THE SOUND
Music and radio: for young listeners
Imagine a nonstop set almost 2 1/2 hours long by a group of musicians as talented as the three members of Cream and twice as big (plus an apprentice organist). The Grateful Dead did just that last Thursday night in the Kinetic Playground, and it was the most impressive music-making the house has seen since opening its doors last March.
And it came as a surprise to many of us who had never seen the group in person - even despite the raves that had filtered here from the west coast.
The albums are good, but not that outstanding. And there are still things wrong: They have no good vocalist; their material itself is not that memorable (you don't go around humming Dead tunes); and it takes them forever to really get warmed up (a friend Thursday remarked that they were the only group he knew that tuned up like a symphony orchestra).
But when they do - and they did - there's nothing quite like it.
Back to the Cream comparison: Instead of just Ginger Baker, the group has two drummers; instead of just Eric Clapton, two guitarists; instead of Jack Bruce, a bass player and a vocalist-organist-harmonica player. Plus someone on organ when the vocalist is singing or playing harp.
In addition, all are superb - as musicians, as performers, as improvisers, what have you. The lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, and the organist, Ron McKernan, deserve to be listed with the very best.
They play a rather mixed bag: funky blues, psychedelia, country - all with a touch of Mothers of Invention freakiness thrown in.
They closed Thursday with a violent free-form heavily electronic number that gave way to a country-gospel good-by which had the large audience standing, clapping, and stomping throughout.
Due to [the] length of the Dead set, Procol Harum didn't play a second set, so we missed them this time around, and regret it in light of the new album.
Terry Reid was a disappointment (again, in light of a very good new album). His trio (guitar-organ-drums) is a first-rate bunch who likely will go far, but at present Reid himself is trying too hard, coming on too strong.
He's very good looking, an excellent vocalist, and a rather good guitarist - but he's also too conscious of being all these things. Hopefully he'll tone down things a bit in the future. Watch them nonetheless, especially when the organist picks up a violin during the slow numbers - a violin, mind you, not a fiddle or an electric violin; a violin, and it sounds like one.
(by Robb Baker, from the Chicago Tribune, December 2, 1968)
Thanks to jgmf.blogspot.com
A rave review from a fan. While aware of the Dead's limitations ("you don't go around humming Dead tunes"), he finds the Dead even better than he expected, and the best band the Kinetic Playground has seen all year.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't name any specific songs, but We Bid You Good Night is the obvious finale that gets the audience "standing, clapping, and stomping." The closing "violent free-form heavily electronic number" is most likely Caution>Feedback, since the Dead rarely played Viola Lee Blues in late '68.
He notes "an apprentice organist" - this was only Tom Constanten's third show of the tour, having joined the group in Ohio a few days earlier. Baker makes it sound like Pigpen was still playing some organ as well, so this may be one of the few twin-organ shows they played. (Constanten recalled that in his first shows, "both Pigpen and I played keyboard. He had the B-3 and I had the Continental.")
There's an interesting comment that the opener Procol Harum "didn't play a second set" since the Dead's 2-1/2 hour set was so long, so Baker missed them. The expected order of events was that each band would play two rotating sets (still the norm in San Francisco shows as well). Clearly the Dead overruled this schedule, preferring to play one long set. I don't think it was a Velvet Underground-like "screw the other bands, we'll play as long as we like" scenario (which would happen at the Kinetic Playground in April '69); most likely the Dead agreed with the openers that they'd all play one set.
Baker mentions their long tuning ("it takes them forever to really get warmed up") - a habit the Dead wouldn't break! When he reviewed them for the Tribune in September '69, he was even more irritated by this, calling them "jagged and sloppy":
"After about an hour they finally got things together, returning to their old driving hard rock bag. But that first hour. There's no excuse for a group as talented as The Dead are to dish out such an amateurish start to a show - and this is the third time I've seen them do it. If it takes them an hour to warm up, they'd better find a loft someplace down the block in which to do so."