excerpt]  

[The first part of the article reviews a Mott the Hoople concert.] 

The finest rock group I have ever seen took the stage at Newcastle's City Hall before a capacity crowd last Tuesday. 

The group I'm referring to is Grateful Dead, who had a very appreciative audience's complete and undivided attention throughout their long performance. 

Many people claim that Grateful Dead are the best group to come out of America and on Tuesday's performance I would defy anyone to prove their fans wrong. 

They were so tight and together that it was hardly believable, and although most of the audience, I'm sure, were not too-well acquainted with the Dead's material it did not detract at all from their enjoyment of the show. 

Grateful Dead were on stage for fully four hours in a remarkable pop show, and they are scheduled to play for nine hours at the Bickershaw Festival next month. 

As guitarists go, Jerry Garcia will take some beating and his leadership shone out on Tuesday. 

(from the Dumfries & Galloway Standard (Dumfries), April 19, 1972)

 

*

SO DIFFICULT TO BE GRATEFUL FOR THIS

It's a pity that the Grateful Dead, thought by some to be the best rock band in the world, didn't start to knit together until about half an hour from the end of their three-hour performance at Newcastle City Hall last night. 

I have not been so appalled by a band's performance since Alvin Lee, Ten Years After's wonder-boy, undermined everyone's intelligence at the City Hall about three years ago. 

Between visual obstructions caused by people walking in front of me, leaving the hall to go for a walk round the block, I saw a rehearsal on stage. I counted 35 speakers covering the whole of the stage and most of the raised levels at the rear of the stage. 

The band was loud, but it was powerless. Not only did it lack guts, it lacked a solid foundation from which to work. 

The technique of Jerry Garcia, hailed as the greatest rock guitarist in the world, pulled him through. It was not that any one member of the six-man group, was having an off-day. They were all having an off-day. 

For a total of more than three hours, this U.S. band stood before dozens of their entourage at the back of the stage and played complacent, uninspired music before a capacity audience. 

There were no links between numbers, just clapping for about six seconds, and then a pause of about a minute. There were none of the intricate time signatures characteristic of their albums. There was no fire, no enthusiasm. 

Grateful Dead will lose a lot of friends if they persist in this attitude for the rest of their British tour. 

(by R.T., from the Shields Gazette (South Shields), April 12, 1972) 

https://archive.org/details/gd1972-04-11.sbd.jackson.smith.94377.sbeok.flac16