February 8, 2010

February 1970

February 1970 is a month plagued with missing reels and incomplete shows. So here's a look at this month's tapes, focusing especially on the shows that are missing full SBDs. Admittedly this is a rather random bunch of shows to investigate - as one reviewer puts it, "for every scorcher, there's another that just sort of smolders." But Feb '70 was quite a busy month for the Dead. Between the drug bust, the loss of both Bear and Tom Constanten on tour, Lenny Hart fleeing to Mexico along with the Dead's bank accounts, recording a new album, the inclusion of acoustic sets in the shows, the first Stephen>NFAs, and the first 'secret' Fillmore East tapes, there's a lot going on in these few weeks.

Seemingly everybody who talks about early 1970 feels compelled to say that it was a transitional period.... I won't. Most of the 'transition' had already been done back in '69, with the last Workingman's Dead songs added to the set in December. The sets in winter '70 were pretty stable, finetuning the new material in a series of mostly consistent, if not repetitious, shows. (The one exception was New Speedway Boogie, which after its late-December debuts, wasn't played live again until May '70!)

January's shows are mostly complete (except for the usual tapecuts), so we'll be skipping over that month. I should mention the 1/24/70 Honolulu show though - at under an hour, there is clearly something missing, especially since the 1/23 show was two hours long! (Possibly there's another reel after Good Lovin' cuts that didn't make it into circulation.)
The part we have is not as exploratory as the night before, but tighter, with some enjoyable song versions. Garcia's solo in Dancing is quite nice. The Mason's Children was snappy enough to be included in the Workingman's Dead bonus tracks.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-01-24.sbd.kaplan.7890.sbeok.shnf

1/30/70
The Dead started what was supposed to be an uneventful couple of shows in New Orleans with Fleetwood Mac. It's a solid if unexceptional show, with Constanten barely audible most of the time. Most of the performances are standard for the month - High Time is cut in the middle; Good Lovin' is still in its short phase; there's a good Cumberland Blues and decent Hard to Handle; and the Easy Wind jam is the highlight of the show. The Other One is rather uninspired, though they do perform a full Cryptical reprise (which was rare by this time, often being truncated to a minute or two in their haste to get to Cosmic Charlie).
Deadlists notes: "The circulating tape breaks off during Cosmic Charlie. This is short for a complete show & Eaton lists another 35 minutes." Most likely a Lovelight at the end is missing. (As well as being incomplete, this is a rather poor tape copy as the sound is very hissy.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-01-30.sbd.vernon.10546.sbeok.shnf

After the show, of course, the Dead were busted by zealous police, but were bailed out for the next show. Though they took it in stride, the bust would prove disastrous for Bear as he was no longer allowed to travel outside California. (His eventual jailing, though, would result from a different offense.)
This was Tom Constanten's last show with the Dead. Since the Dead's music had become increasingly less weird and experimental over the past year, and they were about to record a simpler rootsy album, they agreed before the show this was a good time for him to go. He had also been invited to be composer & music director for a New York musical called Tarot - as he said, "I wanted to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, and Tarot was more edifying."
There were other reasons too - he'd become a Scientologist and non-drug-taker, which didn't exactly make him part of the family; and he was unhappy with being drowned-out by the guitars and felt there was little room for him in the music. "The Grateful Dead, as freaky and far-out as they got, were Jerry Garcia's backup band to a large extent...so there wasn't any room... On top of that, there was the amplification problem... My major frustration was not being able to find enough turf to even set up a tent in the sonic texture, and scarcely having time when there was a break to make something happen. I'd get to solo sometimes when Jerry would break a string - but even then he'd go back and string his guitar as fast as he could!" And as the others became more of a regular rock & roll band, they were also unhappy with TC's contributions - Weir said he was too experimental & Lesh said he was too stiff!
There's no sign of him at the next couple shows, but little difference in the music. Pigpen returns to the keys now and then.

1/31/70
Tonight's electric show is quite strong under the circumstances. They start out with Cold Rain and Mama Tried, which seems like a pointed choice of songs! Then there's some extended banter (which I couldn't entirely make out) -
Weir: "We gotta work something out with the PA, we're getting fried alive."
Garcia: "We're getting shocked silly up here."
Weir: "You don't know what it's like....big blue sparks come up and hit you right in the head and send you to the amplifiers, and you come reeling back to try and sing another verse. I just can't tell ya..."
Lesh: "For a while I thought the only mic around here was the heat, but now we know better." (The audience applauds.)
Weir: "Hey, I got a statement to make...this seems to be a blatant attempt on the part of the establishment to - "
Garcia: "Tell it like it is, Weir!"
Weir: " - to keep rockers from coming here and save this fair city for the straight people. Well, I think - "
Garcia: "The revolution's over. Everybody go home."
Lesh: "Remember, obedience to the law is the only true freedom."
Weir: "And crime does not pay."
As the sound returns, Garcia announces, "I'm gonna do a little paranoid fantasy song for ya." It's Dire Wolf of course - as he usually did around this time, he asks the audience, "You can sing along with it...the chorus is really easy."
Morning Dew is especially mournful. The Mason's Children would be one of the most extended versions, but sadly the middle is cut. (As we'll see, Mason's was especially prone to tapecuts - 1/31, 2/2, 2/5, and 2/23 are all cut!) The electric set closes with a raging Hard to Handle jam, after which Lesh notices that his bass amp is buzzing.
Weir: "We got a busted amplifier here."
Garcia: "We got a severe technical problem."
Weir: "So you guys can hang out and chatter amongst yourselves, and feel free to wander around and make friends, and do whatever it is you like to do in short, while we try to work it out."
After a tape pause, they resume with a spontaneous acoustic set - somewhat hampered since they only have one acoustic guitar! So Garcia accompanies Weir's songs with electric fills while Lesh keeps sputtering; then announces, "We're still working on Phil's bass frantically in the background," and does a few songs by himself. Pigpen comes out for the first live Katie Mae, and the tape closes with a shortened Cumberland Blues played with one acoustic, handclaps and congas!
Deadlists notes: "Before Cumberland Jerry can be heard proposing that they do Cumberland first, then Uncle John to end the set. The tape breaks off after Cumberland, however. It seems possible that this represents the entire Dead performance for this date, although normally you'd expect more electric Dead." It's unknown whether they ever got the amp fixed and did a second electric set, but it seems unlikely.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-01-31.sbd.cotsman.7045.sbefail.shnf

2/1/70
For their last New Orleans show, the Dead (and their amps) are in a better mood. This was the Dead's 'bust-fund benefit' for themselves - at the beginning the announcer says, "Here's the group that made this afternoon all possible -" and Lesh interrupts: "The New Orleans police department!"
Initially only the Lovelight from this show circulated, but eventually the complete show made it out. The mix is guitar-heavy for the first three songs, but gets fixed. The first part of the show is pretty standard without real standouts - Good Lovin' cuts as the jam heads back to the verse; and Garcia asks the audience to sing along with Dire Wolf again.
After Cryptical there's an extremely long drum-break (eleven minutes!), then they tear into an EXTREMELY hot Other One. Garcia sounds like he's about to blow up! This is also, unusually, an instrumental Other One, as the vocals are neatly cut out by a tapeflip. Peter Green joins them on guitar as they roll into Lovelight, making this a very long and jammed-out version that wanders far and wide, one of the standout Lovelights of the year. The announcer exclaims at the end: "The finest fucking music in the world!"
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-02-01.sbd.kaplan.9629.sbeok.shnf

2/2/70
A nice snippet of a show here from the Fox Theatre, with an excellent Dark Star. The Dead were excited to be out of New Orleans and back on the road; and they were quite impressed with the Fox. Unfortunately, only one reel seems to survive from this show, so the rest of the setlist is unknown, but we do have some idea. There was a newspaper review the next day, describing the show:
http://ia351406.us.archive.org/0/items/uploaded/SkyDawg-19700203_0442.jpg?cnt=0
The Dead opened with some country tunes, including Mama Tried. Our tape starts with the end of Cumberland Blues. The Dark Star is driving and melodic - Lesh pushes his way quickly out of the post-verse space, and Weir takes the jam into a quick Feelin' Groovy. [There's no Tighten Up jam, as some claim.] After that they jam blissfully on the Dark Star theme for some time, ramping up the intensity until they slam back into the delicate main riff. Garcia is sparkling and this version has an intense, otherworldly clarity, more urgent than the famed 2/13/70 Star. (The reviewer didn't know Dark Star, and called it a "long, slow blues featuring electronic games with tape loops"!)
St Stephen follows as usual - there's a funny moment at the break when the entire band forgets what to play next! (Likely they'd planned to go into NFA and blanked when the moment came.) But Garcia steers them into Mason's Children, which cuts painfully just as they're going into the second solo...
Mason's after the tapecut went into Lovelight, the way they did on 2/28/70, and the show ended with Lovelight. (The liner notes for Two From The Vault have a long description of the Lovelight from this show, from the same newspaper writer.) The encore was an a cappella Bid You Goodnight, which was quite rare by this time, so perhaps the Dead needed to calm down the frenzied crowd after Lovelight....
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-02-02.sbd.cotsman.17809.sbeok.shnf

2/4/70
This was filmed for TV, with the Dead doing a short set for a small audience at the Family Dog along with Jefferson Airplane and Santana. (The PBS documentary, called "San Francisco Rock: A Night at the Family Dog", wasn't broadcast until 12/13/70!)
Only Hard to Handle and China>Rider were used in the TV broadcast - in my view, the only decent songs of the show. The St Stephen>Not Fade Away>Stephen>Midnight Hour is relatively weak, with the band tiring at the end - check out the Stephen>NFA from 2/13/70 for a huge contrast! Then again, this was the first time they did the Stephen>NFA segue (in fact, they hadn't done NFA at all in January) - it comes in an unexpected spot, and it's handled smoothly. (Here NFA replaces the "ladyfingers" bridge, which they would skip again on 2/8, and Garcia carefully pushes the band back into an awkward Stephen.)
The video is excellent. It shows Garcia playing a Stratocaster guitar, which he used from fall '69 to mid-April '70 before switching back to the Gibson SG. Keyboards are set up for Pigpen, though I think he only plays them on Me & My Uncle. The Download Series CD includes most of the show (the Cold Rain & Snow opener is missing).
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-02-04.sbd.cotsman.12601.shnf

The "allstar jam" that ended the evening unfortunately wasn't on the CD - however, the incomplete fragment shown on TV is on youtube along with the rest of the broadcast. This show's all about the dancing chicks - check out the girl onstage three minutes into the jam!

Hard to Handle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjVlA2E_fOI
China > Rider
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvq2JTWdJ1U
Super Jam (Garcia, Kantner, Kaukonen, Casady, Santana, Gary Duncan, Airplane & Santana drummers)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dNxpsW0DMM

2/5/70
This is the first show of a four-day Fillmore West run. A bit more than an hour survives from this show, with the start of the "big jam" missing. Only one 42-minute reel from the end of the show is left in the Vault; there is also a half-hour AUD tape from the start of the show, with only one song duplicated and an unknown amount missing.
Just a few songs are on the AUD tape - you'd expect it to be more complete, since the AUDs from 2/7 and 2/8 are both longer, so probably not all of it got into circulation. It's hard to know why the full AUD was never traded, unless the taper ran into some trouble. (Possibly it was the same taper on all three nights? The Fillmore West tapers remain anonymous.)
Weir starts off the show with a couple country songs (Seasons and The Race Is On), with Garcia on pedal-steel. (Deadbase suggests a China>Rider was also played at some point.) The audience is full of song suggestions, but Weir tells them, "Just relax and take what you get," before the band starts Mason's Children. The SBD has most of this song, but cuts out mid-solo, so the AUD fills out the ending.
After Mason's it sounds like they're tuning up for Cryptical. Possibly they could have gone from the Other One suite into the Eleven, which would be quite a rare transition; a Cryptical>Alligator>Eleven could be even more tantalizing, even likely (an Eleven jam had also followed Alligator on 1/16). But we don't know how it went, for the SBD only picks up near the start of the Eleven.
The Eleven starts off brightly, though they enter the vocals uncertainly. The Eleven gradually unwinds and the jam changes - all of a sudden we're in the middle of an exploratory Alligator jam, which could go anywhere. Lesh riffs Alligator, then teases Lovelight, then Caution. Garcia signals the Bid You Goodnight riff and they jam on that, Garcia teasing China Cat inside it (!), then falling back into an aggressive Alligator-type jam. This heads into Caution, a full-fledged version with Pigpen singing. It has some intense spots, but seems mostly quiet or mild to me though, as if the band didn't really feel like a blowout (as they would do on 2/14). Garcia and the drummers nudge the band into Not Fade Away, a short sedate version - as this dies out, Lesh starts up Caution again, but with a few strums Weir transforms it into a subdued Cumberland Blues. They finally send the crowd home with a laid-back Uncle John's Band.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-02-05.sbd.hanno.9184.sbefail.shnf

2/6/70
This average show is complete other than a few cuts. The cut in Dancing, unfortunately, is a big one and wipes out most of the jam! There's not much worth remarking on here. Pigpen's back on keyboards, for instance in Cold Rain; and he blasts away in the Other One like it's 1968 again. The Dead do a couple of the odd energy-dropping segues they'd become fond of - Good Lovin'>High Time and Other One>Black Peter. This show is also notable for the absence of any AUD tape, unusual for this run.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-02-06.sbd.bean.3913.sbeok.shnf

2/7/70
The end of the show is missing, though we don't know how much. There's an AUD tape of the first hour of the show (which isn't on the Archive at the moment), and a 70-minute SBD which is rather chopped up with many cuts (and Hard to Handle completely absent).
Deadlists notes: "Compared with Friday's total of 115 minutes and Sunday's of 138, the 85 minutes of Saturday 2/7/70 preserved on tape seems obviously to fall short by at least a half hour. Obviously we are missing several tunes from the end of this set." One thing that's glaringly missing is any long jam - and they probably didn't play Lovelight this night, so like 1/24 it's a mystery how the show might have ended.
What's left of the show has an unremarkable setlist, but is very well-played. Garcia is on tonight, with a biting tone. Fans of slow Dead will like the twenty-minute Uncle John>Black Peter - Garcia takes a very long, extended solo in Uncle John! The tape ends with a hot Good Lovin' jam which is cut cruelly short.
This is the last show Garcia & Weir opened with pedal-steel country songs (Green Grass, Sawmill, and Seasons) - in a couple months that slot would be replaced by the New Riders set. The Compendium reviewer notes that the pedal steel was onstage "forlorn and unused" during all four Fillmore West shows, though only played in two.
Apparently after the 1/31 acoustic show, the Dead decided to revive the old-style country covers they'd done in summer '69 to introduce shows; but this lasted only a couple performances. By the Fillmore East shows, Garcia decided to drop the pedal-steel covers and have an acoustic interlude in the middle of the show instead....
(More details about the transition from pedal-steel to acoustic sets here:
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2009/08/deads-acoustic-sets-1969-1970.html )
The China>Rider>High Time was released on the "Fillmore West '69" bonus disc. Banter completists take note: after High Time there's a long break in which Weir has some humorous complaints about the monitors and they play some instrumental ditties....which is only on the AUD tape.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-02-07.sbd.bean.3912.sbeok.shnf

2/8/70
Just as with 2/5, only one SBD reel circulates from this show. Fortunately, there's a complete (and very good) AUD. Also, since Smokestack Lightning and Top of the World were released from the SBD, it's possible the full show is in the Vault.
Deadlists notes: "The SBD tape in circulation begins 3:42 before the end of Dark Star and runs for 33:04, cutting off 15:12 into Lovelight; the AUD supplies the remaining 19:55 of Lovelight." (If the Dark Star is ever released, it would have a tapecut in it, but that could be patched with the AUD like they did with the 7/31/71 Star.)
The AUD is clear enough to really hear the full band and the power of their sound in the room. As the Compendium says, "Every member of the band is clearly heard, vocals are clear, and drums are loud and strong." (The guitar balance is also excellent.)
The show starts with a rare Smokestack Lightning. After that comes Morning Dew (with Pigpen on organ), though of course they pause for tuning while Weir explains, "We're waiting for the Bear to turn on his lovelight..." The rest of the show stays at a high level.
This Dark Star has a very long & percussive space; the jam is relaxed and takes a while to build, and never gets to the blazing heights some other early-'70 Stars reach. After the SBD starts, a slow Feelin' Groovy jam is slipped in just as they're returning to the verse. The Stephen>Not Fade Away is interesting - just as on 2/4 they start NFA (very awkwardly) early on, after "lower down again", and it becomes a very slinky, sultry version - Garcia then starts playing the Stephen riff to the NFA tempo while Weir's still singing "not fade away", a very smooth segue, and they take it back to "did he doubt?" At the end they pounce on Lovelight (you can hear Lesh call it), which is a long 35-minute version.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-02-08.sbd-aud.cotsman.19152.sbeok.shnf

2/11/70 (early show)
Only the last 20 minutes of this show are available; most likely some 40 minutes are missing. It's possible the full early show is in the Vault, considering Bear was taping the opening bands (Love and the Allmans) as well. The Fillmore crew apparently did not tape the early shows as they were too busy; in fact, on this night they couldn't get the tape rolling until 10 minutes into Dark Star! (Until Bear's tape surfaced, their 45-minute //Dark Star>Spanish Jam>Lovelight// was all that circulated from this night.)
The tape starts in the middle of a fierce Other One, with Garcia's guitar dropping from a snarl to a whisper and back to piercing runs. The Cryptical reprise glides quietly for a while until the big explosion (when Pigpen's organ comes in). Garcia doesn't feel like extending it though, and takes them right into a calming Dire Wolf. Casey Jones chugs along to end the set, sounding much like the upcoming album version.
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-02-11.sbd.smith.patched.99154.sbeok.flac16 (inc early show)
The late show starts out with a bang, the hottest version of Not Fade Away yet. The rest of the set is quite famous, and described well by Lesh in his book. So I'll just note that Bear's tape has a four-minute cut in the middle of the Dark Star [starting at 7 minutes in], so it's fortunate that a good, complete AUD was made of this show.
The AUD isn't as clear as the 2/8 tape, being a bit boomy, but for a Fillmore East tape it's pretty good. (Compare it to the July '70 horrors!) It's fascinating to hear how the interaction of all the guitarists sounded in the room - the mix is quite different & more balanced than the SBD.
(There is another incomplete, similar-sounding AUD of the 2/13 early show, which is not on the Archive. It's odd that there aren't AUDs of every show, as in July & September.)
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-02-11.late-set2.aud.smith.99152.sbeok.flac16

As Tom Constanten said, "Most any show at the Fillmore East was exceptional. The Fillmore East was a magical place to play - the crowd was very responsive. The band had a strong following in New York and it put an edge on the playing. I'd rather listen to any Dark Star from the Fillmore East - they were in a different class." (He may have been overstating this, but one example of the Dead's regard for the Fillmore is that they played a different Dark Star suite on every night of this run - which even in 1970 was exceptional.)
The rest of these Fillmore East shows are complete and very well-known, so we won't go into them here...

2/12/70
But it's worth mentioning the infamous Ungano's "secret" club show on 2/12/70. For a long time a fake tape has circulated with this date, which is actually the 2/13/70 early show. At any rate, there's no tape, but here's a discussion of whether or not this show happened:
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/01/february-12-1970-unganos-new-york-ny.html

2/23/70
After the Fillmore shows, the band went to record Workingman's Dead. (Most of the songs were trimmed down considerably from their live versions, and recording wrapped up within a couple weeks.) Bear was no longer able to tour with the Dead, so SBD tapes outside San Francisco become rare from this point on. They did a short tour of Texas in late February, but we are missing the first three shows (2/20, 2/21, 2/22).
This is especially unfortunate because the one surviving show, from 2/23, is one of the least interesting shows of the year. It sounds like an outside taping job, as our copy is poor, buzzing mono - part of this show was played on the Taper's Section in better quality, though. (The few SBD tapes in March also lack Bear's finesse.)
The show is missing the first few songs, and may be missing some late electric songs as well. Dire Wolf is interrupted by feedback while the Dead gripe at the soundman. (Lesh: "Don't mess around with it! It was okay til you started messing with it!" Garcia: "Yeah, you idiot." Weir: "Eat my shorts...somebody get that guy away from the microphone.")
They decide it's time for an acoustic set -
Garcia: "We're gonna do some acoustic things here..."
Weir: "So we're gonna hang out and make you wait."
Garcia: It's gonna be a little while while we rearrange all the furniture up here."
Weir: "Feel free to talk amongst yourselves..."
Garcia: "...bite, scratch..."
Then Weir tells us the Yellow Dog Story yet again while we wait, and the acoustic set starts with just him and Garcia. Weir plays Me & My Uncle mostly by himself while Garcia changes a string; then Pigpen comes out to play organ on Black Peter and Seasons.
It's very strange to have only two electric songs after the acoustic portion. Then again, it's possible the Dead just wanted to get out of there, or faced a time-limit and wrapped it up quickly. Garcia complains again at another delay: "Hey, come on you PA guys, get on the ball man, good grief, we're gonna call the union if you don't hurry up. [Lesh: "What union?"] The galactic rock & roll union, that's what..." The Not Fade Away is nice (Pigpen dueling with Garcia on organ) but it runs out of gas; as it ends they almost start Good Lovin', but Lesh & Garcia go into Mason's Children instead. A cut wipes out half the song, and the Dead say "goodnight".
http://www.archive.org/details/gd70-02-23.sbd.vernon.10375.sbeok.shnf
http://www.dead.net/features/tapers-section/november-10-november-16-2008

***

This started out as a post continuing my Incomplete Show Files series - but turned into something bigger. So instead, this will be the first of a 40th-anniversary series covering the year 1970....

16 comments:

  1. A very interesting overview. This period of the Grateful Dead was the last significant leg where they played shows in the structure of other contemporary rock bands. They played early and late shows at the two Fillmores, there shared billing with other prominent bands (Fleetwood Mac, etc) and so on.

    By Summer, the band is pretty well playing their "Evening With The Grateful Dead" format which they will remain with for the rest of their career. I realize that Miles Davis played with them at the April Fillmore West shows, but after April was their any more Early and Late shows? I think they just played one long extended show, including the NRPS set. Sometimes there was an opener, but good or not they weren't well known.

    Outside of benefits, rock festivals or stadium shows, did the Dead have a meaningful opening after this period (I mean in terms of headline appeal, not talent)? I may be forgetting a band or two, but the February 1970 stint is the last glimpse of the Grateful Dead conforming at all to rock industry norms.

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  2. thanks for this great post, i'm really looking forward to your promised series on 1970, long one of my faves years

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  3. LIA - wanted to express my appreciation and thanks for your efforts on this blog. I love delving into all this stuff and find your essays a pleasure to read. They are a great source of information, insight, and new avenues to explore in the music and history of the band.

    I too look forward to further 1970 coverage. A year that I find very satisfying on many levels.

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  4. fine article on the 2-2 St Louis show here ( incl 2 pix)
    http://www.performing-musician.com/pm/dec08/articles/bobheil.htm

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    1. Yes, I've seen that article on Bob Heil, and discussed it extensively in the comments here:
      http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/03/february-2-1970-fox-theater-st-louis.html

      Unfortunately, I found that his story is considerably embellished & can't be trusted; if he had any contact with the Dead, it was more likely in March 1971. (The photos in that article are from '71.)

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  5. I think the release of the most recent Dave's Picks forces us to radically reevaluate the standing of the 2/2/70 Fox Theater show. It was already well-liked just for the snippet that previously circulated -- the Dark Star > St. Stephen > Mason's segment.

    But it turns out that what HADN'T circulated until this point takes the show far out of the realm of "notable partial SBD" and catapults it well into contention as among the best shows of the entire month...and yes, I'm well aware that 2/2/70 shares a month with 2/13/70 and 2/14/70. To be sure, it lacks the sprawling "Dead encyclopedia" feel of the Fillmore shows -- and the 2/13/70 "Dark Star" remains perhaps the single greatest version of all time -- but its brevity arguably works in its favor.

    There's exactly one misfire, and that's the "Hard To Handle" which goes comically out-of-sync during its second verse. Toss that one away, and you're left with a show where EVERYTHING is being played at peak-performance level. In particular what bowls me over is the commitment the band shows towards the shorter songs, the ones they played constantly and which we, as Deadhead, normally skip over or tire of: I've heard roughly one billion versions of "Casey Jones" and "Uncle John's Band," but by god these might actually be two of the tightest, most cracklingly perfect ones they ever did. "Mason's Children" actually gets MORE impressive after the point where the tape used to cut off: Jerry's solo is the sort of pure rock fury that the Dead rarely seemed to care about, and the harmonies are rough-edged perfection.

    I can't rave enough about how marvelous the previously "hidden" songs on this show are: the "Good Lovin'" spares us the expected drum solo and instead devotes itself completely to Garcia/Weir/Lesh guitar interplay, again becoming one of their best non-jam renditions...and then it swings into a truly inspired UJB.

    Finally, the true sign that it's a special night: "Lovelight" doesn't drag the way it usually does in this era. Let's be honest, how many folks here get to the end of a Dead show from '70, hear the obligatory epic-length "Lovelight" begin to crank up, and reach for the skip button? This one, though, blazes with the sort of youthful enthusiasm from Jerry's guitar playing that I haven't heard since the 2/23/68 performance on DP22 (which remains my favorite). And instead of devolving into an overwrought "you had to be there" Pigpen rap, it left-turns into "Not Fade Away," before taking a glorious bow. A show of highlights, with nary a dip.

    The Dead were almost certainly working under a time constraint for this show, and by gum it was their saving grace. All the songs have the fat cut out, except for "Dark Star" (which doesn't really need commenting upon since it's something we've celebrated for years). No drum solos, no overlong raps...heck, even the tuning time is kept to a minimum!

    Anyway, I've rambled on nearly as long as one of those Lovelights I complain about...point is, 2/2/70 really needs to be reevaluated in light of Dave's Picks 6. I think you can make a serious argument now that, because of its punchy, condensed "all meat/no fat" nature, it's actually the finest show from a month of great ones.

    Thanks again for the fantastic site, LiA. It's a public service you've put together here.

    - Jeff

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  6. Yes, it's great that we have the complete 2/2/70 now.

    It's a short & spunky show - they started really late and may have been facing a curfew (Lovelight is noticeably hurried). Fortunately they were really on & happy-sounding that night - no post-New Orleans blues here - and the playing's sharp.
    Dark Star is totally sublime, relaxed, purposeful - one of the most dignified versions of the year, next to 2/13, and obviously very similar to that one. (One Star in between, on 2/8, is a bit more of a struggle for them.)

    The Stephen>Mason's is pretty fascinating. At this point, they knew they wanted to use Stephen as a segue to another rocker, but hadn't figured out the point where to segue, so in early Feb '70 we get a few of these transitions out of Stephen that come too early in the song, after "another man spills" rather than "answer man." (On 2/4 and 2/8/70, they substitute Not Fade Away for the Ladyfinger bridge, and then finish up St Stephen. By the end of March, the switch to NFA had been moved to after "answer man," where it stayed for the rest of the year.)
    This transition's great because they fall on their faces - the drummers want to do Alligator but get immediately vetoed, then Garcia starts a rip-roarin' jam that turns into Mason's.
    And Mason's really takes off; for a minute there we're back in 12/28/69 territory. Are any of the other 1970 Mason's as hot as this? Unfortunately, after Dec '69 the band really shortened up the Mason's jam so none of the 1970 versions live up to the promise, and this hot solo gets yanked back to the song all too soon. (Some of it may have been lost in the reel flip?)
    Good Lovin' fares worse - the jam starts, Phil's punching away and pow! they sound ready to go - and immediately they end it, cooling things down with UJB. I think they had their eye on the clock at this point, so the effect's a bit like 3/24/70 where they're trying to cram everything in.
    Lovelight benefits from being concise, though (especially compared to the interminable half-hour versions of this period). Pigpen's getting into his story, and for a change, the rest of the band tells him to "wait a minute!" Apparently advising him that it's time to wrap up. The shift to a quickie NFA is pretty cool, adding a bit of variety, and when they return to Lovelight they're clearly in a hurry to finish.

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  7. If I were writing this today, I would not have skipped the Fillmore East shows! At the time I was concentrating more on what we're missing from the month.

    It seems the missing early reels of 2/11/70 have been returned to the Vault, so they do have the full early show now. Hopefully we'll get to hear the rest of it sometime. The late show with all its guests in the jam suite is legendary, with a remarkable multi-guitar Dark Star>Spanish Jam - though the long Lovelight with Pigpen & Gregg Allman both going at it is a bit much for me! (I prefer the 2/1/70 Lovelight with Peter Green: more jamming, less screeching.)
    The Allmans would happily jam with the Dead three months later in Atlanta; but it's interesting they didn't repeat the guest experiment the next two nights at the Fillmore.

    2/13/70 is a more subdued show. The early show is basically a short, snappy, unadventurous warmup set, and the late show takes a long time to really get going. The long jam suite is very elegant, though. (Despite its renown, I didn't really warm up to this Dark Star for years since it's so relatively quiet and restrained, compared to others in 1970.) A stereo AUD of the late show by Jim Cooper has recently surfaced and (aside from some fuzziness) is really excellent, giving a sense of the front-row sound of the band; and I think it enhances this set.

    2/14/70 was always my favorite show of this run. The Dead playing the Live/Dead suite during the early show is unparalleled in 1970 - no warmup this night! - and the Dark Star is an interesting contrast to the previous night. After a quiet space, the jam doesn't flow as smoothly; Weir & Lesh keep trying to start another Feelin' Groovy jam, but Garcia brushes them off, trying different directions, so the jam's a bit more disjointed, less melodic. Finally, just before the verse, they heat up and slip in a short, punchy Feelin' Groovy. A tapecut wipes out the Stephen>Eleven transition (there would be only one more Eleven). And along with the third Dark Star of the run, we get the third Lovelight - a standard, shorter version this time.
    The late show, from Dancing on, is incredible and gets hotter as it goes along - admittedly the 13-minute drum solo is a bit excessive, but the NFA>Mason's>Caution>Feedback is beyond praise. (It's perhaps my favorite NFA, a transcendent version.) There is also a fine Jim Cooper AUD of this show, though missing the Caution.

    There are also a few snatches of poor-quality b&w film from 2/14/70, apparently caught by a video crew working for the Fillmore East, and most notably including a big chunk of the Dark Star. See http://archive.org/post/435963/team-fillmore-east and the "Pre-'74 Dead Films" post here.

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  8. Bear once argued that the Dead did not actually play two shows a night at the Fillmore East during this February '70 run, but one long show with two sets:
    http://www.thebear.org/albums.html (Dick's Picks 4 notes)

    I thought this might be worth addressing here, because Bear was wrong:
    1) The poster for the Fillmore East shows says "2 shows nightly - 8 & 11:30." Bear says Graham made an exception for the Dead, and it's true all the ticket stubs available online specify 8:00. (And Bear claimed no other tickets existed.) But an attendee sent me a ticket stub for the 2/13/70 late show with an 11:30 time on it.
    2) The late shows on each night are introduced by a stage announcer, identifying the Dead. Was there another time an announcer came out after a setbreak to introduce the second set of a show? That in itself implies a separate show/audience.
    3) The early Fillmore East shows (in Jan & Feb '70) sometimes have encores. If it was just a 'first set,' why an encore? There are also never comments onstage when the first show ends like "see you later" or "we'll be back," not a word.
    4) Bear said they stopped doing 2 nightly shows at the Fillmore in '69, but 5/15/70 is definitely two separate shows, with two separate acoustic/NRPS sets & encores. (This is also confirmed by a newspaper report.) In the late show, Garcia introduces Friend of the Devil saying, "We got a request to do this. We did this in the first show and we're gonna do it again now."
    5) A newspaper review of this February run says there were "six shows."
    6) One diary-writer who went to Fillmore East shows wrote about the Dead's 1/3/70 show: "This time I saw the early evening show that is customarily inferior to the later one beginning at 11:30 PM." Other audience memories of Dead Fillmore shows also agree that there were early & late shows each night. (This is indisputable about the Sep '69 shows as well, there are so many references. One person remembers that at an early show, "Garcia 'apologized' to the audience for not being able to play too long because it was the 'chickenshit early show'. From that point on we decided we would see these guys again, and never at another 'chickenshit early show'.")
    7) A 5/15/70 newspaper review states, "Since the normal Fillmore bill includes three acts, the majority of Dead fans have refrained from attending the early show where the band was limited to an hour set, resulting in sellouts for the late shows, but less than capacity for the first show." This is confirmed by other reports saying that fans started to avoid the first show because they knew it would be short.

    At any rate, in July 1970 Bill Graham finally switched to the one-show, all-Dead-all-night format at the Fillmore East, with acoustic sets starting the evening. Possibly the declining attendance for the early shows, plus the Dead's demands to have their own uninterrupted "Evening with the Dead," persuaded him. Bear's memory is off here.
    I think Bear in his comments also overestimates the length of time bands would play at the early show (for instance, saying the Allmans might play up to 90 minutes). The Dead's early shows in Jan & Feb '70 are just an hour each, so you know the opening bands got less time. Bear claims that the early show always ended at 10:30 and the Fillmore staff was "like a mob of Nazis on that timing," but he admits that the shows always started late, that one late show went til almost 6 AM, etc, so it seems doubtful that the first show absolutely had to wrap up at 10:30 as he claims.

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  9. The show that is described as Web Feb 11, 1970 was in fact on Saturday Feb 14, 1970, Valentine's Day. This mistake is also on the dead.net site. I was at both early and late shows. It was my first Dead show, and I have strong memories of it. I was still in high school and would never have been allowed to go to a rock concert during the week; it was definitely on Saturday evening (after the late show ended near dawn Sunday morning we drove out to my friend's parents' beach house). Love opened the early show, and the Allmans opened the late show (first time they played with the Dead). The Dead's first set included the famous/infamous jam starting with Dark Star, with Allmans and Peter Green joining, ending in Lovelight. This happened in the first set, not the second (as incorrectly described by Lesh). Half the crowd was applauding and the other half was booing. Being a teenager in a fairly altered state way up in the balcony, it was pretty confusing! Anyway Dead come back out for 2nd set which was amazing.

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    1. Thanks for the memories!
      It's interesting how you remember the shows, but I must point out the evidence doesn't seem to line up with what you say:
      1) A ticket stub for the 2/14 early 8:00 show includes the Allman Brothers; it would have violated Fillmore practice for bands to alternate between early & late shows. Other witnesses remember Love & the Allmans both playing each show.
      2) The Dead's Feb '70 shows at the Fillmore didn't have 1st and 2nd sets, at least on tape, except that a couple late shows are broken up by mini-acoustic sets in between electric portions; but the Dead don't leave the stage for a break. On the tape after Lovelight with the Allmans, Weir tells the audience "good night," not "we'll be back" (although they did do an encore) - there was no 2nd set afterwards, as the tapes show.
      If you meant that it was the early show where the Allmans joined in, I'd point out that the early shows at the Fillmore tend to be less expansive hour-long sets, nothing like the long late-show blowouts. The Dead had to watch the clock during the early shows, since they were (in theory) supposed to wrap up at 11.
      3) The shows were taped by multiple tapers - Owsley, Fillmore crew members, and an audience taper all independently taped the Feb 11 show; and they all dated it Feb 11, not Feb 14. Early & late shows exist for each date of this run, and there's no evidence that one of the shows on the 14th actually happened on another date.
      4) As well, there is a partial Fillmore videotape of both Feb 14 shows, including parts of Dark Star and Not Fade Away. Both songs were also played in the late show you saw with the Allmans; the Dead at the time would never have repeated them in early & late shows on the same day.
      5) Zacherle came out to introduce the Feb 14 late show, and says on the tape, "Happy Valentine's day...this is glorious Sunday morning." Which would be a strange thing for him to say if it was actually Wed. Feb 11th, instead of the night of Saturday, Feb 14.
      6) I don't recall anyone else over the years saying that these shows have been switched - unlike the July '70 Fillmore East tapes, where several attendees have pointed out that a couple dates were switched on the tapes. (Just as trivia, February 12 was Lincoln's birthday - as a holiday in New York, I think there would've been no school.)
      7) I'm surprised to hear anyone was booing during the Lovelight! This was probably the Dead's most popular live number at the time, and audience tapes always have ecstatic New York audiences during Lovelight. During this Lovelight, the crowd claps and shouts throughout, and goes nuts at the end; booers aren't evident.

      Anyway, the point of this isn't to attack the memories of a teenager in an altered state, just to point out the differences between what people remember from shows 50 years ago and what's on tape. I know I've made claims about lost shows based on audience memories that are quite unverifiable.

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  10. There's some pretty prominent organ in the long Lovelight from 2-1-70. Presumably that's not TC. Is it Pig? I'm not expert enough to recognize his licks. I feel badly that my first impression was 'that can't be Pig' ... am I underestimating him?

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    1. It is Pigpen! Before the Other One, Weir announces that they're going to get Pigpen, who plays organ on the Cryptical>Other One and the following Lovelight. Without checking all 40 minutes again, I believe Pigpen stops playing whenever he sings.

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    2. thanks! I figured it must be pigpen, but I hadn't recently been listening very closely at the organ parts and the prominent organ here was, well, pretty impressive. Sometimes Pig's playing gets underrated (and in this case by me). Go Pig!

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    3. I was at all the Feb 70 shows at the filmore east and one night a giant jam 13 people on stage a photo exists out in the sunrise in snow

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    4. Fleetwood Mac Peter green mick fleetwood duane all man and more never forget

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