August 13, 2009

Pre-'74 Dead Films

Someone asked me what footage exists of the early Dead, so I threw a list together of some filmed Dead shows - this is all probably common knowledge, but I thought it might be worth posting. (The first Taping Compendium also has a comprehensive Video Guide in the back, and a great informative interview with archivist John Platt.)
I'll be happy to see additions to this list if I've overlooked something - I only went up to 1974 with this list, and tried to cover performance clips most people can see on youtube, rather than every little fragment.

(This was updated in March 2021. Though some Youtube links might still be current, many will vanish or become outdated over time, so check for alternate sources if links are dead.)

For a more comprehensive list of Dead videos, see this great site:
http://danb.altervista.org/videovault.htm
 

The earliest film of the Dead we have is from the Acid Test video, which I think is silent footage from 12/18/65 with sound from the 1/8/66 show, along with lots of prankster stuff. The Acid Test video used to be available from Kesey's family, but may be trickier to find now. 
Unfortunately the Acid Test video is blocked from youtube, with pretty much everything deleted at the moment. One partial clip of King Bee used to be here (dead link now), but here's a tiny bit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0mH_dg6Kd8  
One poor-quality compilation is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txJyktFLeuI 
A 15-minute clip of Viola Lee Blues from 3/19/66 was here (dead link now)

Some other snippets of silent footage from the early days have appeared - uploaders Voodoonola and AlligatorWhine have been doing an excellent job putting compilation clips on youtube, mixing stills & other footage with the scanty Dead films. Some examples:
1/14/67 Be-In, Golden Gate Park - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lvH6gZH3j8
4/9/67 Golden Gate Park - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bagM_jQawY
(or re-edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNPzRoL_1DU
8/28/67 Golden Gate Park - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKQmOEpPYUE
3/3/68 Haight Street - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmP7oiwYImo (partial; a more complete clip from Historic Films has been removed)
8/4/68 Newport Pop Festival - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJcMUMh5IA8
5/3/68 Columbia University, NY - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFtQr_W3opM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_3kAdz5AdY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnU2gZeLpxk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_rrw6uYHTA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq8sp6WF3bQ (several different edits)
5/11/69 Aztec Bowl, San Diego - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTbpEH2PCKU (this is a re-edit; the original raw footage has been removed)
 

Some more film from 1967 has recently surfaced.
Here is a 26-minute video of b&w footage from the 1/14/67 Human Be-In, with about four minutes of the Dead's set. Some bits (including a fragment of Dancing in the Street) are not on our circulating tape: 
Other b&w Be-In snippets are here, here, and here.
News footage of the 6/1/67 Tompkins Square Park show has also appeared, including a bit of BIODTL & Schoolgirl: 
Some fragmentary clips with several songs from the 4/9/67 free Panhandle show were also made available by Oddball Films, a stock-footage company. They also briefly shared a short b&w clip of the Dead playing Dancing in the Street at one of the September '67 Straight Theater shows. (Their site also has very brief clips from 8/28/67 & 3/3/68.) I believe these are just sampler clips from more complete footage that the company is holding.

And some more recent snippets, mostly just a minute or two: 
A scant few seconds of members of the Dead playing outside at Olompali in June 1966. 
4/9/67 Panhandle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNHx7Pj1f80 (new audio dubbed on)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBN4m7I7z7I (b&w clip dated "4/20/67")
6/21/67 Golden Gate Park - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwtOXJbD6eM (also here, both dubbed, compiled from here)  
(See also the brief show footage of Alligator 50 minutes into the CBC documentary "The Way It Is": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEejp5_UMyQ or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXBT8whuiiY&t=3010s)
7/16/67 Seattle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9yA3mNzWc8 (short silent clip)
8/6/67 Montreal - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkQeOyyyKV8 (brief silent clip) 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n02oXeUGeSY (some extra audio dubbed on)   
3/3/68 Haight St. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IE4Mf9531Ms (dubbed fragments)
5/7/69 Golden Gate Park - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KV6rZRSYQt4 (brief shaky silent clip)

A few semi-official clips are also out there: 
6/3/66 Fillmore - https://www.facebook.com/chris.dileo.5/videos/10211791762644198/ (Mindbender - b&w BBC footage)
"Whicker's World" TV show, spring 1967 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDQwBaU_9OI (Golden Road)
"Hippie Temptation" TV show, 1967 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97JXkUK6NsM (Dancing in the Street)
Richard Lester's "Petulia," spring 1967 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8kWzzlfhkE (Viola Lee)
Robert Nelson's "Grateful Dead" short, 1967 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0iULSnZUkg or https://vimeo.com/123272954 (an avant-garde piece with very little live footage)
"Backstage Pass" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmHRcC6PJGk (a little compilation from various clips)
And only the tiniest snippets of 2/11/69 used in a "60 Minutes" documentary on the Fillmore East.
You can also see some tantalizing bits in the "Anthem to Beauty: and "Long Strange Trip" documentaries, which are essential viewing.
(There are some non-musical clips of the Dead too, but I'm only covering performance footage here.)
 
As you can see, most of these bits of early film are really brief glimpses, often silent footage or TV news pieces, sometimes less than a minute. Unfortunately, in cases like these, the Dead were only briefly filmed as 'local color' and it's unlikely that any full-song footage survives. Even in a more professional setting like the "Petulia" film, all 'outtakes' from that performance were junked.
 
Maybe someday the Viola Lee from Monterey 6/18/67 will appear on some super-expanded Monterey Festival box set... (I don't think any more of that show was filmed though - Pennebaker stopped after one song, later claiming he ran out of film.)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Us9vtzWkg (Better copies have been removed from youtube, unfortunately, but some may prefer this re-edit with better audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0J_07EVMwY
 UPDATE: Viola Lee was released on Criterion's "Monterey Pop" outtakes disc (blu-ray edition only) - this seems to be a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IFifxmhX0k 

Then there's the very enjoyable "Playboy After Dark" TV show from 1969, which has Mountains of the Moon & St Stephen, and has been released.  
 
There are some youtube videos of the Dead at Woodstock 8/16/69 - most of the show from various sources, and some backstage stuff. I'm surprised that the Dead allowed the full Lovelight to be released on the 40th anniversary Woodstock DVD set - it's hardly their shining hour.
Dark Star - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvt87xrXgZ8&t=13m11s  (incomplete footage starts 13 minutes in) 
Lovelight - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUeHBtAMifo (37 minutes) - This song is in much better quality, the others are pretty dark; there could be better clips of those available.
This is a discussion of the edits in St Stephen in the audio & video - neither is complete: http://archive.org/post/418678/woodstock-saint-stephen-cut-or-did-they-really-just-bail-out
(...actually the audio is complete: the Dead did just skip a verse, as the b&w clip demonstrates.)

Part of the Family Dog 2/4/70 show (Hard to Handle & China>Rider) has been released as the "Night at the Family Dog" DVD (with Jefferson Airplane & Santana, and an all-star jam at the end) - well worth seeing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjzNsjOnX0M 
Hard to Handle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNoIeJ7EoZM  or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mznr6-jmoxU
China>Rider - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSXSOgKQi6I  or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0XVcM_osts
Super Jam - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH42XG2ibfg
(I should also mention the related film "Go Ride the Music," with performances from Jefferson Airplane & Quicksilver Messenger Service, and some brief comments from Garcia - this has also been released.)

One exciting thing that's come out is partial, poor-quality b&w film from 2/14/70 Fillmore East:
Hard to Handle - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdNiKbe_1QI
Dark Star (partial) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVvUDWonjXk
Been All Around This World - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQxVi0j90MQ
Me & My Uncle > Not Fade Away (cut) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwkrBNiB5cs
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4seb9bpZZvo (the whole surviving footage, I think)
Some discussion of this clip is here:
http://archive.org/post/435963/team-fillmore-east
Bill Graham commonly filmed Fillmore & Winterland shows (at least after 1970), but it's unclear how much more Dead remained hidden in the Graham archives.

More recently, an hour of partial, poor-quality b&w film from the 5/3/70 Wesleyan show has surfaced: 
Some comments on the video are here.

After years of rumors, a "Hollywood Festival" DVD was released of the 5/24/70 show; but it doesn't look like much film exists of the Dead's show - from what I've heard the DVD mostly uses still images of the Dead, set to music, along with a few shaky, distant, out-of-focus, non-synced film bits randomly repeated throughout.
This is a good site about their appearance, with reviews:
http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/Holly-dead.70.html
According to the site, "Unfortunately, the BBC TV crew who were supposed to be filming the show were allegedly dosed on Owsleys finest and the footage was unusable as the cameramen were totally out of it - so we have the Dead or their followers to blame for this event not being preserved for posterity. The only footage known to exist is two or three minutes shot by Bob Colover on standard 8, as well as a few brief shippets on a short amateur (but very well filmed) silent movie."
More remarkable news comes from David Lemieux, who reports that the Vault has: "the band rehearsing at a beautiful little theatre, where they jam an electric Man's World and an amazing version of Candyman - and, best of all, two songs from 2 cameras from the show, Good Lovin' and Casey Jones."
Here is Hard to Handle - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThRhFFMQsn8

UPDATE: The English footage was released as a bonus with the "Long Strange Trip" documentary. Bits of Casey Jones, China Cat & Good Lovin' can be seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpJUZn_G6og 

A couple songs from the "Festival Express" tour in summer 1970 came out in that documentary - Don't Ease Me In & New Speedway Boogie. (Much better were the DVD extras - Easy Wind & Hard to Handle.) Since then, part of a Lovelight has surfaced on youtube from Historic Films, which has collected the surviving film reels.
Easy Wind - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoJI3vesE0c (good copy down, only poor-quality tape currently up
Don't Ease Me In - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp1MiIq9RQ8  
New Speedway Boogie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9NEBXqaHc4 (or here, unedited)
Hard to Handle - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdTeIx04pI
Lovelight - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJhnOq2q3ag (9 minutes of excerpts)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXUbDTPBpKI (1 minute of the end)
Candyman - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IukXw4yFXC0&t=1329s (part of a poor-quality VHS compilation of footage, w/ Easy Wind

CC Rider jam (Garcia w/ Ian & Sylvia, etc.) - https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12ncua 
New Riders of the Purple Sage - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUQW3jkHzMI or https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6008fy (a silent clip; I think it's the only NRPS footage with Garcia & Hart) 
A silent clip of the 6/28/70 Coronation Park show in Toronto can also be found: 
 
The Dead also did a short TV special broadcast on 8/30/70 called Calebration, doing several songs in the KQED studio - Easy Wind, Candyman, Casey Jones, Brokedown Palace, & Uncle John. It's in rather dodgy quality, with our only source a poor, wobbly, multi-gen VHS transfer, but it's still worth seeing - it hasn't been released. Multiple clips are available, these may be the best quality:

 A couple Winterland shows, 10/4/70 and 12/31/70, were broadcast live on KQED-TV (as quadrophonic simulcasts with KSAN and KQED-FM radio). These videos haven't been seen since; there are rumors that they still exist in the KQED vaults, but I'm skeptical. I haven't seen any evidence that the shows were ever re-broadcast, so it's possible the footage was never kept in the first place, taped over or destroyed. Michael Parrish wrote, "I got verification from David Lemieux at one point that neither the 10/4/70 nor the 12/31/70 video remains in either the GD or KQED vaults." 
And yet, there are tantalizing hints in interviews shortly afterward that videotapes did exist; at least, band manager Jon McIntyre said, "There might be some tapes we can edit down. Warner Bros. wants to edit them down and make an hour program for the BBC." See the comments here:
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2013/09/grateful-dead-live-fm-broadcasts-1970.html?showComment=1395991897240#c1175122899374323985


The Dead's 6/21/71 show was filmed, and some pieces were shown on French TV. I'm not sure how much of the show survives aside from what has been broadcast. It would depend on whether the songs that weren't used for the original film were preserved - normally TV stations dumped unused footage when they filmed concerts. Parts of this show have surfaced in a mix of B&W and color, along with an interview with Garcia (overdubbed in French).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWbzmRBU6Lg or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT5yX6dqGWQ (1 hour) -
Morning Dew, Hard To Handle, China>Rider, Deal, Black Peter, Sugar Magnolia, Sing Me Back Home

The "Last Days of the Fillmore" DVD has Casey Jones & Johnny B Goode from 7/2/71. (Note that the DVD is not the full original film; several other bands' performances were cut out.) Unfortunately, though the Dead's whole show was filmed, the 'outtakes' were all dumped, so it's unlikely any more will be seen of that show. 


The Dead were filmed a couple times on their Europe '72 tour. One common, excellent-quality 'bootleg' DVD that's available is "TV from the Tivoli", 80 minutes from the 4/17/72 show, which comes from a Danish TV broadcast from '72. Plenty of clips are on youtube.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkznlP29TjQ 
The first two sets were filmed, and perhaps it will come out on DVD someday... The broadcast songs include Me & Bobby McGee, Chinatown Shuffle, China>Rider, Jack Straw, He's Gone, Next Time You See Me, One More Saturday Night, It Hurts Me Too, Ramble On Rose, El Paso, Big Railroad Blues & Truckin'. (Unfortunately, the third set with Dark Star was not filmed.)

The Dead also taped a short performance for the German TV show Beat Club on 4/21/72 - only one song, Saturday Night, was broadcast at the time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvTcUIdYEtA 
One more song (BIODTL) surfaced later - https://vimeo.com/353239477 
It appears the film of the entire 4/21/72 show is being held by Historic Films, a stock-footage company that licenses films for use in documentaries. There is no telling when we'll be able to see the rest - they have not made it available for viewing. (Even a one-minute teaser clip was pulled off youtube.)
The film was finally shown in theaters in 2014, and turned out to be excellent: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Uu57h7H18 (alt. SBD sync) - all youtube copies currently pulled, though Beat Club briefly made it available for a time.
Playing in the Band can be seen here, here & here.
A discussion of the film & recording is here: 


There was a Bickershaw Festival DVD released some time ago, raising exciting prospects that the 5/7/72 show was also filmed - unfortunately, from what I've heard it looks like a poor-quality 'homemade' compilation, with only one Dead song, Black-Throated Wind, set to random footage.
But there's still hope that more film from 5/7/72 will come out someday.
There's a nice page about that show here:
http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/dead.html
A short interview with Garcia and very brief Dead footage are here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0vAqnq1vW0

No Dead show was professionally filmed for two years, between summer '72 and fall '74. There are some short amateur silent film clips of a few concerts mostly from '73 which don't show much of the band (they are mostly shots of the audiences, with the band only seen briefly or distantly). Some examples are 3/19/73, 5/20/73, 6/10/73, 7/28/73, and 5/25/74. More links can be found here: http://danb.altervista.org/videovault.htm

From the next trip to Europe, one surprising discovery recently was the (rather dark) surviving footage from 9/21/74, 24 minutes - you can see Ned Lagin onstage next to Garcia in the second set.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-G_mOM5LbQ - China Doll, part of the Playing jam, Row Jimmy & Big River
 

Then there's the "Grateful Dead Movie" DVD with lots of extra stuff from their October '74 Winterland shows on the bonus disc. Considering how much they filmed, probably a whole extra movie could be made from the rest of the shows & backstage material...this isn't likely to happen anytime soon, though. (At least, Lemieux hasn't made it sound likely.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKkr4w22uPI (includes Uncle John's Band, Sugaree, The Other One, Scarlet Begonias, China>Rider, Dark Star, Weather Report Suite

Dr. Beechwood has put together a list of the concert songs used in the movie:

The concert footage shot on October 16–20, 1974 and included in The Grateful Dead Movie contains full or partial performances of the following songs:
  • "U.S. Blues" October 18 and 19, 1974
  • "One More Saturday Night" October 19, 1974
  • "Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad" October 18, 1974
  • "Truckin'" October 19, 1974
  • "Eyes of the World" October 19, 1974
  • "Sugar Magnolia" October 17, 1974
  • "Sunshine Daydream" October 19, 1974
  • "Playing in the Band" October 16, 1974
  • "Stella Blue" October 17, 1974
  • "Casey Jones" October 17, 1974
  • "He's Gone jam" October 17, 1974
  • "Morning Dew" October 18, 1974
  • "Johnny B. Goode" October 20,1974
An additional bonus disc released on DVD in 2004 includes the following full performances:
  • "Uncle John's Band" October 19, 1974
  • "Sugaree" October 18, 1974
  • "The Other One -> Spanish jam" October 17, 1974
  • "Scarlet Begonias" October 19, 1974
  • "China Cat Sunflower -> I Know You Rider" October 17, 1974
  • "Dark Star" October 18, 1974
  • "Weather Report Suite" October 18, 1974
Notes on the recording dates:
  • "U.S. Blues" uses footage from October 18 for the closeups and October 19 for the shots of the entire band. (Phil Lesh's shirt changes color from white to rust-colored.) The audio is from October 18, according to the DVD commentary.
  • "Sugar Magnolia" is from October 17, but the "Sunshine Daydream" coda is from October 19. (Bob Weir's shirt changes from blue to white.)


And lastly, the "Sunshine Daydream" film of Veneta 8/27/72. Bootleg videos of it have long been available, but "Sunshine Daydream" was finally released last year in an alternate edit, including Bird Song, Sing Me Back Home, and some different footage in parts. (Some clips online include Promised Land, Jack Straw, and a different edit of China Cat focusing on the band.)

Here are some comments from one of the filmmakers, years before its release:
"We were all suitably scrambled. Film magazines didn’t come fast enough because the changers had melted or become distracted, cameramen went off into enchanted but unintelligible directions of wobble and warp. By the time Jack Straw rolled around the earthquakes had slowed down and the camerawork improved. Much of the warpedness was considered unacceptable at the time but today it lends a certain authenticity.
We didn’t, by any means, shoot every song. We shot what we thought would be good candidates for the thirty minute project.
That project was hijacked by the notion that what we had was far more than a few precious stones; we had an ornament. It’s taken over thirty years for the half-life of that notion to become true. In the intervening years the film spent most of its life in the pump house of the producer, Sam Field.
A couple of years ago, at the behest of Dennis McNally who wanted to screen it in conjunction with the release of his book, we brought it up to date, digitizing and adding two new songs to the original cut: a wonderfully emotive Bird Song and a twilight Sing Me Back Home that, because of it’s fading images, can’t help but move you.
Most of the rest of the film is as it was the day it was set aside including the animation sequences in Dark Star which, due to lack of band footage, were patched in pretty much willy-nilly from old work print provided by Dennis Pohl, a New York filmmaker. We had intended he would create original, syncopated work for the final film.
There are still a few more miles to go, fine tuning the edit, remixing the sound, before we get to the final technical hurdle, conforming 1972 technology to current DVD standards, but with patience and perseverance this may someday, be available to all."

And this is what David Lemieux said about a possible release a few years ago:
"It's not in our hands. The people who own the film, physically own the film, who produced the original one, who have restored it and are ready to do something with it...that's about all I know, that they still have it. It's in great shape and they have put some effort into doing a good HD transfer and restoring it and preserving it. We all agree that it would be a good thing to come out some day. We do have the multi-track audio, so if ever it came out I would like to think that it would come through us so it could be mixed through a proper 5.1 mix. As it is, they can't do that. The only multi-track copy that exists is ours. The fact that it's Grateful Dead music, they would have to collaborate with us anyway. Nobody could just release something. Regardless, I agree it should come out. There's a lot of songs missing from the film and that's a product of them not filming a lot of songs. What I think would be ideal would be for it to come out on DVD, 5.1 mix, and then a three CD complete show of all released from the multi-track mix. That would be very pleasing to others and us. That's another thing. We have so little of the early era. Stuff that does exist should be given proper treatment and not just slapped together and thrown out, but really do the full Grateful Dead Movie treatment with it. Give it a 5.1 with some documentaries. Interview some of the people who were involved. I don't think it would be worth doing otherwise."

173 comments:

  1. Excellent article!!! I appreciate you're hard work! All the information about 8/27/72 is encouraging that we'll see an official release someday. Hopefully, sooner than later!

    I found this China Doll clip on Youtube from 9/21/74, Paris, France.

    China Doll

    This link has the end of Playin' in the Band and Row Jimmy 9/21/74

    Row Jimmy

    and here's Big River 9/21/74

    Big River

    Let's hope there is more where this came from. With a proper audio source/sync this could be epic!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Had no idea film of 9/21/74 existed! The quality isn't so great (pretty dark), but if more complete master footage appeared, it would be pretty awesome.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I really appreciate all of the work you have invested in this documentation.

    Regarding 12/31/70 (came home from playing my first gig ever that night and caught the the second set):
    I contacted KQED years ago about that footage and a show they broadcast from the Filmore (date unknown, probably '69) that included the Airplane and QMS. According to them Bill Graham owned the films and would reside in his vault. Has Wolfgang's vault released any video?

    The Filmore show is indelible in my memory. Some back stage footage including an interview with Jack Cassidy as he is knocking back brandy from a bota bag.

    Thanks, keep up the good work!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. > It's also worth mentioning that a brief
    > bit of the Dead performing Viola Lee in
    > the Avalon Ballroom around this time was
    > used in the movie Petulia:

    some trivia about 'petulia':

    The Jefferson Airplane were to appear in the film. They were scheduled for filming their scenes from May 30, 1967 to June 2, 1967. They turned down the offer and did not appear in the film.

    I-) ihor

    ReplyDelete
  5. > It's also worth mentioning that a
    > brief bit of the Dead performing
    > Viola Lee in the Avalon Ballroom
    > around this time was used in the
    > movie Petulia:

    in case you want to update the link:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8kWzzlfhkE GRATEFUL DEAD -viola lee blues_from the movie PETULIA

    I-) ihor

    ReplyDelete
  6. Many years ago someone testified to me that they saw b&w videotape footage of the September 19, 1970 show at Fillmore East. Apparently this footage resides on the East coast, maybe in the Maryland/DC area.

    ReplyDelete
  7. That sounds bogus to me...
    Of course, footage of that show (and any other Fillmore East show) COULD exist. The fragment of film from 2/14/70 is the only one that's 'gone public', but we don't know how many other videos are still lurking in Bill Graham's vaults... They would likely be pretty poor-quality, though.

    ReplyDelete
  8. oddly enough i just watched one of the newest episodes of bizzare foods (season 6 episode 7 )that was shot in san francisco and in the opening montage (talking about the bay area music scene) there was a few seconds of what looks like a show from 68 or early 69,
    in colour... i had never seen this footage EVER i was shocked to say the least...
    and i have seen most if not ALL of the footage mentioned in this blog (i even have a dvd copy of the 02-14-70 footage)
    I googled "early grateful dead footage" and here we are...albeit i am puzzled as where this footage came from,and why the hell was it on a sub-par reality show?...
    i don't think it was in the anthem to beauty doc though i might be mistaken (haven't watched it in awhile) here are some snapshots from the clip that i made

    http://www.divshare.com/download/14333623-271

    http://www.divshare.com/download/14333617-6f9

    http://www.divshare.com/download/14333616-16c

    if you have any info about this please let me know i can be reached at mivanovs@hotmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thanks for the clips!
    Anthem to Beauty or some other VH1-type doc is the most likely source - although I don't remember seeing this shot before either.

    I'm thinking mid-'68, as the shot matches exactly (down to the rose) with a photo from "summer '68" on this site detailing Garcia's guitar history:
    http://dozin.com/jers/jers/guitar/history.htm
    I'm certain it's the same show as that photo - just a matter of finding out what show that was!

    ReplyDelete
  10. I found the show - the Newport Pop Festival, Aug 4 '68.
    Another shot of it is here:
    http://www.wald-electronics.com/images/preamp%20mods/newportpopfestival_aug_4_1968.jpg
    (From this page - http://www.wald-electronics.com/preampmods.html - although it's trimmed so you can't see Billy.)
    There are actually a few nice shots from this show:
    http://www.dozin.com/jers/guitar/blackgibson.jpg
    http://www.crawdaddy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/jerry-garcia.jpg
    http://www.dead.net/sites/deadbeta.rhino.com/files/images/19680804_0281.jpg
    http://media.photobucket.com/image/jerry%20garcia%20pigpen/songbuddha/pig.jpg (I think it's the same show, though the colors look different)

    I can't find any info on the video clip, though.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. ive seen more video of this on a footage site where jerry is jumping up on the amp... the guy filming is on stage wish i could find more

      Delete
  11. For any fans of Sunshine Daydream there is a Facebook page that's been set up to try and get it officially released. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150102312651584&set=a.10150102312641584.314723.788756583#!/PleaseReleaseSunshineDaydreamMovie

    The page has been created by Zane Kesey and has the full backing of the owners and directors of the movie. Things have been moving along with very positive results so far. With reports from Ken Babbs that Bill Kreutzmann LOVED a recent copy that he sent to him. If the page gets enough numbers they can approach the band for permission with the intent of releasing a definite multi disc version with outtakes and interviews. If you love this movie and you love the Grateful Dead please visit the page and press LIKE.

    ReplyDelete
  12. found this on YT
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgwJJgF0BvY
    Paris 72 footage:D

    ReplyDelete
  13. oops seems as that was some footage from 74

    ReplyDelete
  14. Yeah, I noticed instantly that was actually 9/21/74 again. Good try, though!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Someone told me back in the 90s that they saw black & white footage of 9/19/70 Fillmore East, shot by the house crew. It's been decades since the conversation, and now the details are fuzzy. But I do recall him being positive about seeing this somewhere in the Maryland area.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Hmm, are you the same person who commented back in March? It would be good to have confirmation of this. Since we know 2/14/70 was filmed, it's quite possible more Fillmore East sets were filmed as well and still survive (albeit in low quality). Hopefully more details will emerge eventually...

    ReplyDelete
  17. There is also some 8mm color footage from the Human Be-In 1-14-67 that is quite nice. It was used in local Bay Area news specials. Short, but sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  18. The 1967 live clip of Golden Road from the UK TV show "Whicker's World" (with studio version dubbed) -
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCr-QGzvRS0

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The BBC filming took place in March or early April 1967, shortly after the single came out, and is mentioned in the first Olompali Sunday Times fan newsletter.

      Note that Garcia is still playing the Guild Starfire guitar, and Lesh is on Fender bass. (In June, Garcia switched to a Les Paul, and Lesh switched to a Guild Starfire bass.)

      Delete
  19. One commenter noted that there's been an upgrade of the Monterey 6/18/67 Viola Lee posted to youtube -
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amWqLamEBkU

    The soundtrack is now the stereo SBD, though edited down to match the footage. (The older soundtrack was, of course, the same tape, just a bad source, so the edits were in the same spots.)

    What's interesting for me is that this is obviously not "raw" footage - the filmmakers took the time to edit & sync the film (from several cameras), even though the Dead never gave permission for the footage to be used.

    Sadly, even when the Monterey DVD came out with all the extra musical performances, this still was not included, so I guess the Dead still haven't changed their minds!

    ReplyDelete
  20. A 58-minute clip of the 6/21/71 show has been on youtube for a while; here is one copy -
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPJX9xSuvWw

    I haven't checked the links in this post lately (or for that matter, any of my old posts) - the rule of thumb is that everything's on youtube, but individual links do go down sometimes.
    I should probably put more updated links in here, though.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Back in the early 1970s, I was told that there is/was a great deal of GD footage for the SF Ballroom scene. I cannot prove this but from what I was told at the time, after the Dead signed with Warner Brothers, some of the young/hipper Warner film teams came up from LA and filmed like crazy. There are supposedly large metal film canisters laying around somewhere with "miles of film."

    Harvey L. (Honkies)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My goodness. "Miles of film..."
      I haven't heard of this, though. I would think, if Warners was sitting on a bunch of SF concert footage, someone would've tried to release something & make some money off it by now, or there would be some word of it.
      Unfortunately what we have from '67/68 is generally really short clips - usually with no sound - just bits & pieces that might show up in documentaries. I don't think there's even a good complete film compilation of that period - and the band looked dramatically different than they did later.

      Maybe some more things will show up someday - like the mysterious Newport '68 film mentioned in comments above, or the 5/24/70 footage - or shows we don't even know about...

      Delete
  22. Not sure if this is old news, but there is some sort of cut of Sunshine Daydream (8.27.72) up on youtube.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UHpx72ifdE

    -Dan

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well, there's always been cuts of Sunshine Daydream up on youtube...

      Sometime I have to update this post with a lot more links.
      For instance, more footage of the Newport '68 show has appeared:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJcMUMh5IA8
      And more Acid Test footage:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NgftH2eR0E
      (There used to be a longer 15-minute clip of the 3-19-66 Acid Test - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q9X6TRUqfw - but unfortunately it was removed by Kesey's video company, which apparently takes down most Acid Test videos that appear. That's the trouble with youtube links; they often disappear...)

      Delete
  23. I once asked DL2 about video of the second set jam from Tivoli 72. He told me that it was not in the Vault, nor did he think it was even filmed. Do you have other information that the entire show was in fact filmed?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good question! I wonder where I read that. The broadcast stopped before the third set, so I doubt more survives on video (if it was filmed). So no, I don't think the whole show was filmed.
      Maybe Lemieux was talking about the audiotape in the Vault, and I misread it.

      Another thing to fix when I update this post...

      Delete
    2. It's from the Taping Compendium Vol 1 chapter 9 The Video and Film Guide 1959-1974.

      After listing the excerpts from the Tivoli TV broadcasts on page 568 it states "More of this concert exists in the Danish television station's vaults."

      Then on page 577 John Platt, "a researching archive consultant for documentaries", is being interviewed by John Dwork.

      JD "There's a television station in Copenhagen that has a whole concert from Tivoli Gardens in April of 1972."

      JP "Yes, they do. It's Danish National TV."

      JD "I heard that the GD now have all of it but that they are having problems getting to use it from Danish TV who own the rights."

      JP "They do. They filmed it, they own it. They'll just have to work out some kind of compromise. There is at least one home video with a clip from that on it that came out of England. I'm sure the rights were never cleared: it was a legal English release but from a company that was notorious for not clearing the rights with the artist. I think it was called California Screaming, but I wouldn't swear to that title. It's one of a series of sixties compilations, except the Dead of course is '72. They've got the whole show. There's the Beat club from that tour too."

      JD ""Truckin'" and "Saturday Night," the latter of which was then reedited for showing on Casey Kasem and then later for MTV where they put in more psychedelic postproduction effects which actually make it look much better even though it's not very inventive."

      There are a few ambiguous "they"s in there. I always read it to mean that the GD do have a complete copy but maybe only Danish TV do, either way it looks like the whole show was filmed.

      It's a long time since I watched California Screaming Vol 3 which Platt refers to. I don't have the technology to watch VHS any more but I remember the GD track, "Saturday Night", as being from the Beat Club, not the Tivoli. I could be wrong. A quick clamber up to the attic only reveals the VHS was issued in 1989 by Castle Communications who I've always thought of as a legitimate cheap reissue label. John Tobler gets credited as an associate producer and as scriptwriter, he's a reputable guy. There are no performance details given and I've never seen a DVD rerelease.

      Delete
    3. Yeah, that interview may have thrown me too.
      I don't recall the Dark Star set being in circulation until the 2000s (though Rob Eaton wrote a review of the full show in the Compendium). So Platt & Dwork could be mistaken on Danish TV having "the whole show." It is, in any case, rather vague to say that the Danish TV vaults have "more of this concert" - there are also a few other songs missing from the video.

      A couple Beat Club clips have shown up, but that's another performance where I have to wonder if the whole thing survives on video in some vault, other than the little bit that was shown on TV. We can be pretty sure it was all filmed, at least - though I don't know if Beat Club ever saved the stuff on the cutting-room floor.

      I believe "Casey Kasem" had Truckin' from Tivoli and Saturday Night from Beat Club. (You can tell the Beat Club clip because it has the trippy album-cover visuals behind the band. Very different from the Tivoli Saturday Night, which has Rosie McGee dancing behind the band.)

      Delete
    4. Thanks for the followup information. I didn't realize the Dark Star, etc was actually a third set, I thought it came after Truckin' in the second set.

      In any event if there is more video in Danish TV archive, you would think there would be someone to contact there who could give more definitive info on that. I would also think that if there is video in their vaults similar in quality to what circulates of the rest of the show, it would be of significant commercial interest. I would certainly buy a DVD of the whole show!

      Delete
    5. i am pretty sure more of the beatclub show is still around-- just last year an additional 1 minute clip popped up on youtube
      www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0LfdneR65Q
      german television( in this case radio bremen)might never get around to air ... but i am sure there is more in the vaults at bremen

      Delete
    6. Whoa...a ONE-MINUTE clip! That was quite a tease.
      You're right, the entire Beat Club show survives.

      What strikes me is that it was posted by Historic Films, a company that has presumably purchased the film. They've run teasers for other videos they own (for instance, they recently bought all the Festival Express reels...96 hours of footage) - anyone wanting to show or use one of these clips in a documentary now must license it from them.
      If you look on their website, you can see they do have the entire 4/21/72 show.
      http://www.historicfilms.com/

      Delete
  24. OK, well I emailed someone at Danish TV If I get any useful answer I will post it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good luck with that.

      Garcia announces a short break after BTWind, and Weir announces a short break after Truckin', so Dark Star officially starts the third set!

      Blair Jackson says in the CD liner notes to 4/17/72, "We'll probably never know why we only have the songs we have from that show on videotape... We know that the cameras weren't on for the third set." I think he would know, if anyone.

      But he also says in the 4/21/72 liner notes that the whole 4/21 show exists on video (and should be released). I'm hoping he's right about that.

      Delete
    2. So on www.historicfilms.com, if you do a search for grateful dead, it seems that film BC-119 is the entire GD Beat Club performance! So how to we get access to this archive?

      They also claim to have the rest of the Festival Express footage, and apparently they are digitizing it.

      Delete
    3. Yes, they have it as BC-119 and BC-120 (from different cameras).

      Access is problematic. The show is not available for online viewing; in fact, you can't even download a low-res version even if you pay the $100 "pro account fee" (as it's not part of the "Specialty Collections").
      Their site makes clear, "Historic Films does not provide films to collectors or for home/private use... Our footage is available for licensing in all media to professional film producers, television productions, ad agencies, corporate producers and documentary film makers."
      If you have a minimum of $600 to spare (for an hour-long show, it's probably a lot more), and have details on your company & the production you want to use the footage for (see http://www.historicfilms.com/pages/licenseAgreement ), then you can get the performance. What legal actions you may face if the show then happens to be leaked to the world, I can't say.

      Delete
  25. I failed to mention it earlier, but a more complete video (2 1/2 songs) from 2/14/70 has surfaced from the same source:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz-rbYmQJDk
    Hard to Handle, Been All Around This World, & Dark Star/
    Probably more survives as well, but doesn't circulate yet.

    See the discussion here:
    http://archive.org/post/435963/team-fillmore-east

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can add a few to your list. I hope none are repeats, I've tried to cull them out, but that's a long thread for someone with my limited attention span.

      a) Sunshine Daydream does circulate. I doubt the version I have is "official"
      b) Woodstock 69-08-16 exists except for Dark Star
      c) The 70-02-14 clip I have (really bad, handheld) ends with the band "Love" doing 1 song. The Allman Bros also played that show.
      d) I have the Hollywood Festival movie, but I have trouble extracting it right now. If memory serves, it's not coherent - music playing over still images or something like that.
      e) The short film by Mickey Hart's son called "Backstage Pass" has some old footage in it.
      f) There is a clip called "Calebration" from a public television studio 70-08-30 - B & W with psychedelic effects. Easy Wind, Candyman, Casey Jones, Brokedown Palace, Uncle John's band. Parts are degraded and warbly.
      g) There is also a clip called "Home Movies" that is a collection of just that - clips from a color 16 mm movie camera of the Dead on stage, clowning around, canoeing, etc. with a soundtrack of what sounds like a circa '68 jam. At the end it simply says - "by Robert Nelson"

      Great blog; keep up the good work.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the list!
      a) Maybe Sunshine Daydream will finally be official when we're much older & grayer... Til then, there are plenty of unofficial copies circulating.
      b) It's odd that the Stephen>Mama Tried, High Time & Lovelight from Woodstock are available on film, but not the Dark Star. (Which, though, has been officially released on a CD set.) I had a discussion on the Archive forum a while ago which showed that the available audio/video of Stephen has actually been edited.
      c) I wondered if more was available from the 2/14/70 video than those 2 1/2 songs. More must have been filmed.
      d) As I recall, the DVD of the Hollywood Fest does just have music over still images, as far as the Dead are concerned. Which is unfortunate. I'd really like to see the rehearsal/film footage Lemieux says is in the Vault.
      e) I've never gone through Backstage Pass to place the footage (or the Anthem to Beauty documentary either) - there's lots of brief snippets of old clips, many of them unknown to me:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EguGHFOnzaA
      f) Calebration is well-known, not great quality but it'll do.
      g) Robert Nelson did make a short avant-garde film of the Dead in 1967; the soundtrack varies on different copies, but it's very trippy, with very brief flashing images of the band.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0iULSnZUkg

      Delete
  26. A couple more things to add -

    The footage of the Dead at Columbia 5/3/68 is great:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_3kAdz5AdY
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnU2gZeLpxk
    Looks like it must have been one of the best Dead shows ever filmed...but only in snippets of silent footage, alas!

    A welcome upgrade to the 9-21-74 footage has been posted - though it still looks really crappy, and there's only 24 minutes of it, still you get to see Ned Lagin onstage next to Garcia:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-G_mOM5LbQ
    China Doll, an excerpt from the Playing jam, Row Jimmy, Big River

    And this was the discussion of the Woodstock St. Stephen I had on the Archive:
    http://archive.org/post/418678/woodstock-saint-stephen-cut-or-did-they-really-just-bail-out
    The second verse of Stephen, oddly, is edited out on both the audio & video. Something strange must have happened...

    ReplyDelete
  27. Even though that 3-19-66 vid was taken down off my channel, I still have a copy of it that you can get here:

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/t1mrpe0ivilupp4/Grateful%20Dead%203-19-66%20Carthay%20Studios%20Los%20Angeles%20CA.mp4

    Since the footage isn't labeled, I made an educated guess as to the date and location based on a few clues.

    In the video you see Bear carrying and setting up equipment. He started doing the sound soon after 1-29-66, but he missed the 2-6-66 Test. "Only one other one did I miss, the first one in LA in late Feb in Northridge. So I missed a total of five of the AT's." http://www.goodbear.com/1966setlists.html Then he split from the band after the Vancouver Test. So that leaves five possible dates:

    2-12-66 Watts, Youth Opportunities Center
    2-25-66 Los Angeles, Hollywood Cinema Theatre
    3-19-66 Los Angeles, Pico Carthay Studios
    3-25-66 Los Angeles, Sunset Strip Troupers Club
    7-30-66 Vancouver, PNE Garden

    Viola was played at two of them 3-19 & 7-30. Hugh Romney, seen in the video, was not at the Vancouver Test http://www.postertrip.com/public/images/5589a.jpg but he was at Carthay http://www.postertrip.com/members/images/3390a.jpg

    Lastly, a quote from Carol Brightman "In these harum-scarem scenes from kesey's videotape, which is pastiche of the Fillmore Acid Test and another one in Los Angeles" Sweet Chaos - Grateful Dead American Adventure - Pages 13-16

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! 3-19-66 is as good a guess as any. The Viola Lee soundtrack was taken from 12/1/66; I don't know what's actually being played in the footage.

      I've read that Kesey's Acid Test video, while it has the audio from 1/8/66, the footage is from 12/18/65.

      Delete
  28. I forgot to say that the reason I put it together was because of a ten second clip in the vid. You can see it for yourself at the 3:45 mark, they are playing Viola. I used the 12/1/66 version cause I like it better lol

    This is from kesey's video but just from another source. It's from the end of the Kesey Egypt video. They're pretty much all the same, and most people have seen the color footage that's usually interspersed with the stuff I used. This color footage is what I think is the 12/8/66 Muir Beach test. The doors at the place are so big they drove the bus inside. This seems more like a lodge than an auditorium in the second level of a building.

    ReplyDelete
  29. There's a nice assemblage of Bickershaw 72-5-7 footage that I've not seen before in such good quality. The sound is dubbed and there's less Dead visuals than we'd like but it's well worth watching all the same.

    "Lookin' high, lookin' low" indeed.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0vAqnq1vW0

    ReplyDelete
  30. The Bickershaw video is just a creative diversion that I undertake every once in a while. Besides the previously mentioned Acid Test video, there's a few more like those on my channel. The next one is going to be another Viola, this one is from the Human Be-In 1/14/67.

    ReplyDelete
  31. The Bickershaw Garcia clip was new to me! Looking forward to more discoveries...

    ReplyDelete
  32. Grateful Dead - Viola Lee Blues
    Human Be-In 1-14-67
    Golden Gate Park S.F. CA.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lvH6gZH3j8

    ReplyDelete
  33. Thanks. Not much footage to work with once again, but I think it's still is a good watch.

    ReplyDelete
  34. A couple other scraps from this period:

    Viola Lee in the park, 1967:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKQmOEpPYUE
    5-24-70 Hard to Handle:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThRhFFMQsn8

    ReplyDelete
  35. I think I might re-do that Chocolate George's Funeral video. I made it last year and since then additional and better quality clips have surfaced.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Another VLB

    3-3-68 Haight Street

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqAishnGVkA

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. THAT is awesome. Kudos to whomever put it together!

      Delete
  37. I found part of a Lovelight from the Festival Express tour!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJhnOq2q3ag
    It's from the same show as Don't Ease, New Speedway & Hard to Handle in the Festival Express video - Toronto 6/27/70.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Historical Films Archive also provided another brief excerpt from the end of Lovelight, from a different camera:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXUbDTPBpKI

      There is also some silent footage of the NRPS set from this show, featuring Garcia up-front on pedal steel:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUQW3jkHzMI

      There's also a remarkable scene with Garcia, Weir & another guy arguing vehemently with one of the kids who wanted the Festival Express shows to be free:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpocOtyjF2A

      Delete
  38. I finally updated this post, with links to almost everything.
    Let me know if anything has been overlooked!

    ReplyDelete
  39. There are some new additions here, particularly the silent-film clips at the beginning.
    One of my own favorites is 5/11/69 - you can see Garcia in his brief mustache phase, digging Santana's set by the edge of the stage. Garcia is extremely animated in his playing, perhaps more than in any other video, bopping around the stage & flailing the guitar. (Meanwhile Pigpen bangs away on the congas.) It looks like brief shots of Morning Dew & the Other One.

    Also looking at the Woodstock Lovelight... Not one of the better versions (Garcia's not in good form, and the guest speaker is really annoying), but it does get a bit more interesting in the second half, particularly the finale. They're trying SO hard to get a groove going...
    We get a very good look at the guest - I don't know who he is? (Definitely not Ken Babbs.) Note that despite his babblings, no one in the band seems to pay him any mind. (Nor do they mind the other guy dancing across the stage in everyone's way.)
    We also get a good look at TC, who seems to be sporting a beard. While Pigpen raps, he and Weir clap along... Pigpen plays the congas during the jam.
    There's a long Garcia duet with the drummers; he stands by the drummers bobbing his head. At the end, Mickey Hart sets off a little explosion - I think that's his toy cannon.
    Witnesses of early shows recalled on the deadlists forum, "When I saw the Dead circa '68-'69, there was a "toy" cannon on stage by the drums--Mickey Hart yanked the cord during the critical moment in St. Stephen: Boom!!! ... Mickey used the cannon in St. Stephen when I saw them in '69 and '70 quite often, although not at all shows."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A re-edit of the 5-11-69 footage:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTbpEH2PCKU

      Personally I prefer the 'raw' footage in these cases, though I admire the effort to synchronize to the music actually played.

      Delete
  40. This site is amazing. I have learned so much reading it the last few years. These video links are priceless. Thank you for all the work that's gone into it.

    ReplyDelete
  41. I don't know if anyone's mentioned it but I just came across a youtube post of 73 Nassau when they wore the Nudie suits. No sound, but you can just pop a tape on. Looks like it's been there a year now.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rm5tHIWi3Q

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I had not seen that short clip. Very distant camera - it almost looks like abstract art!

      Delete
  42. This clip of the Columbia U 5/3/68 show is the longest and most complete, including Pigpen singing a song on the organ, and the Other One at the end:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq8sp6WF3bQ
    It does not include all the shots from the other clips, though, so perhaps there were multiple cameras. At some point someone should edit together the definitive version of this show from all the sources!

    ReplyDelete
  43. 2 more comments:
    A little while back on youtube, there was a 60 minutes/ interview with Janis Joplin, that had a short clip of the Dead playing The Other One, to me it sounded like part of a TIFTOO suite, supposedly from the Fillmore with lights behind the band. It was very cool, but has been since taken down. If anyone captured it, I would love to get a copy. And it makes you wonder what Fillmore show was videotaped from that era?
    And I bet most people know by now, but the 4/21/72 Beat Club will be shown in the movie theaters in midJuly this summer! Man, I hope they release it for purchase!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. so apparently the interview took place on 2/11/69! So amazing to think that some of that show was filmed. I guess if it was done by the 60 Minutes crew for the broadcast, they probably didn't record more than they needed for the clip

      Delete
    2. It is a shame that 2/11/69 clip got pulled off youtube. Hopefully someone else will upload it someday.
      And yes, it's certain that any footage not used in the broadcast was discarded, unfortunately. Though I doubt they would have filmed much of the Dead in the first place.

      Great news about 4/21/72.

      Delete
    3. I found some of the 2/11/69 footage, used in a Fillmore East documentary:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBEiwABOBp0&t=05m23s

      It's only about 10 seconds long (so I haven't included it in the main post), but it's professionally shot, you can see part of the light show, and the band's in the middle of a jam. It's very good quality, making me think that more of the footage survives - hopefully we'll see it someday!

      The Video & Film Guide in the Taping Compendium also lists one piece I haven't yet seen on youtube - a four-minute silent clip from the 5/16/70 Temple Stadium, Philadelphia show. It isn't described, unusually, which indicates perhaps that they hadn't actually seen it, or perhaps it was awful quality.

      Delete
  44. One more rarity here. Starting at the 13:11 point the following clip appears to have actual footage from the 8/16/69 "Dark Star": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvt87xrXgZ8&t=13m11s

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very cool, a few minutes on film of a '69 Dark Star! Granted, a rather dark clip of a subpar Star, but still....a little better quality than the 2/14/70 footage. (And the same camera angle, coincidentally.) It's striking to see the guitarists facing each other, apparently concentrating hard on trying to get this Dark Star off the ground. There's also a glimpse of Pigpen tapping on congas or something.
      And the baby onstage at the end is a hoot.

      Delete
  45. Updated this post - many of the links have changed.
    A lot of Youtube links get deleted over time; usually it's possible to find alternate copies, but not always.

    ReplyDelete
  46. A tiny b&w snatch of one of the Dead's shows at the Straight Theater, September 29-30, 1967 has surfaced - about 50 distorted seconds of Dancing in the Streets, and a bit of the jam:
    http://ihavenorecollectionofthis.tumblr.com/post/100178277396/99-sure-this-is-mickeys-first-gig-on-september

    There's also an unknown poet reciting before the band - a nice '60s touch, which of course reminds me a bit of Casady's 7/23/67 rap with the Dead at the Straight Theater.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The video clip seems to have been originally posted on Vimeo by a stock-footage company called Oddball Films:
      http://vimeo.com/97755919

      If you check out their site for other Grateful Dead films, they have brief sample clips of 8/28/67 Golden Gate Park & 3/3/68 Haight St too.
      http://www.oddballfilm.com/search/default.html

      I believe the Straight Theater film isn't complete, but is a sample clip from longer footage. We're not likely to see more unless it gets used in a documentary or something...

      Delete
    2. It was removed from vimeo, but the 2-minute clip is still here:
      http://www.oddballfilms.com/clip/13176_17123_grateful_dead_concert

      Delete
  47. More stray '67 footage from Oddball Films has been found - the Dead playing in the Panhandle to a dancing crowd - thanks to the JGMF site for pointing it out:
    http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/11/dead-in-panhandle-sunday-april-9-1967.html

    http://vimeo.com/97755921 - Caution (about 70 seconds, distant sound, filmed from across the street); King Bee (about 15 seconds, sound is more clear); Viola Lee (about 15 seconds, extremely muffled sound)
    http://vimeo.com/97755927 - Viola Lee (continues for about 20 seconds, sound still very muffled); then a stage announcer
    http://stock.mrfootage.com/pages/assets_clip/popup_play.php?session_numb=80572&language_numb=1&business_numb=1004&shot_numb=407764 (the Oddball Films site, clip ID 407764) - a Garcia-sung blues song, in pretty good sound; it sounds like Schoolgirl or Nobody's Fault; he sings "I'll buy you everything" twice (about 25 seconds); then King Bee, very clear sound (10 seconds); and a muffled little snatch of Viola Lee.

    It's clear the original footage was probably much longer and we're just getting brief, random sample clips. The sound obviously varies as the cameraman moved around.

    Part of this footage (the Garcia blues tune, and some dancing/stage shots) was used in Voodoonola's "4/20/67 Golden Gate Park" video, but it looks like 4/9 was the correct date.

    Also, I should note: http://www.dgb.comule.com/videovault.htm is a much more complete (and more frequently updated) list of Grateful Dead video links.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The 4/20 date is on the following clips and it's mentioned in a few other places so that's why I labeled the GGP video as 4/20.

      http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/video/hippies-in-haight-ashbury-dancing-and-listening-to-the-news-footage/98074961
      http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/video/hippies-in-haight-ashbury-dancing-and-listening-to-the-news-footage/98116213

      So now I'm trying to figure out why you think it's 4/9 and not 4/20. but I didn't know about the 4/9 gig, so what do I know.

      Delete
    2. Good question! I have a few reasons for thinking it's 4/9.

      For one, 4/9 was a Sunday, and 4/20 a Thursday - not the best day to arrange an afternoon park concert, you'd think, and one drawing a pretty big crowd too.
      Also, JGMF identified the footage as 4/9 when he listed it in his blog:
      http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2014/11/dead-in-panhandle-sunday-april-9-1967.html
      A "well-documented" 4/9 Panhandle concert is listed on the Lost Live Dead concert list for early '67, but there is nothing listed for 4/20, probably because the writer hadn't found any concrete evidence for that date:
      http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/01/january-april-1967-grateful-dead.html

      Nonetheless, Getty Images does date their footage 4/20, and it looks like the same performance. My guess is this is the date of the TV broadcast, with more clips from the show seen on this page:
      http://www.itnsource.com/en/compilations/faith,-history-politics/events/lr/S23020702/1967-Summer-of-Love-and-Hippies-Footage/

      By the way, the few seconds of audio from the Dancin' jam in the clip is really great. I wish these TV crews had left their cameras rolling longer!

      Delete
    3. I was thinking that it's all the same date as the hippie temptation with Harry and that it was never planned. First a spontaneous gathering on Haight then "Today there is no violence and there's a reason for this. The band called the GD have announced they will make music in the park." So it could have been Thursday. I guess I just came at it from the other side.

      btw I think we'll see more of those oddball vids someday

      Delete
    4. Ahh nevermind. In one of the clips a guy says dancing in the park on Sunday 1967.

      Delete
    5. Good find! Nice to have a little internal confirmation.

      I was also wondering whether this was actually the same date that the "Hippie Temptation" clip was filmed.... (The Dead look like they have the same clothes & "stage" setup in the two clips, but the background behind them is different - a building in the 4/9 footage, but trees in "Hippie Temptation.") I haven't intently studied this issue, though....

      Delete
    6. Light Into Ashes, thanks for mentioning my "Grateful Dead Video Links" page. I thought I would pass on a couple of items: (1) I recently moved that page to http://danb.altervista.org/videovault.htm and (2) happily, the excellent Voodoonola edit of Beat Club 4/21/72 finally got re-uploaded to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Uu57h7H18 (who knows how long it will stay available?)

      Delete
    7. Thanks for the updated address. That is a great site; loads of useful links.

      Delete
  48. Another good '67 clip to add - almost half an hour of the Human Be-In, 1/14/67, with the Dead appearing for about four minutes in the middle:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTGyFgyB5Q8&t=13m13s
    We get parts of a raucous Dancing in the Street and Viola Lee, from the side of the stage, with some nice footage of Rosie McGee dancing. There's a bit of the break after Viola Lee that isn't on our tape - someone says "last one, Jerry," and Allen Ginsberg announces a lost child as the band doodles - then there's a tiny fragment of Schoolgirl.

    ReplyDelete
  49. News footage of the 6/1/67 Tompkins Square Park show has surfaced:
    http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/RTV/1967/06/02/BGY506190017/

    It has the end of BIODTL and part of Schoolgirl, and lots of shots of crowd dancing. Clearly New York City welcomed the Dead from day one.

    ReplyDelete
  50. Amazing new voodoonola vid of 5/3/68 Jam->That's It For The Other One here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFtQr_W3opM (at 3:46 Jerry's lip movements are perfectly synced up with audio from a "Cryptical Envelopment" vocal).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a good job of syncing!
      My own preference is for the "raw," unedited footage, though... I think all the clips of this show have been edited differently!

      Delete
    2. Here's an interesting bit regarding the accompanying audio, though: on Archive.org there is a show labelled "Grateful Dead Live at Unknown on 1968-05-00" ( https://archive.org/details/gd1968-05-00.sbd.currier.5427.sbeok.shnf ), and a couple of years ago someone tried viewing the 5/3/68 footage from Anthem to Beauty while listening to this mystery reel and thought they were from the same show. So that audio was used for Voodoonola's new 5/3/68 video clip, and much of what is seen and heard there seems to match up perfectly, especially Garcia's "Cryptical" vocal at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFtQr_W3opM&t=3m46s and the following stick movements of the drummers. Is it possible that a long-lost audio recording of the Columbia University show has been circulating but mislabelled since 2008? The existing segment includes: St. Stephen> Jam> That's It For The Other One> New Potato Caboose, Alligator> Caution.

      Delete
    3. It does sync perfectly for those short bits. I'm pretty sure if you took any performance of the Other One from that period, it would also sync up - the vocals and tempo did not vary much, especially within the same month. (The footage is also edited to look continuous, but it's not - as mentioned elsewhere, check out how Bill's sunglasses appear and disappear mid-performance.)

      I do not believe the recording is from the Columbia show - I think it's from an indoor theater, most likely the Carousel.
      Note, for one thing, that it was recorded by Bear (vocals one side, instruments the other) - he's not known to have been on that New York trip; he was doing the sound at the Carousel. (In fact, I believe he recorded Thelonious Monk at the Carousel that same weekend.) Given that the Dead were smuggled onto campus and hastily set up a stage, it seems very unlikely anybody made a soundboard recording - if there even was a soundboard.
      The sound also does not suggest an outdoor venue with a crowd right in front of the stage - there is no audience noise at all. The band also recalled that their Columbia performance was constantly interrupted by students wanting to speak to the crowd, which doesn't match the long, leisurely medley on the tape.

      I'm sure from now on people are going to say that tape is from Columbia, regardless!

      Delete
  51. Another Voodoonola clip of the 4/9/67 Panhandle footage of Dancing in the Streets - different edit & quality:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNPzRoL_1DU

    ReplyDelete
  52. Another very, very short snippet is in this clip, supposedly from 9/9/1967, matching this picture.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Five seconds! Good grief. The 9/9/67 attribution seems right, but it's sad that all these '67 park shows were filmed only in little fragments.

      Delete
  53. oh well -- I commented this on the MountainsOfTheMoon post but it fits better here:
    Someone should ask Justin Kreutzmann what video material he used in 'Backstage Pass' during 'HardToHandle'.
    Of course there is the original video of Family Dog 70-02-04, also video of Columbia 68-05-03, more obscure are the short parts of Pigpen Garcia and Hunter which we think are 63 or 64.
    But the most interesting parts are from a 69 show -- on my copy of 'Backstage Pass' at around 3:15 and 3:45 and some very short snippets thereafter: they show Mickey on washboard, Garcia on 3 guitars (acoustic, electric and 12 string !) and Pigpen directing Mickey to sing into a microphone. My assumption is, these snippets are 69-07-12.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sometimes a comment should be made on more than one post - there's a fair amount of topic duplication here!

      Anyway, the Dead do have a stash of non-circulating early film clips (some others can be glimpsed in the "Anthem to Beauty" doc). I hope more will be seen in the new Dead documentary!
      I think most of what's seen in "Backstage Pass" circulates in more complete form, but not all of it. It would be great if someone did a shot-by-shot analysis saying where each shot came from. Obviously the high-quality videos of 2/4/70 and 5/3/68 are the bulk of it (and stuff from Robert Nelson's film, the Acid Test clips, and home movies), but there are glimpses of other shows.
      There are a couple very brief shots of the band in '67 playing in front of a black background (around 1:55 & 2:05) - don't know what that could be from; a TV show?

      7/12/69 is a good guess for the unknown '69 footage, it seems to be that period.
      I didn't see the shot of Garcia on acoustic; where is that?
      The bit of him on an electric 12-string around 6:15 is unusual - I don't think there's any other picture of him with a 12-string, right? I wonder which song it was; supposedly on 7/11/69 he played electric 12-string on Dupree's & Dire Wolf. (He followed that by playing pedal steel on Hard to Handle, so he must have been feeling adventurous that day!)
      The shot around 3:15 of Pigpen & Mickey at the microphone is in color, whereas the other front-of-stage shots are in b&w; so they could be two separate shows.

      Delete
  54. • on the supposedly 69-07-11/12 stuff:
    - yes, Garcia on acoustic is not in 'Backstage Pass', but we have some screenshots and they are from the same b/w video, so they may come from 'Anthem to Beauty' (have to watch it again). The acoustic guitar can be seen lying by the side on pics from 69-06-22. I thought about this video stuff coming from the Fillmore East 06-20/21, but there is no trace of light show to be seen.
    - Dupree's and DireWolf 07-11 sound like Jerry plays the 12-string, someone w/ a more musical understanding may approve this.
    - Pigpen and Mickey at the microphone can be heard on the tape from 07-12.
    some more observations:
    • I think the brief shots you mention around 1:55 and 2:05 are from early to mid 66, because of Weir's relatively short hair. These shots also appear in the 'Magic Trip' movie, so they may come from Kesey's stuff. And Jerry wears that dotted shirt as in other early 66 shots.
    • at 3:30 there is a very brief portion shot out of a trailer that shows T.C. and in the background people in the park. Is that Polo Fields 69-05-07 of all things? Now that would be cool, if there exists more!
    • at about 7:50 we have video from Duke 71-04-24; Jerry w/ another one-time guitar.
    • and around 11:00 a bearded Lesh walkes with Ned Lagin, so that's sometime in 74.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. and:
      • yes, Garcia on acoustic is in 'Anthem to Beauty' at around 60:00, from the same video used in 'Backstage Pass'
      • Garcia on 12-string is unique, there is no other pic of him w/ a 12-string (up to 75)

      Delete
  55. Thanks for digging into this!
    For reference, I'm using times from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmHRcC6PJGk

    You may have different timings on the brief '67 shots I mentioned - they're not the b&w shots with Weir & polkadot Jerry. It's fuzzy color, Jerry in a white shirt, Phil next to him in striped shirt & pants, Pigpen sitting in front in a headband & striped shirt, singing; and there's a bit of a light show behind them. Very brief; it looked like early '67 to me.

    Couldn't place the outdoors shot with TC. Looks like a big field, but not a big crowd.

    Interesting that Garcia brought the acoustic onstage on 6/22/69, though apparently he didn't play it that day! It was still brought out occasionally - reporters at the shows mention acoustic encores on 6/20/69 and 7/11/69 (neither surviving on tape, if the reports were accurate).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ah - got it, the fuzzy-color shots you refer. Looks like early 67. It seems Jerry is still playing the Guild, so it would be up to May 67, when he switched to the black Gibson SG. Very unusual is the staging: Pigpen is that upfront. On pure speculation: 1st album was released March 67, this may be some staged filming for promotion or something else which was never used or released.
      And: The outdoor shot w/ TC has that big field and I figure the people are just coming in.

      Delete
    2. Pigpen singing on TV in early 67 around the time the first LP came out points to Good Morning Little Schoolgirl to me. Maybe 'Kama Sutra 2' broadcast on 67-4-28 on KQED.

      https://auction.classicposters.com/item.php?id=7270

      Delete
    3. I thought the '67 shots must be from a TV show - Pigpen looks so much lower than the others, he may be sitting at a keyboard.
      I believe it's from the 4/8/67 Maze show:
      http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/04/april-8-1967-ralph-gleason-tv-interview.html
      The bottom shot on that page, in color, seems to show the same stage setup, with Jerry & Phil in similar-looking clothes on an elevated stage, and Pigpen at a keyboard in front of them. Also, we know they played a 'Walkin' Blues' at that show with Pigpen singing.
      (The other two b&w pictures are from an unknown mimed show - any guesses what that was?)

      As for the b&w '69 footage scattered throughout "Backstage Pass," I think it all comes from 7/11/69 since it matches several songs from that show:
      Garcia on 12-string - Dupree's/Dire Wolf
      There's a shot of Pigpen on harmonica next to Garcia - this is presumably 'Big Boss Man' from 7/11 (Pigpen doesn't play harmonica in the circulating 7/12).
      And there's an interesting shot of Mickey on washboard & Pigpen on tambourine - I'm guessing this could be somewhere in the 'Alligator' jam on 7/11.
      We only have Garcia playing acoustic on the 7/12 'Mountains of the Moon,' so the footage could be from two days; but a Village Voice reporter said there was an acoustic encore on 7/11.
      I think the color shot of Pigpen & Mickey on the mic is from a separate camera on 7/12/69.
      I hope the rest of this footage comes out someday and our speculations can end!

      Delete
    4. You are right in both cases!
      • The '67 shots fit w/ the Gleason pic.
      So the two b&w pics w/ Lesh on the broom, which are often attributed to Maze TV, are from something else. But surely at about the same time.
      • Great detective work for the '69 footage. We'll stick with this attribution.

      Delete
  56. A brief colour clip of the Dead in Golden Gate Park at (I think) the Summer Solstice 6706-21 has turned up on youtube 50 mins into "The Way It Was". Very nice, a shame it's so short but the whole hour is worth watching. Jerry certainly got value for money out of that red and green hooped T! Does anyone recognise that harp player behind Jerry?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEejp5_UMyQ

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good catch. The Dead (and their mystery guest) flash by in seconds, but there's some footage of the Ace of Cups following them a couple minutes later. Can anyone confirm the date?

      Delete
    2. My logic for it being 1967-06-21 is the matches with the Park scenes from the Summer Solstice in the film "Revolution."

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfWWOfWj1KE

      After the audio only (Grrr!) snatch of Quicksilver and just before the Dead play, the log rollers, the boy and girl on a motorbike, the inflatable globe and the "there's only one way to do it, you gotta burn the world up man, you gotta torch it with love" girl with short hair all appear in the first and/or last few minutes of "Revolution". I think the crowd on the hill at the start appears somewhere else credited to the Summer Solstice too but I can't remember where.

      If there's photos somewhere of the Dead at the Solstice that would decide it.

      Delete
    3. I've seen photos of the Dead attributed to 6/21/67, but they're from a different date than the film since the Dead are wearing different clothes, the stage setup is different, and Phil has a different bass...
      On the other hand, Dead photos attributed to 5/28/67 seem to match the film.

      Delete
    4. In the film, it looks like Phil's playing the Fender bass he used in spring '67 (up until Monterey).

      Delete
    5. Yes you're right, Phil's playing his Fender but he had just started to play a Guild before Monterey and had to switch back to Fender when his Guild was stolen at the Hullabaloo on 67-6-16. He had a new Guild by 67-8-28 for the Chocolate George wake. I think Billy may give us some help here.

      At Monterey Jerry plays a black Les Paul with no whammy bar, Bob his Rickenbacker and Phil the Fender which all match this clip. However, Bill still has his yellow drum kit at Monterey but has switched to the streaky grey one for this clip.

      By the Chocolate George and Straight shows there's quite a change. Jerry has a Les Paul with whammy bar, Phil has a Guild, Bob a Gibson and Bill has the grey kit again.

      It's a shame the Monterey video is so blurry but Bill looks to me to have longer scruffier hair there than here where it looks freshly cut. He must have quick growing hair if the three weeks between 67-5-28 and 67-06-18 could make that difference. I've sent you an email with screen shots to show you what I mean.

      Do those 5/28/67 photos have a clear view of Bill's kit and hair?

      Delete
    6. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17079964/67-05-28-%23-park-gd%202.png

      this will lead you to the only picture of bill i know of from 5-28
      the link will be dead by march 15th

      Delete
    7. Thanks! That matches Bill and his kit and even down to the alignment of Phils pegs so they are the same show. But if that is really 5-28 how did Bill's hair grow so fast in the three weeks before Monterey?

      I just rechecked Monterey and I was looking at a portion under yellow lighting before, Bill was actually playing his grey kit there as well. So my idea that the grey kit meant it was after Monterey was wrong. In fact he was playing it in NYC in early June.

      Delete
    8. Here's a sample set of pictures from this period:
      https://www.sendspace.com/file/bcmy0n

      The pictures are from 5-28, 6-8, 6-18, 6-21, 7-2, and 8-13.
      Bill's using the same gray drums throughout. His hair's already looking longer in the 6-8 photos than it is in the film clip.
      You can see the band's clothes match the 5-28 photos - also there's a bit of a flag behind the stage in the picture of Weir, which may be the same flag that we see behind him in the film.
      The 6-21 photos also have a bunch of people on top of a bus behind the stage, not evident in the film clip.

      Blair Jackson's GD Gear book had a note on exactly when Phil changed bass, but since Blair seemed to be using misdated photos, I can't confirm his accuracy. But it's evident that the Fender bass never shows up in pictures after Monterey; from 6-21 onwards it's the Guild.

      So the film clip would seem to be from May. It troubles me, though, that the 5-28 show is supposed to have been in the Panhandle, and it doesn't look like the film was shot there. The huge crowd (and multiple bands) would also seem to point to a big event like the Summer Solstice, not some random weekend in May. And of course, I can't confirm that these 5-28 photos are correctly dated either!

      Delete
    9. we are pretty sure the pics are dated correctly...but i agree about the loaction.. it doesn't look like panhandle at all..but then the location might be misidentfied in all listings we have

      Delete
    10. What's disconcerting is that all the film park & crowd scenes match descriptions of the June 21 Summer Solstice event, but the Dead themselves seem to have time-transported in from May.

      For instance, Charles Perry in "The Haight-Ashbury":
      "On the morning of June 21...a thousand people had gathered on Twin Peaks to watch the dawn... The sunrise watchers eventually wandered down to the Haight, a mile or so to the north, and joined the crowds building in the direction of Golden Gate Park. The solstice celebration was scheduled for Speedway Meadow, a long, tree-lined meadow adjoining the Polo Field... Wooden stages were set up at the side of the meadow, and a flatbed truck served as a third stage at one end. Over to one side Diggers were barbecuing a lamb and frying hamburgers in shovels. Paper flowers decorated the park shrubbery. A lady in a tent painted people's faces. An eight-foot canvas globe was bounced around above the crowd to shouts of 'Turn on the world!' There were archers, magicians, jugglers, and many freelancers playing whistles, flutes and guitars, and even a Tibetan liturgical orchestra complete with conch shells, Chinese oboes, and 6-foot-long trumpets. The Dead, Big Brother, Quicksilver and other bands played, using Fender speakers and amps...from Monterey Pop. And there were no speeches. When the sun was setting, many of those who remained marched toward the sea."

      Other than the Dead, it's hard to argue that the film park scenes are from any other date than June 21. (The big bouncing globe is seen in many shots of the day.) I doubt some other nearly-identical event happened in Golden Gate Park on May 28 with the Dead, Quicksilver, etc, that's escaped attention all these years.
      So if the photos are dated correctly, there's some discrepancy I can't explain, and maybe it can't be resolved.

      I'm not sure if the film shows more than one stage in the park (but obviously, showing the bands was not their priority). Can anyone identify other bands that are spotted in brief shots?

      I also wonder if the mystery harmonica player next to Garcia was the same mystery harmonica player during the Dead's set at Monterey. (Though it's hard to believe they'd let him play with them twice!)

      Delete
    11. We've also checked the weather on those days, and it was pretty similar - temperatures in the 60s during the afternoon on May 28 & June 21 (a few degrees warmer on 6/21), clear skies, fairly windy.

      The time of day is also a factor. In a picture of 5/28, there are a couple of shirtless people in the crowd, and the shadows are lengthening (the Dead facing the sun), so I think it was late afternoon.
      Whereas in the photos of the Dead playing in Speedway Meadow on 6/21, lots of people in the audience are bundled up in jackets and look rather chilly. No shadows can be seen, it looks like it might be overcast or the sun behind the trees. But in photos of the Charlatans that day (and obviously the bands in the film), it's sunny, there are shirtless people, everyone looks quite warm.
      Possibly the Dead were one of the first bands to play in the morning, since people were already gathering in the park in the early morning hours. But the crowd in the photos looks pretty big, so the Dead may have played in the late evening hours instead, as the chill was gathering.

      But the contradiction between the photos and the film still puzzles me.

      Delete
  57. Very good observations! And, yes, the mystery between 5/28 and 6/21 is still puzzling.
    Our arguments for dating one set of pictures as 6/21 were:
    • the huge huge crowd of people, clearly in Golden Gate Park, tends to the Summer Solstice festivities
    • Garcia and Pigpen are clowning w/ Jorma and Jack - alas, Jefferson Airplane were present
    • there are at least two "stages", one Ted Streshinsly pic shows QMS playing
    • but: can anyone confirm The Charlatans playing 6/21 shown on that famous pic w/ the "Summer Of Love" banner?
    Our arguments for dating the other set of pictures as 5/28 were:
    • smaller crowd of people watching, but it seems to be also in Golden Gate Park
    • of course, similar clothings by Garcia, Weir, Lesh
    • this led us to speculate the famous set of pics of Garcia and MountainGirl to be from that occasion
    • but: at least one 5/28 pic is from Elaine Mayes, L.A. photographer -- what did she do on that specific day in S.F.?
    • this leads to the question: What was 5/28 ?
    • we know of this date just from Peter Vincent's diary - right? nothing more?
    The brief film clip in "The Way It Was" clearly shows the GD playing "5/28" -- if this clip should be 6/21, where and when could be the set of pics we dated 6/21 ?

    ReplyDelete
  58. I don't know where photographer Elaine Mayes was on 5-28 but she was at Monterey Pop 6-17/18 and has published a book "It Happened In Monterey", her photos from there included Garcia. So it seems very plausible that she heard about the 6-21 Summer Solstice and would have covered that too. The weekend before Monterey she photographed the Mill Valley Fantasy Fair 6-10/11 so she was in Northern CA for over a week at least so it is quite possible that she was in SF for 5-28 too. This isn't much help but it does mean we can't eliminate either date by the non-presence of Elaine.

    Does anyone know if the SF Parks Dept (or whatever they are called) still hold accessible records of permits granted for park events back in the 60s?

    ReplyDelete
  59. The trouble is, the film and photos both have equally good claims to be from 6/21. I think the film matches descriptions of the day too closely to be another event.
    And yet, in the photos dated 6/21, we see a huge crowd filling Speedway Meadow, multiple photographers, the Airplane and other bands present, and a large array of amps on the Dead's stage (more than usual for '67), presumably some borrowed from Monterey Pop. I also think it makes sense for this to be the first show Phil played his new Guild bass. So...other than the cold weather, this too seems like it couldn't be from another date.

    I take it none of the photos were dated by the actual photographers?
    "5/28" may well be wrong. I didn't put too much trust in the Vincent diary entry that could have been rewritten or touched up years later, and I don't know if there was another confirmation of the date (which was said to be in the Panhandle anyway). Unfortunately the available photos are really lacking much offstage context (location, crowd size, etc).
    The big problem with redating the 6/21 photos is that they'd then have to come from some other huge multi-band Golden Gate Park show that no one's uncovered since. (And from Jerry's guitar & Phil's Guild, it could only be in the June/July time period.) I'm doubtful whether there was any other such event in those months, unreported & forgotten but amply photographed.

    In short, film & photos have equal validity as 6/21, though clearly being two different shows from different dates. I think this may remain unsettled!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Yes - none of the photographers dated their pics of these 2 events.
      The datings "5/28" and "6/21" are Uli's and mine on our best guessing, of course highly speculative. But we'll stick with these until more evidence appears.
      Some more observations:
      • Seems that the film "The Way It Was" used different footage of park shows, some may even be from the Human Be In, not all the footage is from the Summer Solstice.
      • There is one more pic by Elaine Mayes that seems to be from "5/28": http://www.elainemayesphoto.com/haightashbury21.html
      shows a very small crowd behind the dancers apparently watching a band playing.
      • The Phil bass history escaped my attention till this discussion, but it is interesting: there are pics from Napa 5/29 w/ Phil still playing his old Fender bass, as well as on all NYC pics 6/1 to 6/8 -- so "6/21" is the Guild bass premiere.
      • One photo was officially published very early, 1976, on the gatefold of Steal Your Face, the one from "6/21" showing the whole band w/ spectators and photographers (Jim Marshall?) on top of that truck. This is of no evidence to one or the other show, but points out that this was a somewhat remarkable one ... a pic from 6/8 NYC was also published on the Steal Your Face gatefold.
      • Gene Anthony in his book "Summer Of Love": http://www.cjayarts.com/pages/library/GeneAnthony-summer_of_love.pdf has some pics of the morning starting the Summer Solstice 67, foggy and dusty and cold for the people on Twin Peaks ... this could have continued on that day.
      So, all the pics dated "6/21" show a big event -- what else than the Summer Solstice?

      Delete
  60. We've been analyzing the photos, but it may be useful to do an analysis of "The Way It Was" with screenshots as well.
    The film was made by a Canadian TV crew there on assignment for a news show. How long would they have stayed in San Francisco? I didn't spot any sign that footage was used from previous months, so I wonder how many park shows the crew could have filmed.
    The park scenes in the last ten minutes correlate so closely with what we know of the Summer Solstice (the globe, paper flowers, "love" flags, trumpets in the audience, possibly multiple stages; not to mention the opening scene with people watching the sunrise on the hills) I think the bulk of the footage must come from that event.
    It's possible some shots come from other park shows. There are brief glimpses of other bands at 50:00, 53:30, and 54:20 - who are they?
    I would note that the audio for the Quicksilver, Dead, and Ace of Cups segments is excellent, almost soundboard quality, which may indicate that the same crew recorded all of them (if only for a couple minutes each). Visually I didn't spot any difference; the Dead and Ace of Cups seem to have been filmed by multiple cameras (there were three in the TV crew), or at least the editor did a great job.
    (The Ace of Cups played in the Panhandle on June 25, and Quicksilver played in the Panhandle on June 7, but the film clearly isn't shot in the Panhandle. I don't think they're known to have played other shows in Golden Gate Park that month. They did both play the Mt. Tamalpais festival on July 1.)
    Also, there's a band playing in a ballroom 22 minutes in - who is the band, and what shows did they play around June '67?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Just as a small note, I highly doubt that the TV crew cared what bands were playing. There's just a few minutes of live music in an hour documentary. They chose a few random (mostly instrumental) examples of local rock music, none identified, and they didn't bother filming the most popular band in the area, the Airplane. The bulk of the park music used was from an utterly unknown just-formed female band.
      The rest of the documentary is pretty linear, so I'm skeptical that the news crew would have a) filmed bands at other park shows, and b) carefully edited them into this scene. But it's possible! Do any of the settings look like Mt. Tamalpais?

      Delete
  61. A correction: I've been calling the band that plays a song after the Dead in "The Way It Is" the Ace of Cups, but I was mistaken - sorry for spreading wrong information!
    It doesn't really look like them, nor am I aware of the Ace of Cups ever having a couple male members. Now I'm thinking it's another band I don't know with women on bass, drums & vocals.

    As runonguinness mentioned, the 1968 film "Revolution" is a good comparison with "The Way It Is," since some of it was also shot at the Summer Solstice, including some alternate camera shots of the same scenes, and even a guy onscreen telling us it's June 21. Unfortunately, no actual music from the event was included, only a few fleeting glimpses of bands that are too swift to even make out. (Though I did spot Mad River briefly at the end.)
    There is, however, a minute of footage from an actual Ace of Cups show, 61 minutes in - this one's on a hill, so I'm guessing it's from Mt. Tamalpais.

    The Charlatans are thought to have played at the Panhandle on June 21, and Gene Anthony's famous "Summer of Love" picture does indeed appear to be from the Panhandle (the street's behind the band), and is generally accepted as that date - for instance in the U of C Berkeley Gene Anthony collection:
    http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/k6tb14t3/entire_text/
    It's a bit odd that they'd be playing there while all the other bands were over on Speedway Meadow!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous Artists of America or a jam involving some of them perhaps? The bass player could be Trixie Merkin.

      There were more free performances in the Park and/or Panhandle after Monterey than just the Solstice itself weren't there? I wonder if it went something like this. The Dead return from Monterey after the festival with the 'borrowed' gear. Bill gets a haircut while Phil sorts himself out a new Guild bass to replace his stolen one at which point Bob wants a Guild too. They are filmed and photographed playing the '5-28' Way It Is set still with the Fender bass and Rickenbacker on Monday or Tuesday afternoon. They get their shiny new Guild guitars in time to play the Solstice proper on Wednesday 6-21.

      Delete
    2. Bob wants and gets a new Gibson I meant.

      Delete
    3. I think it is the Anonymous Artists of America!
      Compare this picture from the Acid Test Graduation, it does look like some of the same people:
      http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/the-anonymous-artists-of-america-perform-at-the-acid-test-graduation-picture-id576840186?s=594x594

      The Anonymous Artists also played the Palo Alto Be-In with the Dead on July 2. I haven't seen pictures of them from that day. (Or, for that matter, from that year.)

      It would've helped if I'd seen this alternate youtube posting of the documentary (with muted sound), which has these notes:
      "The opening scene at 1.10, is of the "Hippies" including "Emmett Grogan" of The Diggers, on Twin Peaks, the hills behind Hashbury on Summer Solstice, June 21 1967. Look out for a great clip of "Country Joe & The Fish" playing Section 43, live at the Fillmore Auditorium with an AMAZING lightshow behind them at 22.47. Then at 22.57 you can see the poet "Richard Brautigan" reciting his poem called "Love Poem". Also check the audio of "Quicksilver Messenger Service" at 48.24 playing the intro to "Mona" live. Then footage of the "Grateful Dead" playing live in Golden Gate Park at 50.09, playing what sounds like the song "Alligator". Plus a very brief clip of "Quicksilver Messenger Service" with "Jim Murray" at 51.27. Also featuring the band called the "Anonymous Artists Of America" playing live at 51.38, who were one of the first bands to use analog synthesizers live on stage in 1967. All the live footage of these three bands was filmed in Golden Gate Park in 1967."
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6I9fJzj4ig

      Country Joe played any number of shows in San Francisco & Berkeley around May-July '67, so that might not be the Fillmore, nor would it help settle the date of filming.

      Delete
    4. The Fillmore scene in the middle with 'Section 43' playing has also been posted separately on youtube:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl0RwAPbqFA

      Yellow Shark commented: "The music is certainly Country Joe and the Fish but the film isn't - the location is the Fillmore and the band is probably Mad River with Brautigan reading at the end."
      So the band's in dispute; anyway this doesn't help us since Mad River isn't known to have played at the Fillmore anywhere near June '67.

      Delete
    5. It helps by confirming that The Way It Is contains music footage that is not from 1967-06-21.

      The post just delivered Jim Marshall's "Haight" book which I thought might help now it's cheaper on ebay. It is excellent but it looks like Marshall kept minimal information with his photos so it is no help at all.

      Delete
    6. It turns out that the Dead show spotted in "The Way It Is" was indeed from 6/21/67 - more short clips can be seen here:
      https://www.gettyimages.com/videos/grateful-dead-summer-of-love-1967
      These are dated 6/21/67, and labeled as the Summer Solstice Be-In at the Polo Fields. The photographer credited, Bill Kinder, filmed a lot more that day:
      https://www.gettyimages.com/search/filmmaker?family=editorial&photographer=bill%20kinder
      These include more footage of the Anonymous Artists (mislabeled Quicksilver), and very distant shots labeled Country Joe, Janis, and Quicksilver, all from the same day, on various trucks in the park.
      This Elaine Mays photo is also labeled "Golden Gate Park Solstice," further confirming the date of this show:
      https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/photographs/a6bNBZ/Grateful-Dead-Golden-Gate-Park-Solstice-San-Francisco-CA-1967

      The Dead are playing the same instruments they had at Monterey. This still leaves us with a set of photos from an unknown Golden Gate Park show in late June or early July '67 (and no known photos from the 5/28 Panhandle show). But at least we have a reliable date for the film, and some more Dead footage as well!

      Delete
  62. Nice to see more early Dead discoveries. I really like the Straight Theatre in 67, Mickey's first show! ? One thing that is noticeable is how loud the band is, something many reviewers made mention of in their reviews -excellently put together in the deadsources blog. But one thing I'm glad you picked up on was how the band play to each other. I kinda think they lost a bit when they set themselves up on stage so mannered. Although around this time Jerry did cement his place on the right side of the stage facing the audience, it begs the question as to why in '82, Phil and Jerry swapped sides? Is it so Jerry could hear Brent better? But I just love it to see Phil and Bobby together facing Jerry....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Dan Healy mentioned in an '82 interview that Jerry & Phil switched places for the "distribution of sound - who hears who." I don't remember what Jerry or Phil said about it.
      Jerry had switched places before, too - in some '73 shows, he's in the center with Bob & Phil to his right. And in some '78-79 shows, he's in the center between Bob & Phil, before heading back to their right.
      The keyboards had moved around some, too - in the early years, Pigpen was generally to Jerry's right, so they were next to each other. I've seen TC on both left and right sides; by 1970-71, I think Pigpen was always over on the band's left. And when Keith joined, his piano was generally on the band's left, except in some '76-77 shows he went off to the right.
      This is just from memory; a more detailed look through show photos could turn up dates when these switches took place. At any rate, it demonstrates that before '82, the band was never static for long in how they set up onstage.

      Delete
    2. In early '71 Jerry had also moved to the center, next to Pigpen's organ with Bob & Phil to his right. It's interesting that several times in the '70s, he moved to the middle before bobbing back to the right side. I wonder why....checking out new speaker setups, to hear things differently? Someone could investigate all the photo evidence and write a post about this....

      Delete
  63. August 6, 1967 Place ville Marie Montreal silent footage
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkQeOyyyKV8&t

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brief but nice find, showing a Pigpen song.

      Also, the new Long Strange Trip film has a few more pieces of some of the fragments that were in the "Backstage Pass" video - the Maze '67 TV show, the July '69 b&w shots, the '69 park show with TC - though maybe just seconds longer, not a whole lot.
      Needless to say, the England 1970 footage is the really big find. There was a lot more music filmed than was shown in the documentary, though.

      Delete
  64. Is the 6/1/67 park footage still around somewhere? Found the Straight Theatre footage, some panhandle clips here..as well as a press conference http://www.oddballfilms.com/clip/13176_17123_grateful_dead_concert

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    2. Hmm, I guess the 6/1/67 clip got taken off the ITN Source site....that's disappointing. I don't know if it's been reposted elsewhere; some of these clips vanish over time.
      It was 90 seconds, b&w, had a bit of BIODTL & Schoolgirl, and a glimpse of the band playing but was mostly shots of dancers.

      Delete
  65. Ned has put a Steve Brown filmed 17 minute home movie of the Europe 74 tour up on his site. It is the source for the Ally Pally set up from Long Strange Trip and also shows Munich and Dijon preparation along with a lot of scenic stuff shot out of bus and car windows and the Dead entourage wandering about being tourists. There's no footage of the actual shows but it's well worth a watch all the same.

    http://spiritcats.com/downloads.html

    ReplyDelete
  66. Hello - Ned Lagin has posted a home video on his site Spiritcats.com from the 1974 tour of Europe.

    It's a silent film with some of 7-21-74 as the soundtrack, pretty neat footage of the WOS being set up, but more 'home movies' than GD on stage.

    ianua ditis

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. woops here is a link:
      http://spiritcats.com/gd-tour-europe-1974-Wi-Fi.mp4

      -d

      Delete
  67. A preview of the one hour experimental 1967 TV program "Kama Sutra II" which was advertised as including the Grateful Dead has turned up on ebay. The preview is for a KCET Los Angeles broadcast on Tuesday 1967-07-11, KQED had broadcast the show earlier on Wednesday 1967-04-26. The scan is incomplete but it looks like the Dead provided some of the soundtrack but were not filmed.

    http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1967-Pasadena-Ca-Star-News-TV-Week-THE-GRATEFUL-DEAD-VIDEO-SUTRA-II-ED-MALLORY-/352146985811?hash=item51fd989353:g:4r4AAOSwxH1T6oz6

    Pasadena Independent Star-News TV Week July 9 - July 15 1967

    UNDERGROUND CINEMA TUNNELS TO THE SURFACE

    The world of the underground cinema is gradually digging its way up to the surface. Due to the avid interwest, mild fear, and sheer curiosity of the general public, one such tunnel will be explored by KCET, Channel 28. Tuesday night at 8.30 PM, Los Angeles' NET station presents "Video Sutra II," an experimental program exploring the visual potentiality of poetry and television. This example of a unique art form was [?] by NET's San Francisco affiliate, KQED.

    San Francisco is one of the most fertile spawning grounds in the world for innovation in the [arts?]. The world of the hippies is a departure from the norm, a completely different realm. In their quest for the unusual, the new, and the original, avant-garde artists have attempted to [instil?] into their work the same psychological [?] that they have found in their psychedelic world. Utilizing new camera techniques, bizarre sound tracks, and novel subject matter, these home-movie makers have created a new step in the ever-climbing staircase of cinematography.

    [start of paragraph is missing] ...tions in the viewers, echoes are used, interspersed with constantly changing lighting effects. The purpose of "Video Sutra II" is, according to producer Sandy Gardner, "to examine the potential of television over and above its virgin art form - in other words, a visual test of the possibilities of the medium."

    Appearing in this hour-long experiment are such controversial persons as playwright-poet Michael McClure and pop artist-turned-filmmaker Andy Warhol. Gerard Malanga, dancer, and model-actress Niko also appear in this psychedelic production, while The Grateful Dead and Calliope Company provide music.

    The program consists of a series of segments taking poetry off the printed page and putting it in a new context with varied images: lions, faces, gestures, voices, sounds, rock and roll, new rituals - all leading up to Michael McClure's description of a new image of his "god." While an oscilloscope is superimposed on his image, McClure plays an autoharp and then poetically speaks to and of his "god," a lion: "The depression of man is the joy of the lion... man's laughs are the lion's tears... when my torment rings, the lion sings." Several short color films, created especially for the show by John Palmer and Ben Van Meter also contribute to the overall presentation. [cuts]

    It does not exactly sound like ratings-topping prime time family viewing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. An interesting find!
      A full scan of the page is here: https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/31780886/
      [Missing words]: "This example of a unique art form was prepared by NET's San Francisco affiliate, KQED... avant-garde artists have attempted to instill into their work the same psychological intensity that they have found in their psychedelic world."
      Middle paragraph: "Tuesday's presentation is a combination of color and black-and-white photography, employing such unusual photographic techniques as dimensional reverse shots and stalking cameras. To achieve certain moods and arouse particular emotions in the viewers, echoes are used, interspersed with constantly changing lighting effects."
      Final paragraph: "This highly experimental program was directed by Robert N. Zagone and offers 'outside artists the chance to create with television potentials.'"

      I think most viewers didn't have color TVs in 1967, so the psychedelic color effects would have been for a limited audience!
      Since the program itself is lost, it's an open question whether there was actual footage of the Dead performing, or just a track from their album. (New music recorded for the show is probably the least likely option.)
      Filmmaker Ben Van Meter knew the Dead (there's a photo of him at Olompali, and one of his films included "footage from a country party hosted by the Grateful Dead"), and filmed events like the Trips Festival & the Human Be-In, so it's possible the Dead portion was from one of his films, with soundtrack added (as with Robert Nelson's film).
      http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/features/make-love-not-war-or-brown-rice-19680511

      In other TV news, the Monkees are proving their weight in gold!

      Delete
  68. Here's a few more minutes of silent footage of one of the Dead's free Coronation Park shows in Toronto, starting 16 minutes into this clip:
    https://vimeo.com/146999213

    Multiple cameras, so these are outtakes from the film crew. I think the Dead are playing New Speedway Boogie in at least some shots, with Pigpen on harmonica. Looks like between songs the drummers back an enthusiastic lady dancing on stage.

    ReplyDelete
  69. Black and white BBC footage of the Dead reportedly at the Fillmore 1966-06-03 playing Mindbender has turned up on facebook and jambase. The audio is obviously dubbed on but it looks to match Jerry's vocals at the start. The light guy footage at the end looks like it is from the Whicker's World Golden Road filming but the Dead are from a different show to Whicker's World. A welcome addition.

    https://www.jambase.com/article/watch-rare-footage-grateful-dead-performing-fillmore-1966

    https://www.facebook.com/chris.dileo.5/videos/10211791762644198/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Great find, new footage! The shots of the light-show operators do look identical to Whicker's World, which makes me wonder if this clip is BBC outtakes from two different years spliced together - it's well-edited, anyway.
      So would any BBC crew have been at the 6/3/66 Fillmore show, or was that date pulled out of a hat? The brief shots of Garcia do seem to sync up to Mindbender, so the Dead footage couldn't plausibly be much later.
      Per McNally (and Scully) a BBC film crew visited the Dead at Olompali in summer '66 while filming the San Francisco scene. McNally: "The Dead threw [a party] for the benefit of the BBC, which had sent a film crew to San Francisco... [But the crew] fled, cameras in hand." (p.147) According to Scully, the crew refused to film the hordes of naked people swarming around Olompali. (Scully p.57-59)
      Nonetheless, if this account is right, then the BBC were filming around June '66, and shots of a Fillmore show would be just what they were looking for.

      Delete
    2. I think you're right that this comes from around the time of the Olompali party so 1966-06-03 fits right in. It looks like the BBC used some 66 footage in their 67 Whicker's World episode. Maybe if we had better definition we could see Healy fixing Phil's amp. Is the version of Mindbender from the Avalon 1966-05-19 ? I haven't checked.

      Delete
    3. It is from 5/19/66.
      The thing is, this clip is in b&w and Whicker's World is in color. I find it most likely that this clip drew some shots from Whicker's World (presenting them in b&w to match the rest). Otherwise, we'd have to infer that the '66 footage was actually in color, and that the Whicker's World crew in '67 (with plenty of actual new show footage in-hand) felt the need to look for a couple light-show shots from the previous year's show, and that it was all shown in b&w in this new clip....that's more of a leap, I think.
      Whoever edited this clip did it recently, and did a pretty sophisticated job (syncing the Mindbender, for instance), so it's hard to say for sure how closely what we see matches the original '66 edit. For that matter, it would be great to find out what BBC show this could have been shown on originally - if this clip survives, presumably the rest of the show may still exist as well.

      Delete
    4. By the way, one bit of poster trivia that always tickled me was the poster for the Tour del Mar bicycle race in Pescadero, August 1966, where the Dead are listed as "TV & Recording Stars."
      I've assumed this was just hyperbole to sell tickets - the unrecorded Quicksilver are also called "recording stars," and Colossal Pomegranate are hilariously called "national stars."
      But what if the Dead had been on TV? We know of lost 1967 TV shows they were on, and if even the BBC were already crossing the globe to film this all-but-unknown band in summer '66 (as part of some larger project), it's possible the Dead had aired on some local TV program as well.

      Delete
    5. The BBC still have the 1966 episode of "Panorama" that the Mindbender footage comes from! Richard Parkinson over at WorldwideDeadheads reported that Saturday 2022-10-8's "Guardian" contains the following.

      "But the real value in the digitisation process has been the capacity to mine the archive for treasures that had become lost within it. Major recent advances in automated transcription technology have been vital. Machine learning – the practice of teaching computers to make improvements by themselves – is helping the speech-to-text system identify speakers and cope with accents and obscure words. Until recently, you couldn’t search the archive for much more than programme names. Now it can be searched for anything. Not long ago, someone had asked the archive what it had on the Grateful Dead, the US psychedelic rock band that formed in 1965. Toland repeats the search on her laptop. More than 800 results include The Old Grey Whistle Test. The oldest entry is an episode of Panorama, broadcast in 1966, that explores the burgeoning tech industry in what would later be known as Silicon Valley.

      There is no mention of the Grateful Dead in the brief description that had been stored with the original film. But when Toland clicks on the transcript that was added during digitisation, the words “grateful dead” are highlighted at 37 minutes. With another click, Toland skips to a segment filmed in one of “the psychedelic dancehalls” of San Francisco. And there, singing to tripping young Americans, is a 23-year-old Jerry Garcia. These few seconds of film, for decades hidden within a tech documentary, capture the birth of a major rock band – and the hippy movement itself."

      https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/08/inside-bbc-archive-100-years

      I reckon this might be my first and long forgotten exposure to the Dead as I always watched Panorama as a kid.

      Delete
    6. Hmm, a "few seconds" of the Dead in a show on the California tech industry....
      My theory is that this isn't the actual show the Mindbender footage came from, but it borrowed a little clip from the original show, which may remain undiscovered.
      Anyway, I believe the episode they're talking about is "California 2000" (aired Aug 18, 1966). An excerpt from this show:
      https://www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/videos/1966-panorama-california-2000/451749258531443/
      It doesn't seem like this episode would have used more than a few seconds of the Dead. I think the whole show is viewable for UK residents here:
      https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00lfspg/panorama-california-2000

      Delete
    7. OK, the whole episode's on Vimeo!
      https://vimeo.com/170324749
      The Dead do appear, for way more than a few seconds - the whole Mindbender performance is shown (albeit with voiceover), from 33:40-36:20. So this show is the source.
      The episode takes a surprising detour from the tech scene to LSD use in San Francisco. The Dead, of course, are the illustration!
      What surprised me most is that the sound quality of the Dead's performance is excellent - though in mono, it actually sounds better than 5/19/66. Too bad the announcer talks over most of it.
      There are differences from the edited Mindbender footage clip we've seen:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f8IMCBpDsc
      Many of the audience and light-show shots are actually totally different. So I believe that clip edited in some of the footage from the '67 Whicker's World spot.

      Delete
  70. On the Oddball Films site, they have 4 videos from the Trips Festival at Longshoreman's Hall Jan 66. Parts 3 & 4 have footage of the Dead playing, but it can be tough to watch because everything was shot double exposed and sped up (is this the Ben Van Meter film?) You can really only see Phil and Billy occasionally, and Bob's obscured but you know it's him because of the striped shirt. That being said, it's wild to see them play surrounded by all the lysergic chaos.

    I've only seen 1 photo of them at the Trips Fest, so to finally see them on film at this historic event is pretty cool.

    https://www.oddballfilms.com/clip/13170_sfma6759_trips_festival3

    https://www.oddballfilms.com/clip/13170_sfma6759_trips_festival4

    Thanks for all the research on this thread btw

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it is the Ben Van Meter film. Hard to see much of the band; the "psychedelic" film technique is wild and artistic, but documentary or news-type film of the event would have been nice to see too. For example, the Pranksters presumably also did some filming at the Trips Festival?

      Delete
  71. A 1967 underground short film I haven't seen was described in the 10/6/67 Los Angeles Free Press (film reviews, p.16) -
    "Johann Rush's hand-held visit with the Grateful Dead, 'The Grateful Dead Turns On the Carter Family,' a hip, comic invention in which Rush follows the group around, mostly through what seems to be a communal apartment, and the soundtrack is the Carter Family, a grassroots folksinging family who talk and sing and play at each other in the sort of cornball program that takes up so much airtime on the coffee-pot radio-stations of the south.
    The contrasty nature of the Carter sound and the Grateful Dead look achieves a marvelously comic balance, and the movie comes off very well as one of those, built to a simple basic idea, that never runs its one idea into the ground or lets the joke wear thin."

    No Dead soundtrack, it seems, but this sounds like a film idea Garcia would have liked.

    ReplyDelete
  72. A Round Reels Inc. stamper has turned up for auction and it says "Incorporated Aug 1, 1974"

    https://www.proxibid.com/Art-Antiques-Collectibles/Entertainment-Memorabilia/Official-Round-Reels-Corporate-Seal-Notary-Stamp/lotInformation/43340010&scrollLocationOnCatalog=4101

    I thought the decision to stop touring and play five Winterland shows and film them was made at a band meeting after the Chicago 74-7-25 thru' Jersey City 74-8-6 run but it must have been earlier. Presumably after the 74-7-21 Hollywood Bowl show, unless Garcia and Rakow were already planning to film something before they settled on the Winterland run. It seems too late to be the "Hells Angels Forever" film and the only other thing that springs to mind is Jerry's "Sirens Of Titan" fantasy which I assume was later so it looks like it must have been the Winterland run.

    ReplyDelete
  73. Robert Nelson on making his Grateful Dead film in 1967:
    "They said they'd like to have a movie of themselves to show before they come on at the various gigs that they play. I shot pieces of film of them at their practice studio, the Fillmore, out in the countryside. When I got finished I brought it over to their place & ran it about 7 or 8 times. 'Far fucking OUT,' they cried."

    (I spotted this quote in an ad for a film showing, the LA Free Press 12/12/69, p.21)

    ReplyDelete
  74. With the upcoming release of Long Strange Trip on DVD with bonus footage from the 1970 trip to England, this is what David Lemieux wrote years ago about what was filmed:

    "While sorting through the 1974 Grateful Dead Movie outtakes, all 16mm film, I came across several unlabeled cans of 16mm film. It turns out they were from 5/24/70, as apparently a camera crew followed the band for the 3 days they were in England, including:
    - 40 minutes of footage arriving at the airport, band and crew
    - an excursion to a river where the band had loads of promo photos taken
    - shots at the hotel learning how to convert US money to pounds
    - walking around London
    - 30 minutes of footage of the band at a Warner Bros. party for the band (hilarious. Pigpen when confronted with a camera and mic: "I ain't sayin' nothin'!")
    - the band rehearsing at a beautiful little theatre, where they jam an electric Man's World and an amazing version of Candyman
    - and, best of all, two songs from 2 cameras from the show, Good Lovin' and Casey Jones."
    http://www.ukrockfestivals.com/Holly-dead.70.html

    Now, the blurb for the DVD says it will include six songs from the show, as well as "loads of other terrific footage, showing the band at a Warner Bros. Records party in London (Pigpen surrounded by suits!), at a photo shoot (‘that's one uncooperative bunch of musicians!’), at a rehearsal hall performing ‘Candyman’ vocal harmonies and, most exciting of all, backstage at the festival."
    I'm skeptical that the footage will be released "in its entirety," as claimed, but very happy it's being released at all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a mystery what happened to the Man's World rehearsal, which didn't show up in the DVD bonus footage. Either Lemieux was mistaken when he described the film, or it was left off the DVD for some reason.
      There's about 100 minutes of footage included - the DVD doesn't include "six songs" from the show, but it does have part of China>Rider. And there are some interesting interviews with band members.

      Delete
  75. The Jefferson Airplane show at the Fillmore, 7/15/66, was filmed by the Bell Telephone Hour for a TV program on San Francisco music. The Dead also played, but apparently weren't filmed.
    Ralph Gleason wrote that October: “The [Bell] Telephone Hour will present excerpts from the Fillmore with the Jefferson Airplane next month. A BBC-TV documentary showed The Grateful Dead at a dance, and there are more national shows and articles [on SF rock music] in the works.”
    (from "Another Dancing Generation," the SF Examiner, 10/16/66)

    I bet the BBC program is the source of the "Mindbender" Fillmore footage that surfaced a year ago. I haven't found the name of the show yet, though.

    ReplyDelete
  76. This has popped up on YouTube fairly recently...do we know where this might be from? As one of the commenters noted, it was clearly shot in the spring as Jerry is playing the black Les Paul, but Bobby is still on his Rickenbacker.

    . https://youtu.be/uwtOXJbD6eM

    ReplyDelete
  77. It's various silent fragments of the Summer Solstice 1967-06-21 in Golden Gate Park put together very nicely by someone who added a soundtrack. There is more of this performance 50 minutes into "The Way It Was" documentary with an unidentified guest harp blower and the real sound.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEejp5_UMyQ

    We were discussing this during early March 2017 above.

    ReplyDelete
  78. Yes, it's a different film source than "The Way It Was" documentary with a little more of the performance (though silent, and cut-up). The collection of fragments this was compiled from is here:
    https://www.gettyimages.com/videos/grateful-dead-summer-of-love-1967
    Note someone filming from the top of the truck, too - despite only surviving in little fragments, this was a well-filmed event!
    It's cute to see the Dead joking around between numbers. Viola Lee's actually a good guess as to what they might be playing. Gotta love how at this summer park festival they're playing a long involved jam to which almost nobody is dancing. (This San Francisco crowd is sedate compared to, say, the Tompkins Square, New York crowd a few weeks earlier.)

    ReplyDelete
  79. I wonder if the harmonica player seen with the Dead in "The Way It Was" is Matt Kelly?
    Just throwing it out there as speculation - I don't really know what Kelly looked like in 1967, and we only get a brief partial glimpse of the guy after 50:20 in the video, so I can't say; but someone more familiar with him might know.

    ReplyDelete
  80. There are some brief Watkins Glen clips with sound in these newscasts (Mexicali and Brown Eyed)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9mw9ftojYc

    ReplyDelete
  81. Also brief silent footage from Watkins Glen here
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDy5fU2KbAc

    ReplyDelete
  82. Cross-posting this comment - student camera footage of the 5/3/70 Wesleyan show has surfaced:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=en7CmmweLZU
    Shaky b&w video, not very close to the stage, with tracking wobbles and tinny, warbly audio. The first half is mostly crowd shots with some opening music and speeches.

    25:20 - Dead announced, Sam Cutler, acoustic Garcia & Weir set up
    26:45 - Deep Elem Blues w/ harmonica
    32:50 - Silver Threads w/ harmonica
    36:40 - a pause; time has passed, it's dusk
    37:00 - New Riders playing under lights: Workin' Man Blues
    41:45 - Last Lonely Eagle
    48:23 - Truck Drivin' Man
    51:00 - Grateful Dead: Hard to Handle
    55:40 - China Cat, cuts
    56:24 - I Know You Rider, cuts near end at 60:26

    The nighttime stage shots are pretty poor quality, gray and blurry. In both NRPS & the Dead, Garcia is mostly invisible or offscreen in the shadows. Pigpen's barely seen in Hard to Handle, and the quality gets even worse when the audience stands up and obscures the stage. Not much to see in the darkness from then on, so it's little wonder the cameraman stopped after a couple Dead songs.

    On the other hand, the music is surprisingly clear (aside from dropouts), so the PA system was good. If only the full show had been recorded with the camera mike, it would be considered a superior audience tape for the year and the show would be quite listenable. But the camera record was only meant to be a sampler of the day.
    Hard to Handle (a good short one) and China>Rider are missing from the AUD tape we had.

    ReplyDelete
  83. hi sorry my english, i only studied it at school ... i would need some information on Phil's instruments. Can anyone tell me precisely when Phil stopped using the Fender Jazz Bass and started using the Guild around 1968? And then when he stopped using the Guild to switch to the Gibson SG. Then in 72 he passed to the Guild-Alembic called Godfather. Can anyone tell me when to use it for the first time? Also was it the same Guild you see in the 1968 photos or another? Thank you. Luk

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Someone should put together a photo history of Phil's basses! But I think this is the outline for his early instruments:
      1965 - Gibson EB-0 bass
      By October 1966 - Fender Jazz bass
      July 1967 - Guild Starfire bass
      May/June 1969 - switches back to Alembicized Gibson EB-0 with new pickups & psychedelic paint job.
      April 1971, Fillmore East - Alembicized Guild Starfire bass (the same one he had, but heavily modified, called the Godfather or Big Brown) - this was in the shop for a while, he kept using the Gibson through July, then switched to the Alembic-Guild for good in August '71.
      6/16/74 - Rick Turner's "Mission Control" bass (Phil may have had this earlier but this is the first show I spotted it at) - he'd still use the Alembic-Guild at some shows thereafter.

      Delete
    2. yes it's a good idea! You could do a photographic and musical story in a post dedicated to Phil's basses, surely you have the skills. In my opinion this is important in the context of the history and development of the sound of the dead because I have noticed how Phil's bass style has changed considerably over the years depending on the instrument used. I don't know how many people have noticed this. Thanks for the reply. Here in Italy nobody listens to the dead. It's incredible! When the Fare thee well concerts broadcast live in the cinemas we were 5 people in the whole 400-seat hall! ... but this is another story that deserves another thread ...

      Delete
  84. I updated this post - replaced a lot of old dead links, and added many new links. Likely in a few more years, most of these links will be taken down as well!

    ReplyDelete
  85. A video of the 10/5/70 Winterland show has surfaced:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCIS8DBrhrk
    It's black & white, shot from the side of the stage, typically blurry video for the era, with some "psychedelic" effects added. The only footage shared so far is Dancing in the Streets. (Garcia does not sound like he's in a Dancin' mood.) Of course there's a lady dancing too!
    The same video crew recorded the Jefferson Airplane show afterwards - they were there primarily to film the Airplane:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TMDT-k73Zc

    ReplyDelete
  86. Video unavailable
    This video is private.

    That didn't last long! Airplane still works tho.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Well that sucks...that went down in record time.
      The Airplane show is visually in much better quality, the camera was able to move around more. In the Dead clip it stays off on the side of the stage, and it's a lot blurrier, and the added trippy visual effects don't help. The camera focuses a lot on the dancing lady (identified as Mary Ann Mayer). The audio feed, as in the Airplane clip, is pretty good. I would bet more of the Dead's show was filmed.

      Delete
    2. The 10/5/70 Dancing in the Streets video is back up, for now:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Rmzxzb4N_I

      Delete
  87. New color footage of 6/21/71 I Know You Rider, from Alan Bershaw:
    https://www.facebook.com/alan.bershaw/videos/808817969835351

    ReplyDelete
  88. A couple new additions -

    Alternate copy of 6-3-66 Mindbender (b&w BBC clip):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9f8IMCBpDsc

    Upgrade of 8-30-70 KQED Calebration show:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbsMcXM4rzE

    ReplyDelete
  89. More of the 1970 England trip has been posted to youtube, 117 minutes.
    00:00 arrival at Heathrow and inside limo
    14:07 photo shoot by the Thames (Hammersmith?)
    19:32 Cutler explains UK predecimalisation currency in hotel
    23:09 Warner Bros reception
    38:43 Bill in street
    39:52 Roundhouse Candyman - electric
    49:00 Roundhouse Candyman - acoustic
    58:14 Hollywood backstage
    81:43 Casey Jones (missing end)
    85:53 China Cat > Rider (partial)
    90:01 repeats from 81:43
    101:46 Good Lovin' (complete!)
    113:02 to 114:13 backstage

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3H-CW12fBNA

    ReplyDelete