December 9-10, 1971: Fox Theatre, St. Louis, MO

'TIS THE SEASON TO BE GRATEFUL 

Going to a rock concert with a narcotics-drug abuse officer is like going to Purgatory with the Pope. Even now, I'm not sure why I went. Curiosity, I guess. Maybe I just wanted to see 5,000 kids high on marijuana or perhaps I hoped to chance upon someone dropping acid. Whatever, I went. The group was the Grateful Dead, six musicians who, I should report, are very much alive and playing as a unit. Loudly. The noise made it difficult to determine whether one would prefer to be dead or grateful. Or both. 

When the officer and I arrived at the St. Louis theater where the concert was being held, it didn't take long to realize this was sure-enough pandemonium. Kids were running in every direction, police were frantically trying to keep order, and debris was everywhere. 

And that was just the outside of the theater. Inside, things were much worse. 

The first thing I noticed was that I was the only person in the entire theater wearing a tie. Toward the end of the evening I did spot another man wearing one - he was an 80-year-old janitor wearing a leather bow tie. The second thing I noticed was that I was about 25 years older than anyone else, that I wasn't wearing levis, that I didn't need a shave or a haircut, that my shoes were shined, and I wasn't wearing either beads or a knapsack. Outside of those few minor details, I felt very much at ease. 

As we made our way to our seats, which were positioned so that we could watch almost everything in the theater, I said to my friend, "Gee, this place smells like a tent out of Arabian nights." 

"Dope," the officer said tersely. I started to take exception when I realized he meant the odor was marijuana. Fearing I might get high myself, I tried not to breathe. With my sinuses I was soon gasping for breath and decided it was better to die of pot than become the first case in medical history of self-asphyxiation. 

Turning my attention to the stage, where the Grateful Dead were holding forth, I was soon tapping my feet along with the rest of the audience. I wasn't sure what they were playing (in fact, I didn't catch two successive words in any song during the entire evening) but the music was something like they play at the Grand Ol' Opry, only faster and without Minnie Pearl Bailey. It was pretty good. I even caught myself starting to clap my hands with the kids. 

Turning to a young girl sitting next to me, I ventured, "Say they're pretty good!" I figured I ought to establish some contact with the natives before they charged me with being over-aged and took me to their chief. "Far out," she replied. "Yeah, man," I replied, trying to get into the vernacular. "Say, what is this, a bust?" she said belligerently. "Far out," I said, thereby effectively ending my efforts to establish contact with the natives. 

As the concert wore on, I found myself becoming enamored with the music, rather taken with the cheering, appreciative audience. My friend left me at one point to confer with another narcotics officer and I suddenly felt very much alone among 5,000 cheering, clapping, smoking young boys and girls who were jumping around to music that was just on the other side of ear-splitting. I felt relieved when my friend returned, uncomfortable when he tapped on the shoulder a young man getting ready to light a joint, relieved when the youngster put the joint away, uncomfortable when the group he was with turned around to stare intently, relieved when they only smiled instead of beating us to death with chains. 

By now the concert had been going on for five hours. The Grateful Dead were still very much alive, the audience was as enthusiastic as ever, and only the narcotics officers, the police and myself appeared to be very dead. "When can we go?" I asked desperately about 12:30. "Had enough?" my friend asked, smiling. I nodded. 

Outside, the air was cool, damp and smelled of industrial waste. But it was still good. "Bet you've never seen anything like that before," my friend said. 

"Yes, I have, but not all in one place. I'd have to combine a state Legion convention, halftime at a Missouri football game, and dollar-day at a discount store to get one rock concert." 

"Far out," my friend answered. 

"Right on," I said as we laughed. 

Just then an establishment-type couple (the man was even wearing a tie) looked at us suspiciously, then belligerently. As they passed, I heard the man say to his wife, "Dope." 

(by Jack Stapleton, from the "Missouriana" column, the Stanberry Headlight (MO), 30 December 1971)

Fall 1970: Garcia Interview at the Matrix

SAN FRANCISCO 

The Grateful Dead is the complete integration of music and musician. The one is of the other, just as it works the other way around. 

"You know how the music sounds now?" Jerry Garcia, lead guitarist of the Dead is speaking. "You know how it sounds now? That's the way we're living now. That's a little holograph of our life. That's what we're saying, if we're saying anything." 

The new music Garcia refers to is represented by the semi-acoustic work on their last album, "Workingman's Dead." A distinct departure from previous offerings, it features some fine vocal harmonies with the emphasis on songs and away from the long electronic improvisations that were their trademark. 

The Dead's legendary loose structure has grown more complex, if no less loose. Garcia is playing pedal steel guitar regularly with the New Riders of the Purple Sage, a rollicking country band (as is Dead drummer Mickey Hart). Further, he is about to record an album with local organist Howard Wales in a small combo. This particular night at The Matrix he was to join Merl Saunders, a black keyboard man who has played with Miles Davis among others, in what Garcia calls "the Monday night band." 

What this, along with the musical meanderings of other Dead, has done is to broaden the musical perspective of the band immeasurably. Give it more universality, as Garcia tells it. 

To him, the music is developed from or by the strong interpersonal relationships within the group. "It's all ideas we've evolved through contact with each other all this time. We've been a little independent structure growing in some direction completely sideways to everybody else." 

It is this bond and the music that comes from it that leads to what Garcia terms the "Dead mystique." "The world I live in doesn't have any Grateful Dead. I'm not into the mystique in terms of it coming to me and my being impressed by it. Because it's about me and us." 

Though the album has sold moderately well, it is by no means a smash. "Our success is highly over-touted," says Garcia. The Dead are steadily coming out of debt, but are still far more in than out. "Those realities (of money) were never particularly hard to us, that's why we were $80,000 in debt." 

The Grateful Dead won their wings, so to speak, at Ken Kesey's Acid Tests (made famous by Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test), where they were the band. Today, when the psychedelic revolution seems to have taken a more violent turn, both Weir and Garcia disavow any relationship to the violence. "Violent people are all on the same side," was Garcia's comment. 

Violence, he feels, gets all the attention of the media and so it becomes what people believe in. "All the things that were going on in Acid Test days are still going on. Only much farther out and much more subtle. It's for damn sure that no one's going to be talking about it, because that's what happened last time." 

Free concerts, something very close and dear to that Dead mystique, have taken on a different perspective for them too. The Grateful Dead may have invented the free concert in the park ideal that eventually led up to Woodstock, but now the situation has gotten out of hand. "That whole free music scene is a completely faulty viewpoint of what's going on in music or what music really is." Garcia is especially articulate about this. "Free, to us, was always a reciprocal trip. We were free to do it or not. When we were free to do it or not, we sometimes chose to do it. 

"Now the thing about free music as defined by the Woodstock Nation trip is let's make it free. But music isn't free. Everyone of those musicians who plays music has paid for that fucking music with his life. 

"The word free is sadly overworked. Nothing is really free. Money is a symbol of a certain kind of energy exchange that most people are too lame to ever be able to come to in their own terms in some groovy way." 

Somewhere about this point the manager of the club called out to Jerry and made a strumming motion with his hand. It was time to go on. 

A bit later, the combo was cooking. Bob Weir was leaning back near the wall enjoying the music. Garcia was playing out of every imaginable bag. First sounding like Steve Cropper, playing tight rhythmic chords, and then, almost out of nowhere, a little belch of feedback and some freaky, spaced out run. He was just picking anything and articulating. 

(by Joel Selvin, from the Music section, Earth magazine, January 1971) 

https://archive.org/details/sim_earth-council-economic-priorities_1971-01_2_1/mode/2up?q=garcia 

April 7, 1971: Music Hall, Boston MA

MUSIC: GRATEFUL DEAD AT THE MUSIC HALL

 

The Grateful Dead rose again before a packed and ecstatic audience last night at the Music Hall. Tonight they will perform part two of their Boston engagement. 

Diminutive Marmaduke, of the "Riders of the Purple Sage," kicked off the evening with an hour-long set of fine Country flavored music. As usual Jerry Garcia, the Dead's lead guitarist, joined Sage on an abbreviated, pedal-steel guitar. 

Some of the Dead fans claimed to be from as far away as Baltimore and San Francisco, proclaiming that they have never missed a Dead concert. Craig Robert said, "I only go back to Johns Hopkins for exams, and then only if they don't conflict with a Dead concert..." 

At nine, the Dead walked on, opening with "Truckin." Drummer Mickey Hart was noticeably absent, and the rhythm was maintained by second drummer, Bill Kreutzman. 

The lead vocals were equally shared by Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, throughout the incredible 2 1/2 hour set. Pigpen occasionally came from behind his organ to offer a blues or soul standard. Phil Lesh played bass and backed Garcia and Weir on vocals. 

Since emerging as one of the original San Francisco, acid-rock bands, the Dead have evolved to a refined country sound which stresses vocals and two part harmony. They have that country twang but combined with a surging rock strength. 

The sound was impeccable, and the Dead brought along their own tie-died bank of amplifiers. Even down front, there was not a shred of distortion, and the vocals were absolutely clear. 

The long evening of music presented dozens of Dead tunes stressing their latest country sound, although they did turn back the clock to answer a request for "Saint Stephen." 

Most interesting was their rendering of the Kristofferson hit "Me and Bobby McGhee." Garcia beautifully twisted the melody into a new form which had a distinctly different flavor than Janis Joplin's rendering. 

At the end of the set, the entire house was dancing to a medley of old rockers that brought it all back home with Chuck Berry's "Johnnie B Good." 

The group will be back tonight with more incredible rock and roll at the Music Hall.

 

(by Charles Giuliano, from the Boston Herald, 8 April 1971) 

 

https://archive.org/details/gd71-04-07.sbd.orf.119.sbeok.shnf 

 

Thanks to Dave Davis. 

November 20, 1971: Pauley Pavilion, UCLA, Los Angeles

Grateful Dead at UCLA 

SUCCESSFUL CONCERT EXPERIMENT 

 

On stage nearly four hours. The Grateful Dead dispensed a soaring, roaring set of powerful rock jams, countryfield funk and rip-snortin' rock-n-roll to a near-capacity crowd at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion November 20, while delivering the most enjoyable concert since Procol Harum's recent tremender at the Santa Monica Civic. 

And that wasn't even half the story. 

Of far greater significance was the daring promotion presented by the UCLA Committee on Fine Arts Productions and produced by Merlin/Aura. It represented a bold innovation; it was the grand noble experiment - as well as the initial significant one to take place locally in concert promotions for the year 1971. 

For the first time in a large arena (13,000), designated floor-level seats were removed and the floor area was converted into a sit-down concert, just like the Palladium, while regular arena-level seating was conducted at the same time, and conducted in the same manner. 

This idea was considered with great trepidation among veteran observers of the concert scene. Chief among many feared possibilities was that wholesale masses of the arena-seated audience would try to drop down to the floor level. It would be met by security forces attempting to stop them, and the result would be a big mess - if not a riot. 

Well, as it turned out, no one need have worried - it couldn't have gone better. Blue-uniformed UCLA ushers were strategically placed on the arena level and effectively, but with an acceptable minimum of force, prevented wholesale movement to the floor level. Isolated audience members did occasionally drop down, but there were not enough of them to be significant. 

Another past problem of sit-down concerts was that without designated seating, there was no way to establish an accurate capacity. Consequently, unscrupulous promoters sold as many tickets as they could print, which resulted in blatant over-selling and subsequent hard feelings which in turn caused several concert halls to close down.The UCLA promoters easily solved this problem by simply doing the obvious ethical thing: estimating a capacity and selling only that many tickets. Thus, even though the floor level was sold out, the promoters acted honorably in refusing to sell more tickets to the floor level anyway, something no other promoter has had the principles to do. 

The floor level capacity estimation was as perfect as it needed to be...the floor was crowded, of course, but there was still room to boogie and play towards the back for those who wanted to, while those who just have to be as near as possible to the stage packed themselves in to do so. Because of the enlightened promotion, the concert as such was the most fun since the old Pinnacle-Shrine Exposition Hall days - even outstripping the recent Palladium shows. 

So smoothly run was the UCLA promotion that even a mistake in ticket printing caused no problems. Many arena tickets were mis-labeled for floor seating. Those who erroneously wound up on the floor were efficiently and courteously transported by elevator to the arena level. Except for the ticket misprint I'm at pains to discover a single mistake made by the UCLA promoters. They deserve all due praise. 

Well, Merlin/Aura has shown us the light as far as concert promotions are concerned. It is now up to the rest of the promoters to pick up the ball. 

 

As for the show itself, the Dead were consistently pleasurable and often nearly unbearably exciting. For me, the Dead's recent albums (starting with Workingman's Dead) have been extreme disappointments, and the time spent recreating them by the Dead November 20 was not thrilling, although this material sounded much better in person than it does on the records. 

I greatly prefer, however, the earlier Dead of Turn On Your Lovelight days. I have seen them many times, and have been enthralled just as many times by their long trademark jams and improvisations - featuring the uncanny way rhythm guitarist Bob Weir and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia work together. Weir feeds Garcia ideas and Garcia expounds on them beautifully. As they say, it is a match made in heaven. 

Garcia is one among a handful of the most distinctive and unpredictable guitarists to emerge in rock music. He is never trite and his solos righteously move-move-move and boogie - and never fail to excite. He seems the most consistent and maybe even the best pure rock guitarist - ever. Garcia did enough of his famous solo work November 20 to make the show a thing of awesome power and overwhelming beauty. 

Lead-off group New Riders of the Purple Sage were far less boring than they were during their recent Palladium gig and would have been acceptable if they hadn't played for an hour and fifteen minutes. Forty-five minutes is just about tops for this band, and even at that, they seem clumsy when compared with the gliding suppleness of the Dead. New Riders weren't that bad, though, and given a set of reasonable length they could be mildly enjoyable.

 

(by R.E. Maxson, from the Los Angeles Free Press, 26 November 1971) 

* * * 

GRATEFUL DEAD

This review could do one of two things. It could tell you what kind of music the Grateful Dead play and how they play it (with a blurb on the Riders), or it could tell you about Saturday night at Pauley Pavilion. I prefer the latter, so I'll tell you about the concert. Honestly. 

Normally a critic is given all the benefits of contemporary elitism (i.e. free tickets, great seats) to insure a positive frame of mind before viewing the evening's entertainment. Accordingly, an apparently objective and sincere review may well represent the feelings of those with muscles or connections up front, while convincing those in the back that they somehow missed out. (Shit, man. This dude says they were great. I thought they sucked... Well he oughta know; he's the critic.) 

Ideally a meaningful story on an evening of rock and roll would include the man on the street. The unspoiled, uncorrupted music freak who pays to come and comes to enjoy. But follow through on that concept and you get results like these: What did you think of the concert? Far out. What did you like about it? They played good, man. Could you be more specific? Yeah, they played real good. It was far out. 

So the task is left to Normal Human Beings who somehow decided to become A Critic. Self-righteousness is a must, but don't ever take yourself too seriously.. 

Back to the Dead. There you are, Critic, stuck in the rear. Nothing special this time, just settin' ona flo' and struggling for comfort like everybody else. 

What was it like? A drag. Long and monotonous; a muddled continuum of twangy reverberations; a Sominex commercial; a never-ending jam from eight o'clock til one in the morning. It was all the same. 

From the front? They say it was great. Some people never sat down; others never stopped dancing. With partners? Nah, that's old fashioned. To the music. 

There were gypsies and gnomes and thirteen year-old drunks. And jeepers, those sleepers, and leapers were weepers (On the Floor, Out the Door... Don't forget the motto, Men. Remember, you're bigger than them. Now get out there and Patrol!). And balloons and frisbees. And skyrockets too. 

It was a zoo. What can you say? They did "Truckin", "The Other One", "Bertha", all the biggies except "Uncle John's Band". It was a long concert. The New Riders of the Purple Sage played too. 

(by Bill Pique, from the UCLA Daily Bruin, 23 November 1971) 

And a letter to the editor in the Daily Bruin, December 1, 1971: 

DEAD 

Editor: 

About the Dead concert at Pauley... 

The tickets had "no smoking" printed on them, but no one seemed to care. The air (ha!) was filled with a grey haze that made spotlight beams look solid. The crud was mostly cigarette smoke, although a really with-it expert might have been able to detect the sickly sweet odors of burning Space Food Stiks, chamomille tea and other well-known combustible psychedelics. 

It was pretty hard to breathe in there, but apparently, I was the only one having trouble. Is it possible that city-dwelling Dead freaks are so addicted to smog that they must take it with them wherever they go? Or, is it possible that most rock ravers smoke, since the same sort of cloud was in the air at last month's Traffic concert? Or... 

Anyway, the stoned Dormice who were sitting in Section 13-C, Row 12, are hereby collectively awarded the Future Solid Citizen and Innocent Bystander Trophy. Seems they were so busy lighting matches and giggling over the no smoking edict that they failed to notice people on the dance flooor who were getting crushed against the stage and whacked on the head with frisbees. 

Those of you who survived this latest encounter with the spectre of commercial mass freakiness might care to lay a plastic flower on the grave of the Unknown Rock Fan - a sort of thanksgiving offering. 

Remi Treveri

https://archive.org/details/gd1971-11-20.sbd.miller.92908.sbeok.flac16 

See also: 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/07/november-20-1971-pauley-pavilion-ucla.html

November 11, 1971: Municipal Auditorium, Atlanta GA

GRATEFUL DEAD LIVE FRENZIES THE FLOCK

 

Mania, the most ephemeral of emotions, was captured in the Municipal Auditorium Thursday night as Grateful Dead performed its wizardry for a flock of rock music fans. 

People absolutely throw themselves into the quintet's music. Your viscera addle in the frenzied aura of a live show. "Dead" music is a percolating, blowsy sound of titillating rhythms that establish carefree rapport with an audience. Dormant cerebrums are ignited by drifting melodies. For fans to react so visibly to a group is a rare sight. 

A New York promoter recently revived dance marathons and imported Grateful Dead to provide some funky tunes for the opening. 

Said one exhausted girl as she was carted away: "It's their music. Honestly, I mean I couldn't stop moving to that beat." 

They were moving in the aisles Thursday night. The engaging impulse was evident from the initial lyric of Bob Weir, whose lilting harmonies with Phil Lesh form vocal "Dead." 

The group is an irrepressible force easing a crowd into an elevated sense of "getting off" on the songs. 

Weir and Lesh sing easily about "Truckin," "Ripple Wine," "Big Boss Man" - get-away numbers eliciting warm feedback. And eardrum fanciers delight in their lenient vocals on "Bertha" and "Mama Tried." 

Weir conveys a song's feel and nuance well. 

Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia has mellowed his guitar style into a countrified honk of beguiling discipline that solidly buffers the Dead against opus jellification. 

"Feel good" is Garcia's simple description of "Dead" arrangements. It was a good feeling indeed to hear a concert of lifting ballads; a sort of musical massage after a hard day at the job. 

The Dead have given birth to "New Riders of the Purple Sage," a country-folk foursome that is the brainchild of Garcia and "Dead" drummer Mickey Hart. The group showcases vocalist John Dawson. They whet the air with what must be honestly termed "ditties," casual and forgettable. The Riders seem ill at ease in front of a crowd foaming at the mouth for Grateful Dead. 

The crowd was blustered a sellout by advance hawkers, but it seemed some 500 seats were empty when the Dead appeared. This is really not very significant, because very few fans occupy seats during Dead time, and a premature upheaval may have accounted for the deserted rows. 

 

(by Karl Schnittke, from the Atlanta Constitution, 12 November 1971) 

https://archive.org/details/gd71-11-11.sbd.yubah-dodd.8326.sbeok.shnf

See also: 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/11/november-11-1971-municipal-auditorium.html

November 15, 1971: Municipal Auditorium, Austin TX

'SEDATE' ROCK SHOW STAGED BY GRATEFUL DEAD, RIDERS 

 

The Grateful Dead and their back-up group, the Riders of the Purple, are what you'd call "serious musicians." 

They played mainly to themselves and almost totally ignored their catcalling audience of 3,000 Monday night in Municipal Auditorium. 

The Dead and the Riders provided the least eventful but certainly the most pleasant rock program this season for the listening audience. The performing audience was even kept to a minimum by a surprisingly insistent group of ushers and security guards. 

The Riders, studiously bent over guitars, steadily dealt out music mostly from the country bag, a couple of Chuck Berry tunes and two rather plastic "golden oldies." 

With deadpan faces and less than the usual theatrics, the Riders rocked the country songs with a lot of steel guitar from a performer who resembled Leon Russell. 

The Dead, who date back to Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, played a livelier fare and created a crowd-stopping show - that is, stopping the show to clear the aisles and stage of audience performers who flew at them after the second tune.

(by Marjorie Hoffman, from the Austin American, 16 November 1971) 

Thanks to Dave Davis. 

https://archive.org/details/gd71-11-15.sbd.cotsman.12438.sbeok.shnf

Released on Road Trips 3:2.

October 17, 1970: Music Hall, Cleveland OH

THE GRATEFUL DEAD LIVEN THINGS UP

 

They've got an organist nicknamed "Pig Pen." 

They played background music for the world's foremost heart surgeon, Dr. Christian Barnard. 

So how can you explain the Grateful Dead? 

No matter, they're alive and kicking and they plan to pump some life into this old town tomorrow night at 8 in Music Hall. 

"And it'll be way out! We've never been here before. That's why we're coming," said their road manager Sam Cutler, calling from San Francisco. 

Out? This San Francisco six-pack has been "in" in the wild West for almost six years. There probably has never been a band like them before and probably never will be. 

They are more of a performing band than a recording band, even though they have five albums. They haven't had million-selling singles. Followers translate it like this: "They've never sold out." 

San Franciscans are said to love them. The Grateful Dead may have given more free concerts than any other band in the history of the world. 

This is the group that lived and loved and played their hearts out in the Haight-Ashbury area before flower power. Then boomed and bloomed along with it. 

"They were a part of the whole thing. They were right there before it started," said Cutler. 

Yea, you've guessed it. We couldn't raise any of the Dead. But no matter. Cutler is listed as "Executive Nanny" on the group's Warner Bros. "Workingman's Dead" album. And he's better than a canned release, right? 

"The Grateful Dead have always played music. Not this rock 'n roll teeny stuff, they're real musicians," added Cutler. 

Surprisingly, the Dead's bag hasn't been exactly acid rock. More straightforward blues. They record for Warner Bros. But then how can you label them? 

"The Grateful Dead will be performing by themselves as it is very difficult for any other group to play on the same show," reads the prose from Belkin Productions. Fair enough. 

Any other group would be deadlocked. The Dead have been known to go on for five or six hours. 

"One time at Fillmore East they played 10 hours. Yea, they had to send out for sandwiches. But mostly they [play] about three hours," said Cutler. 

Two weekends ago at San Francisco's Winterland they sold out to 9,000. It was a benefit concert with the Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service. WIXY co-sponsors tomorrow's concert. 

So who are these Dead-beats, if you will excuse the pun. 

The lively lineup: Jerry Garcia, lead guitar and vocals; Bob Weir, rhythm guitar and vocals; Phil Lesh, bass and vocals; Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, drums; and Pig Pen, (Ron McKernan), organ and vocals. 

They're mostly in their late 20's. 

Garcia is the funky-looking one with the black curly hair and beard. A real TV nut. He has done session work on Airplane and Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young LP's. 

"He plays guitar all the time. I've even seen him playing at breakfast," said Cutler. 

Weir at one time had the weirdest hairdo in show biz, sort of like overgrown Shredded Wheat, but that's a hard record to keep with all the young talent coming up. Weird is the youngest. He joined at 16. 

"Phil Lesh is the oldest in the group, although I don't think he'd appreciate you mentioning that," thought Cutler. "Lesh took classical violin, I think." 

Mickey Hart is the latest addition. 

"And is his drumming far out. He's played with Hendrix and Basie. And done a lot of studio stuff," said Cutler. The other drummer, Kreutzmann, is more of a swinging type. He has played with the Airplane and Crosby, Stills. 

And that brings us up to "Pig Pen," Yes, you'd have to say that he dresses like an unmade sleeping bag on Skid Row. Is he the leader? 

"No way! He's the least vocal in every sense, the most shy. He used to be a blues guitarist in a jug band with Garcia once," said Cutler. Former Dead men Bill Sommers and Tom Constanten left for other fields. 

The Grateful Dead, friends on and off stage, live within 10 miles of each other in Marin County. They've known each other about 10 years. Three - Hart, Kreutzmann, and Weir - have ranches. Weir's is called "The Rukky Rukky Stud Ranch." 

Garcia lives in a house with Bob Hunter, often called the seventh Grateful Dead. Garcia and Hunter write the material. 

The group's music was used as background on Dr. Barnard's record of a heart transplant explanation. 

Of course with a name like the Grateful Dead there's bound to be some lively confusion. We've already had two phone calls from middle-agers asking if it was some kind of offbeat religious experience. 

Maybe they're right, in a way. 

(by Jane Scott, from the Cleveland Plain Dealer, 16 October 1970) 

 

Thanks to Dave Davis. 

* * * 

GRATEFUL DEAD

REVIEWED 

 

One expected ancient lorgnette-bearing dowagers swathed in mink to sail in on the arms of gentlemen in full evening attire. That is the mood that Music Hall evokes with its ruby plush seats and gilded decor. It was an odd place for Cleveland's first get-together with the notorious Grateful Dead, San Francisco's legendary underground group, who have tried to stay underground, despite minor success. The group was involved with Ken Kesey and his acid tests, they were the first band to live communally, and they are one of the few groups who have survived this long - over five years. 

I must admit I am not a 'Grateful Dead freak,' a particular sort of human being whom, it is said, and I agree, is the only person who can fully appreciate this group, a group that plays for a particular sort of community and not for everyone. My only attempt at meeting minds with them was when I fell in love with the Jefferson Airplane and was wondering if there were anyone else out in San Francisco half so good. There wasn't. My lack of familiarity partly accounts for the fact that I can't mention by name any of the songs they did - you certainly couldn't hear the lyrics. I might feel badly if this were relevant, but it's not. The Dead are not Creedence Clearwater Revival or Blood Sweat and Tears. They are polar opposites of those groups who give you their ten big hits, leave and come back to play their latest hit as an encore. In fact, the Dead are said to have been the first rock group to stretch the limits of the rock song, playing the open-ended pieces that earlier had been heard only in jazz. Of course, this has now become commonplace, and we have heard many "Creams" stifle songs to death by sheer length. I came expecting this to be a strike against the Dead. I'd heard of their long, ambling, pointless playing, the perfect 'acid rock' (if that term means anything at all), noise accessible only to those with outside influence on their brains. 

The Dead surprised me. I had been aware of the changes they've been going through. I've heard "Workingman's Dead," their latest album, with its heavy flavouring of country and rhythm and blues. Their concert smacked heavily of this, with a bit of blues as well, and was far more structured and controlled than I'd expected. Jerry Garcia, leader and often called 'guru,' plays in a style marvelously removed from the little-English-boy-imitating-BB King school. His lines flow less expectedly than that (though there can be beauty in that expectation) and are full of odd rhythms and wide intervals. They bound back and forth while still hanging together perfectly well. 

The voices, including Garcia, second guitarist Bob Weir, 'organist' (and tambourine beater) Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan, and bassist Phil Lesh, are all rough and nasal. The combined effort smacks of Poco, or the Byrds, or Neil Young. Peculiar to the group is its use of two drummers - Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman. Astonishingly, this really adds something to the group as the two drummers work in counter-points, not in noise competition. Weir's light, smooth guitar work offers Garcia a foil. Lesh's bass lines are rich and enormous, but I'm afraid Pigpen will never be the equal of Marty Balin on tambourine. With all this going on, the group still displays a rather rare clarity, never seeming noisy. 

The first half of the concert, the music half, opened with a bright countryish piece with lyrics about trains and cocaine (yeah, it rhymes!). This was followed by a handful of fairly short songs, going into a brief (!) drum duet full of strange sounds and complex flurrying beats placed over simple rhythms. A rapid pulsing piece full of vital life energy was followed by a nearly traditional blues which sounded somehow startling. Then a very rude country piece (vocals by Pigpen) gave way to a long, twisting, dancing piece that closed that half of the set. One freak was indeed dancing, but he must have had a transistor plugged in his ear. He jerked wildly, alternately stabbing his hands at his armpits and the ceiling. But the balloons floating through the hall seemed sensitive to the rhythms of the music. 

After the intermission, the house lights stayed up and the concert became an 'event,' a community of the sort the Dead are famous for creating. They never went back to their acid background music - the music was secondary to the audience itself, as it packed the aisles, clapped, wiggled, screamed and even snake-danced (though I think that's a rather forced show of spiritedness). It was hard to hear, see, or even breathe, but for musical purposes the concert was over. The Dead were playing to get people out of themselves. 

It ended most strangely. The Dead set off pink firecrackers and left the stage to a tumultuous ovation and finally, compelled to come back, finished with their LATEST (and only) HIT - 'Uncle John's Band.' It was a surrealistic finish to a wild night.

 

(by Stacey Pantsios, from the Scene (Cleveland), 22 October 1970)

https://archive.org/details/gd1970-10-17.aud.linton.miller.119329.flac16 

See also: 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2015/12/october-17-1970-cleveland-music-hall.html 

http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2019/08/october-17-1970-music-hall-cleveland-oh.html

October 16, 1970: Irvine Auditorium, Philadelphia PA

GRATEFUL DEAD TURN ON ONE TURNED-ON CROWD

 

Marijuana in the air. Find your seat before the start. Are the Dead next? Look at the ceiling, will you? Dozens of different mosaics. Has Irvine ever looked so freaky? Shh. Here they come. 

The Grateful Dead, your original San Francisco acid-rock band, formerly mad LSD freaks on the Merry Pranksters dayglo bus, famous for hour-long psychedelic versions of half-hour album cuts, the first band with two drummers, partial inventors of the rock and roll light show, participants in the Haight-Ashbury summer of love, featured in a Life magazine article on hippies. 

Here they are, folks, the fire marshal has asked me to remind you that there is no smoking in Irvine Auditorium. 

A living legend. 

Three thousand cheering fans stand in the aisles, fill up the orchestra pit, crowd the stage, hang from the speakers, dance in the balcony, cavort in the lobby, mob the dressing room, hug their neighbors, pass the joint, gawk at the mosaics, and get ready for two hours of fine rock and roll. 

It took a handful of albums and a half a dozen years for the Dead to become big, national stars. Two weeks ago, it took only one song for the Dead  to convince the audience that they were as good as everyone said. 

Irvine Auditorium, on the Penn campus, was the location, and the excuse for the celebration was Drexel University's Homecoming. The theme of the weekend, according to the Drexel Homecoming Committee, was "Times Are Changing," and the evening proved they certainly were. 

It is very difficult to describe the music. Jerry Garcia's slinky guitar lines changed one song into another. Pigpen sang a funky version of "Turn on Your Love Light" and exploded occasional red smoke bombs for percussive emphasis. Adonis-like Bob Weir played second guitar with outstanding virtuosity, taciturn bassist Phil Lesh laid down a heavy, driving bottom, and dual drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzman beat counter-rhythms on the skins. 

Songs would begin with a familiar hard-rocker ("Not Fade Away" or "Good Lovin'"), dissolve into a spacey break, come back with another song, another break, and, whew! 20 minutes later, the original song. 

Big hits were performed - "Love Light," "St. Stephen," "Dark Star," "Uncle John's Band," "Casey Jones," all the tunes calculated to get the audience screaming, clapping and dancing. 

The Dead played for a little over two hours, a very short set by their standards. They played no acoustics set, and their band-within-a-band, the country New Riders of the Purple Sage, never appeared. Yet everybody left satisfied and emotionally exhausted - even the 2000 fans who payed $5 each to get in. 

The next day, a Penn BMOC told me that the concert "will long be considered the cultural high-water mark of the fall semester." 

He's right, of course. 

It's not every day you get to see a legend and the reality turns out to be better than the fiction.

(by Dennis Wilen, from the Philadelphia Daily News, 29 October 1970) 

Alas, no tape!

October 31, 1971: Ohio Theater, Columbus OH

GRATEFUL DEAD IS 'WAKENING'

 

The Ohio Theater was the happy site of a post-Halloween party Sunday night, with the Grateful Dead and New Riders of the Purple Sage providing musical tricks and treats. 

Many in the more-than-packed house were in costume and the concert induced dancing in the aisles, the orchestra pit, and even the box seats.

The show had been sold out well in advance, but people didn't seem to pay much attention to seats, anyhow. 

The New Riders opened the concert with John Dawson songs and rearranged favorites such as "Hello Marylu" and "Honkeytonk Women." Along with Dawson, David Nelson and David Torbert, Perry Garcia played pedal steel guitar. 

Although the Riders are friends of the Grateful Dead, and Garcia performs with them, they are a group of their own. West Coast Country-Rock would best describe the style of this delightfully new group. 

It's near impossible to describe, define or categorize this group. They are the Grateful Dead, and have been for seven years now - an established, polished, together aggregation. 

So many others have tried in vain to commercialize on what the Dead first laid down. 

Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, and Keith Godshaux (filling in for Pigpen, who is recuperating from surgery) were simply outstanding. 

Much of the material was new. "Jack's Straw" was particularly effective, and Godshaux provided excellent keyboard - quite noticeable throughout the concert, but especially during "Back to Tennessee." 

As the concert roared to its finale, the lid came off when the Dead worked their way into "Kasey Jones" and completely "psyched" the house with "One More Saturday Night" and "Hand Jive." 

The Grateful Dead have come a long way since their early days in San Francisco, but somehow have been able to evolve within their own style - which is dynamic.

 

(by Peggy Clark, from the Columbus Dispatch, 1 November 1971) 

Thanks to Dave Davis. 

Released on Dick's Picks 2.

https://archive.org/details/gd1971-10-31.142426.sbd.gans.eaton.miller.flac1644

October 30, 1971: Taft Auditorium, Cincinnati OH

RECENT 'DEAD' CONCERT IN CINCINNATI LIVELY

 

The Grateful Dead is a musical family. They are not rock stars - rather they are simple folk playing genuine, honest rock and roll. 

The Dead are playing with a sweet country flavor at present. Songs like "Sugar Magnolia" and "Candyman" are a pleasant transition from their earlier pennings. 

But, the Dead are at their optimum (and I like them best) when they freely improvise around a basic rock pattern. They ended their recent set in Cincinnati with an old Crickets tune, "Not Fade Away", and if you were fortunate enough to have a tape of their performance (it was broadcast live and the reproduction was excellent) listen to "Not Fade Away". 

Here the Dead improvise the way they used to. Complex, interwoven passages that border on the cosmic. 

I miss the "Dark Star", "Turn On Your Love Lite" Dead and hope that they are merely going through a stage. 

All the Dead were at the concert with the exception of Pigpen who is ailing with liver and ulcer problems. On the tour Keith Godcheaux is sitting in on keyboards and vocals as a replacement. 

At Taft Auditorium they played a lot of new songs. The Dead are in a constant musical evolution. A song never sounds the same twice and Godcheaux added a distinctive personal touch that was flavorsome indeed - but it wasn't Pigpen. 

A brief word about the audience - DISGUSTING. Between songs and even before songs ended a certain few would bark out their favorite Dead tunes. They got so obnoxious that at one point Garcia said, "Hey, are you trying to play cop?" 

One yokel kept screaming for the Dead to play "Truckin". Garcia once again, "Hey man, you may dig 'Truckin' but what about those who don't?" 

I got to the concert too late to see the Purple Sage and apparently the audience didn't see them either. 

 

(by Mike Kelly, from the Journal-News, Hamilton OH, 9 November 1971) 

 

* * * 

 

'GRATEFUL DEAD' GLOOMY, 'NEW RIDERS' STEAL SHOW

 

Somehow a concert by the Grateful Dead can end up being gloomy. Not even helium-filled balloons with "The Grateful Dead" printed on them could cut through the feeling of depression at Saturday night's concert at Taft Auditorium. 

Perhaps it was the drugs. I had the feeling even the drinking fountain was laced. 

Or maybe it was people's clothes. Both performers and audience could have been dressed in khakis and looked just as cheerful. 

But most of all I think it was the steady, pounding beat of The Grateful Dead. Their performance was sturdy, and well executed, but the music tended to lumber and bear down on the listener. 

The rock group is made up of five men playing three electric guitars, piano and drums. But instead of using the tone colors of the individual instruments, they stick to one basic sound that has neither very much color or originality. 

I wish the whole concert could have been performed by the warm-up group. I have never heard better country music. 

The New Riders of the Purple Sage use three electric guitars, a slide guitar and drums - very close to the Grateful Dead instrumentation. But whereas the Dead were dreary, the New Riders were rhythmically sophisticated, glorious in their mellowness, and thoughtful to the point of having good counterpoint. 

From the tearful "The Last Lonely Eagle" to the rocking "Louisiana Lady" they were original and constantly engaging. The orchestra pit was full of people bouncing up and down in time to their music. 

The concert was an instant sell-out, largely, I guess, due to the Dead's reputation. 

 

(by Rob Cook, from the Cincinnati Enquirer, 31 October 1971)  

Thanks to Dave Davis.

 

https://archive.org/details/gd71-10-30.prefm.nawrocki.26608.sbeok.shnf