August 22, 2014

1967 Setlists

1967 is very much the “lost year” of the Dead. Out of about 120 shows played that year, we only have about a dozen on tape. Surprisingly, there are actually quite a few memories and accounts of lost ’67 shows available, so we can still get a good picture of how the Dead’s repertoire evolved through the year. As an experiment, I thought I would try compiling all the songs known to be played in 1967 – from the circulating tapes, the setlists available on deadlists and deadbase, and the reviews of lost shows on dead.net and setlists.net. Here are the results…

Updated October 2017.

1-13-67 [witness]
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

1-14-67 [tape & film]
Dancin' in the Streets
Viola Lee Blues
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
(The Morning Dew on our tape comes from a later date, and it doesn't seem to have been played at this show.)

3-18-67 [tape]
Set One:
Me and My Uncle
Next Time You See Me
He Was A Friend Of Mine
Smokestack Lightnin'
Morning Dew
It Hurts Me Too
Beat It On Down The Line
Dancin' In The Streets
Set Two:
Golden Road
Cream Puff War
The Same Thing
Cold Rain and Snow
Viola Lee Blues
Death Don't Have No Mercy

3-24-67 [Deadbase]
Viola Lee Blues

4-8-67 [TV show]
Cream Puff War
(Walkin’ Blues – played as comparison with Quicksilver’s version)

4-9-67 [film clips]
Dancin’ in the Streets
Caution
King Bee
Viola Lee Blues 
Chevrolet (sung by Garcia)  
Gloria 
(The Youtube clip is labeled “4-20-67” but this seems to actually be from the 4-9-67 street dance/Panhandle show.)

4-12-67 
Golden Road (opened the set) [deadbase]
Viola Lee Blues (An attendee writes: "I remember the Dead ending a set (I think they only played a single set) with Viola Lee Blues.")

4-28-67 [dead.net comment]
Viola Lee Blues
Golden Road
Cream Puff War

4-29-67 [deadbase/deadlists comment]
Viola Lee Blues

5-18-67
Louie Louie [deadbase]
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl [dead.net comment]
(This show was at the Awalt High School gym, possibly accounting for the odd cover. There are an astonishing number of reviewers on dead.net, which apparently has a strong contingent from Mountain View; of course their memories are all vague.)

5-20-67 [setlist.net comment]
Morning Dew

5-29-67 [witness]
Viola Lee Blues
It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
Cold Rain and Snow
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

6-1-67 Tompkins Square Park [deadlists]
Golden Road
Dancin' in the Streets
Midnight Hour
Beat It On Down The Line
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Cold Rain and Snow
Morning Dew
Viola Lee Blues
(This setlist comes from Mike Bobrik, an eyewitness - a couple tracks are confirmed by a film clip.)

6-6-67 [deadbase]
I'm A King Bee
It Hurts Me Too
The Same Thing
Big Boss Man
Alligator
Midnight Hour
Beat It On Down The Line
Me and My Uncle
Minglewood Blues
Don't Ease Me In
Cold Rain and Snow
Viola Lee Blues
It's All Over Now Baby Blue
(I’m uncertain about the provenance or reliability of this setlist, but it looks fairly plausible – most of these songs were in their regular repertoire this year. Whoever wrote this list mostly grouped it by singer: Pigpen songs/Weir songs/Garcia.)
(Phil Lesh also remembers Alligator being played at the Café au Go Go.)

6-7-67 [dead.net comments]
Viola Lee Blues

6-18-67 [tape]
Cold Rain and Snow
Viola Lee Blues
Alligator > Caution

6-21-67 [film clip/dead.net comment]
Alligator (possibly from an earlier park show)
(possibly Viola Lee Blues)

6-28-67 [newspaper review]
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

7-2-67 [witnesses]
Dancin' in the Streets
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
(Deadbase listed this as 6-xx-67 El Camino Park, Palo Alto.)

7-18-67 [witnesses]
Golden Road
Turn On Your Lovelight (possibly)

7-21-67 [deadlists]
Set one:
1. Viola Lee Blues (30:00)
2. Morning Dew (5:00).
Set two:
1. The Golden Road (3:00)
2. (Pigpen song) (13:00)
3. New, New Minglewood Blues (4:00)
4. (????) (14:00)
5. [Friend of Mine] (?) (8:00)
6. Midnight Hour (15:00).
(Tom Ordon wrote: “All times are approximate since I was just looking at my watch. I had the first album, so I'm sure songs 2, 4 and 5 were not on it.”)
(The Pigpen song was probably Alligator or Lovelight. I don’t know what song 4 could have been – it’s not noted as a Pigpen song, the time’s too long for New Potato, and Dancin’ should have been a recognizable song.)

7-23-67 [tape]
Jam w/ Neal Cassady Rap
Turn On Your Lovelight

7-31-67 [newspaper review]
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Post-show 50-minute jam w/ Jefferson Airplane and Luke & the Apostles

8-4-67 [tape]
Lindy
New Potato Caboose
Viola Lee Blues

8-5-67 (afternoon show) [newspaper review]
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
I Know You Rider

8-5-67 [tape]
Turn On Your Lovelight
Alligator

8-6-67 (afternoon show) [deadbase/dead.net comment]
Morning Dew
Viola Lee Blues
Alligator (with a drum solo & feedback)
Dancin’ in the Streets
Encore: Gloria jam w/ Jefferson Airplane [dead.net comment] 

8-6-67 (Expo ’67)
Viola Lee Blues (Phil Lesh: “We warm up with a couple of quickies – Cold Rain and Snow, maybe, or Sittin’ on Top of the World, and then slope right into Viola Lee Blues.” He recalls the stage manager stopped the band in the middle of Viola Lee.)

August ’67, Golden Gate Park [TV clip from “Hippie Temptation”]
Dancin’ in the Streets

8-19-67
Sittin’ on Top of the World [dead.net comment]
(possibly Golden Road & Turn On Your Lovelight) [setlists.net/dead.net comment]

8-28-67 [film clip]
Viola Lee Blues
(possibly Good Morning Little Schoolgirl) [deadlists comment]

“5-5-67” [tape]
He Was A Friend Of Mine
Golden Road
New Potato Caboose
Alligator

9-3-67 [tape]
Midnight Hour
Dancin’ In The Streets
It Hurts Me Too
Cold Rain and Snow
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Viola Lee Blues
Big Boss Man
Alligator
(Midnight Hour could be from 9-4.)

9-4-67 [tape]
Caution > Feedback

9-15-67 [tape]
Viola Lee Blues
Cold Rain and Snow
Beat It On Down The Line
Good Morning Little School Girl
Morning Dew
Alligator > Caution > Feedback

9-29-67 
Dancin’ in the Streets [deadbase, confirmed by film clip]

9-30-67
Viola Lee Blues (first set)
Alligator > (Caution) > Feedback (second set, w/ Mickey Hart)

10-1-67 [dead.net comments]
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Feedback

10-14-67 [deadbase]
Set One:
Cold Rain and Snow
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Set Two:
Alligator > Caution

10-22-67 [tape]
Morning Dew
New Potato Caboose
It Hurts Me Too
Cold Rain and Snow
Turn On Your Lovelight
Beat It On Down The Line
Cryptical Envelopment > The Other One > Cryptical Envelopment

“1-27-67” [tape]
Viola Lee Blues
Cold Rain and Snow
Alligator > Caution
(possibly Good Morning Little Schoolgirl – cuts off after 2 seconds on our tape)
(Morning Dew & New Potato Caboose on this tape are AUD recordings of the 10-22-67 show.)

"10-31-67"
Cryptical Envelopment > The Other One > Cryptical Envelopment
Alligator > Caution
(This has circulated as studio outtakes, but is actually from an unknown live show.)

10-31-67 [witness]
Viola Lee Blues

11-10-67 [tape]
Viola Lee Blues
It Hurts Me Too
BIODTL 
Morning Dew
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Cryptical Envelopment > The Other One > Cryptical Envelopment
New Potato Caboose
Alligator > Caution > Feedback

11-11-67 [tape]
Turn On Your Lovelight
BIODTL
Death Don't Have No Mercy
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Cryptical Envelopment > The Other One > Cryptical Envelopment
Alligator > Caution > Feedback

12-8-67 [newspaper review]
Midnight Hour (“a freely improvised half-hour version”)

12-22-67 [setlists.net comment]
(possibly Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, Beat It On Down The Line)

12-26-67 [setlists.net comment]
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Beat It On Down The Line
Cold Rain and Snow
Alligator>Caution [newspaper review] 
(The review also confirms Schoolgirl and Cold Rain & Snow.)

12-27-67 [setlists.net/deadlists comments]
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl
Morning Dew
Viola Lee Blues 


UNCERTAIN

"Whicker's World" TV show, spring 1967 - Golden Road
"Petulia" film, spring 1967 - Viola Lee Blues
Dates & locations unknown. I believe these were not actual shows, but arranged for the cameras. Although Blair Jackson says the “Viola Lee Blues” in Petulia was filmed at the Avalon, the Olompali Sunday Times #2 reported in May ’67 that “they were playing live in a warehouse here in the city.”

The Taping Compendium (p.566) lists a TV clip filmed at the Panhandle, Golden Gate Park, SF, sometime in ’67, in which the Dead play Yonders Wall & King Bee. My guess is this is the same as the “4/20/67” Panhandle clip on youtube, just with a different soundtrack; not sure how Yonders Wall was identified.


FAKES

2-12-67
Deadbase used to list Smokestack Lightning and King Bee, and now lists Cold Rain & Snow and Hi-Heel Sneakers. All of these were misdated from the 11-19-66 tape.

6-8-67 [from setlists.net – omitted on deadbase]
BIODTL, Golden Road, New Minglewood Blues, Cream Puff War, Cryptical Envelopment, New Potato Caboose, Born Cross-Eyed, Alligator, Caution
(The lack of a reputable source, and the presence of two songs that hadn’t been written yet, cast doubt on this list.)

6-28-67 [from setlists.net – omitted on deadbase]
The Other One, Minglewood Blues, Dark Star, The Eleven, William Tell, Death Don’t Have No Mercy, Clementine
(If this were from 1968 it might be believable.)

9-4-67 [deadbase]
Morning Dew, Cold Rain and Snow, Viola Lee Blues, Alligator > Caution, New Potato Caboose
(Deadbase notes, “could be from the previous night.” This setlist is from "1/27/67" and doesn't belong on this date. Deadbase also listed “Dark Star Jam” on 9-3-67, from a rehearsal.)

10-31-67 [deadbase]
Alligator > Caution, Cryptical > Other One > Cryptical
(This tape was misdated from the November ’67 Shrine shows. Not to be confused with the other 10/31/67 tape from an unknown live show.)

12-13-67 [deadbase]
Dark Star
(There was no 12-13-67 show, at the Shrine or anywhere. The Dead may well have played Dark Star that month, though.)


NOTES

One pattern among audience memories of these shows is that they’d typically remember one or two standouts, usually songs they recognized off the Dead’s first album. Schoolgirl was clearly the song that made the biggest impression on audiences, to judge by how often it’s remembered – followed by Viola Lee Blues.
The Dead’s new songs tended not to be recognized, of course; and the covers they played at shows are certainly under-represented on this list. So it’s hard to tell just how rare some of these songs actually were in 1967. There was a definite small core repertoire that they would play in show after show, and that is mostly what shows up here.
The Dead seem to have steadily winnowed down their repertoire through the year – as they introduced new jam songs, they’d drop older numbers, and some of their cover tunes became more infrequent. Songs like Cream Puff War, Golden Road, and even the venerable Dancin’ in the Streets disappear by the fall. Only about eight of the songs regularly played in spring ‘67 were still being played in the fall.
This had been an ongoing process since 1966, of course, as various folk, blues, and R&B covers and early “poppy” Dead originals were gradually discarded (even I Know You Rider was abruptly shuffled off in ‘67). Over the course of ’67 they focused increasingly on the extended jams – Garcia mentioned in a July ’67 interview that when they’d recorded their album in January, “at that time we were mostly doing blues-oriented things. Now we’re starting to get into a different thing.”

These are the numbers of times each song is included in this list (including the uncertain and “possible” times).

Viola Lee Blues – 26
Good Morning Little Schoolgirl – 19
Alligator - 15
Cold Rain and Snow - 12
Caution - 11
Dancin’ in the Streets – 10
Beat It On Down The Line - 10 
Morning Dew – 9 
Golden Road – 9
Turn On Your Lovelight – 6
Midnight Hour - 5
It Hurts Me Too – 5
New Potato Caboose - 4
Cryptical > Other One - 4
Cream Puff War - 3
He Was A Friend Of Mine – 3
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue – 3 
Death Don’t Have No Mercy - 2
Me and My Uncle – 2
The Same Thing – 2
Big Boss Man – 2
King Bee – 2 
Gloria - 2
New Minglewood Blues - 2
Next Time You See Me – 1
Smokestack Lightning – 1
Don’t Ease Me In – 1
Sittin’ on Top of the World – 1
I Know You Rider - 1
Lindy – 1
Louie Louie – 1
Walkin’ Blues – 1
Chevrolet – 1

These were the new songs introduced in 1967:
Alligator  - written in late May, it starts being played immediately in June and becomes a setlist centerpiece. It took a couple months before it was paired regularly with Caution.
Turn On Your Lovelight – first appears in July, but doesn’t appear in late-’67 setlists as often as you’d expect.
New Potato Caboose – they were composing it back in March, but it doesn’t appear til August. It also doesn’t seem to be played that often in late ’67, though this could be misleading since no audience member could recognize it.
Cryptical>Other One suite – written by October, this was one of the first songs they tackled in the Anthem studio sessions, and was likely played in almost every show that fall.
Dark Star – written in September, recorded in November, but (along with its B-side, Born Cross-Eyed) not known to have turned up in live shows til January ’68.

It remains a small mystery how many of the new songs and extended suites that suddenly appear in January ’68 were being played in December ’67. The Dead had a recording-studio break of over a month from mid-November to late December with almost no shows played, and it’s likely a lot of the early ’68 concepts were put together in that period.
I should mention that “Feedback” starts turning up in August ’67, and was soon linked to Caution as the favored way to end a show. Though not a composition per se, this was a major development in the Dead’s approach to their music.
At the start of the year, they were only playing two original songs – Cream Puff War (written in spring ’66) and Golden Road (a new song written in Jan/Feb ’67). Both of these were cast aside – Cream Puff War last appears on 4/28, and Golden Road apparently stopped being played in the summer.

A few other song notes:

Cold Rain & Snow – one of the most common 1967 regulars, it utterly disappears in ’68, til turning up again on 5/31/69.
Dancin’ in the Streets – possibly dropped after Sept ’67, it resurfaces twice in March ’68, then drops from sight til 6/8/69.
Me & My Uncle – spotted twice in early ’67, then vanishes until 4/27/69.
Next Time You See Me – no known performances between 3/18/67 & 9/27/69.
He Was A Friend of Mine – after summer ’67, vanished until 12/7/68.
Smokestack Lightning – until 1970, this song was always rare.
The Same Thing – not heard again til a one-time appearance on 12/31/71.
Death Don’t Have No Mercy – this seems to have been a rare song (appearing twice in ’66 and ’67) until it became a regular in March ’68.
Midnight Hour – odd that it doesn’t show up in ‘67 until June; but it would be a rare song for the next couple years, til the end of ’69.
Big Boss Man – a regular in ’66; introduced on 9/3/67 as “an old song;” then vanishes til 6/27/69.
Minglewood Blues – another ’66 regular that barely shows up in ’67, it resurfaces on 4/26/69.
Sittin’ on Top of the World – same story: vanishes in ’67, played twice in March ’68, then disappears until 4/11/69.
It’s All Over Now Baby Blue – yet another ’66 regular that vanishes in ’67, resurfacing on 4/6/69.
Don’t Ease Me In – uncertain whether it was actually played this year (it was barely played in ’66); not heard again til 3/20/70.
King Bee – not heard again til 2/11/69.
I Know You Rider - though the Dead recorded an instrumental track for the album in January, it then disappears from the record, aside from one August '67 report, until 4/5/69.
Lindy – heard a few times in late ’66, it mysteriously appears for the last time in August ’67.
Gloria – perhaps this doesn’t count since it was played in a jam with the Airplane; but a fragment was recently discovered from 4/9/67, it was reported again on 1/30/68, and it would return to the Dead’s sets in the ‘80s. One San Francisco musician remembers "the Dead played Gloria a lot in those days." We don't know who sang it, but my bet's on Pigpen.
Louie Louie – other than a tease on 6/7/70, this wasn’t part of the Dead’s repertoire until a brief stretch in 1988.
Walkin’ Blues – other than the brief TV airing, this appears not to have been in the Dead’s repertoire at all until 1985. (Maybe they’d played it back in ’65.)
Chevrolet - a blues-rock arrangement of an old blues song done by Jim Kweskin, this survives only in a fragment from the 4/9/67 park show.

22 comments:

  1. Thanks.

    It seems that we have these songs from the studio sessions with Dave Hassinger: Cryptical Envelopment, New Potato Caboose, Alligator (all vocal sections only), Dark Star, Born Cross Eyed. Is there evidence that they tried any of the other songs or any jams in the studio with him?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No. Unlike the first album & Aoxomoxoa sessions, it appears they didn't record any songs in the studio that weren't released. I think they had a clear idea from the start what they wanted on the album.

      There is a studio Lovelight rehearsal session from sometime in mid-'67, though. Given how primitive the arrangement is, I think it's clearly just a rehearsal, not an attempt to lay down tracks; but it's still a mystery just when, where & why it was recorded. It's possible other rehearsal tapes were also made.

      Delete
    2. There is a five second Louie Louie riff before launching into Greatest Story Ever Told on 2/26/73. One might call it a tease of a tease, though.

      Delete
    3. Nice post. A ton of crucial new material surfaced between November 67 and January 68 - Lovelight, China Cat Sunflower, Dark Star, Clementine, The Eleven, We Bid You Goodnight, and probably Born Crosseyed. There is that one rehearsal of Lovelight attributed to 12/67, and one would presume these were being worked up in the studio earlier, but it makes those January 1968 shows all the more remarkable.

      Delete
  2. A b&w video clip which is from one of the Straight Theater shows on September 29-30, 1967, shows a small fragment (maybe 50 seconds, in distorted sound) of Dancin' in the Streets, and a bit of the jam:
    http://originalgratefuldead.tumblr.com/post/100231234833/gratefuldeadnotes-ihavenorecollectionofthis

    Deadbase listed Dancin' as being played on the 29th, though the film fragment could come from either show. (Mickey isn't there.) In any case, it's a strange coincidence that several times when film was rolling in 1967, the Dead were playing Dancin' in the Streets!

    ReplyDelete
  3. A few brief sample clips of the 4/9/67 Panhandle show have surfaced, and reveal a bit more of the setlist:

    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 varied 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.
    I don't think actual audio of Dancin' in the Streets is in the circulating footage - for Dancin', Voodoonola's video uses what are clearly the same shots as the Hippie Temptation clip (though in better quality), making me wonder whether that TV footage was actually from 4/9. (The Dead are wearing the same clothes in each clip, but the background looks different - a building in the 4/9 clips, and trees in Hippie Temptation. An odd mystery!)

    In any case, these songs were definitely played:
    Caution
    King Bee
    Viola Lee Blues
    unknown blues song, sung by Garcia

    Aside from the blues song, Caution is the exciting discovery here - there's otherwise no record of it being played between March '66 and June '67, and this was pre-Alligator. Evidently the Dead's setlists were a bit more varied in early '67 than we thought.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A commenter on my "Pre-74 Dead Films" post alerted me to another brief b&w news clip from the 4/9/67 Panhandle show - this one with pretty good (but brief) audio of the jam from Dancin' in the Streets!
      In two parts:
      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

      No big surprise that Dancin' was played at yet another show, but nice to have a little audio of it.

      Delete
  4. Confirmation that Dancin' in the Street was the Dead's first song on 1/14/67:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTGyFgyB5Q8&t=13m13s

    (The video's close to a half hour; the Dead appear for about four minutes.)
    We get parts of a raucous Dancin' in the Street and Viola Lee; there's a bit of the break after Viola Lee that isn't on our tape; then a tiny fragment of Schoolgirl, the last song.
    Songs could be missing from this very incomplete film, of course; but my guess is they just played these three songs, no Morning Dew. It's too bad the Dancin' didn't make it onto the circulating tape - all we have is what's in this short clip.

    ReplyDelete
  5. A new post on Lost Live Dead reveals that the "6/24/67" Palo Alto Be-In show was actually 7/2/67.
    The Dead played Dancing in the Street and (according to an eyewitness) Good Morning Little Schoolgirl. A newspaper review says they only played for half an hour, so it's not likely there were many other songs, if any!
    http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2015/06/july-2-1967-el-camino-park-palo-alto-ca.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. A newly surfaced news clip of the 6/1/67 Tompkins Square Park show confirms that BIODTL and Schoolgirl were played:
    http://www.itnsource.com/en/shotlist/RTV/1967/06/02/BGY506190017/

    ReplyDelete
  7. A brief clip of the Dead playing in Golden Gate Park in spring/summer '67 has surfaced, just a few seconds long, 50 minutes into this documentary "The Way It Was":
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEejp5_UMyQ

    (The date isn't resolved - the film places the Dead's show on June 21, but photos seem to place it on May 28.)

    The filmmakers weren't interested in the bands playing or the music, but for 30 seconds we can hear an early Alligator, in very good quality. (Afterwards there's also about 90 seconds of the Ace of Cups with a male singer; and there's also very brief audio of Quicksilver.)

    Along with Monterey Pop, this is the earliest audio of Alligator we have. It's a pity more of the Dead's show wasn't used on the soundtrack; but as with all these news clips of 1967 park shows, the Dead's music was just considered incidental background.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Gotta correct myself, it's the Anonymous Artists of America after the Dead, not the Ace of Cups. (See the Pre-'74 Films comment thread for more discussion.)

      Whether this clip is before or after Monterey, it shows that once the Dead worked up Alligator in May '67, it immediately became a regular piece in their setlists. I wouldn't be surprised if, like Viola Lee or Schoolgirl, it was played at almost every 1967 show from that point on.

      By the way, one guy who was in a San Francisco rock group that year remembers that "the Dead played Gloria a lot in those days." A surprise to hear, but his memory's good, so it indicates how underrepresented some songs are in the known 1967 shows.

      Delete
  8. Another setlist memory:
    "There was a show on May 29, 1967 at the Napa Fairgrounds in Napa, CA, in a building now called Chardonnay Hall. I was in high school then and was one of the three promoters of the show. I remember them playing a thrashing 'Viola Lee Blues', 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue', 'Cold Rain and Snow', and 'Good Morning Little Schoolgirl'."
    http://www.deadlists.com/posters/1960s/19670529.html

    Three of those songs are just what we'd expect to see on any 1967 setlist, as some of the most-played songs that year; but 'Baby Blue' was quite rare then - after being played so frequently in '66, it's only reported at one other show in '67.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Another witness who saw the Dead in '67 speaks up:
    "Saw them in the spring of '67 doing a short opening set for the Mamas & Papas. Was blown away by their cover of It's All Over Now Baby Blue. [probably 1/13/67, a 30-minute opening set]
    Halloween of that year I saw them at Winterland with Quicksilver and Big Brother. The live showpiece at the time was Viola Lee Blues, and it was a monster." [10/31/67]

    While this adds yet another Viola Lee to the 1967 list, it's interesting to see another rare Baby Blue as well - while not played frequently in '67, it seems to have stayed in the setlists at least through the spring.

    ReplyDelete
  10. A review of the Toronto 8/5/67 afternoon show:
    "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl was beautiful, but got neither response nor applause. The song that went over best was the folk song Rider."

    Another Schoolgirl is no surprise, but I Know You Rider was quite rare - no other performance from 1967 is known. That said, with 90% of the shows from that year lost, the Dead may well have played Rider all through the year, though less frequently than in '66.
    It might not be coincidental that the only known 1967 Lindy is from 8/4/67. Playing an extended week-long run of shows in one place, possibly the Dead were digging up a few older songs that had fallen out of the repertoire to keep things interesting.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Mickey Hart's earliest recollection of meeting the band at the Straight Theater:
    "The band was loud. They were playing Viola Lee Blues with a screaming monstrous bass sound. After the first set, I got my drums and played the whole second set with them. There were 2 drummers, we played Alligator and for the first time went into feedback, creating a real open sound."
    http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/january-1969-mickey-tom-bios.html

    The date has long been assumed to be 9/29/67, but Lesh & McNally's books put it on the second night (9/30), which I'll take as the right night.
    Mickey recalled Viola Lee from the first set, which is no big surprise.
    I think the film clip from these nights is from the 29th, partly since a camera crew was most likely to catch the first night, and partly since it confirms the Deadbase report of a Dancin' on the 29th.

    ReplyDelete
  12. A review of one of the Dead's Village Theater shows on Dec. 26-27 includes a partial setlist: Schoolgirl, Cold Rain & Snow, and Alligator>Caution.
    http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2018/02/december-26-27-1967-village-theater-nyc.html

    No surprises there - all the attendees of these shows remembered Schoolgirl! Which shows how memory works...a giant jam like Alligator>Caution, they couldn't identify at the time and it slipped out of memory; but Pigpen singing Schoolgirl stuck in their minds.

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  13. When putting together my new list of 1967 shows, I was surprised to find a film clip with six seconds of Gloria from 4/9/67. (See http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2018/06/1967-show-list.html for a list of clips from the show.)
    Although there were rumors of Gloria from other shows (8/6/67 and 1/30/68), it's great to hear some actual confirmation that the Dead played it that year. It's unfortunate that 4/9/67 was so poorly captured on film (even with multiple news crews filming!), since it has several songs that were rarely played at the time or never heard again.

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  14. The September '67 issue of the Sun, a Detroit underground paper, included a little review of recent live Dead in its "Rock" column:

    "The Grateful Dead, although they played a lot of their album material as it appeared on the album, were out of sight because they just were obviously enjoying what they were doing so much. You could hear them excitedly talking to one another in a long conversation that slowly built to a huge satisfying series of climaxes. They can take songs like Midnight Hour, getting into it and 'talking' to each other so heavily that you couldn't remember via what structure-melody-song they used in order to get into it."
    (Marshal Rubinoff, "Rock," the Sun 9/67, p.11)

    He doesn't say which show he saw them at, but I presume it was one of the August 11-12 shows they'd played at the Grande Ballroom, so Midnight Hour and some first-album material was played at one of those shows.

    (As an aside - Moby Grape had also come to Detroit recently, playing at the Upper Deck Club on 7/27/67, and he reports: "They knocked me on my ass when I saw them. They screamed and played, improvising, falling off the stage, and took my mind and body to the total freak-out stage of no control. Their record is a very poor example of their talents.")

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    1. And speaking of Midnight Hour...when the Doors were asked about the Dead in one interview (the East Village Other, 9/15/67), there was a complaint about their playing lots of blues covers; John Densmore said, "Like 'The Midnight Hour.' And they play it for 20 minutes. And their version of it is like, they get inside of it, get into all the corners...I say, well, why don't they write original things?"
      And in another interview (Mojo Navigator R&R News, August '67), John griped, "They weren’t too good, the night we saw them. Like, they’re really good musicians, and they’re tight, but so’s Wilson Pickett, you know?"

      I don't think Wilson Pickett was a random comparison - it seems likely the Dead did a 20-minute Midnight Hour on one of the nights they played with the Doors. But which? Either the Fillmore in January, or Santa Barbara in April...

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  15. Have there been any worthwhile theories regarding the actual provenance of the "Morning Dew" that has long been attributed to the Human Be-In concert of January 14, 1967? Has anyone suggested yet that it might be from the Kings Beach Bowl tapes of February 22, 1968? I have no hard evidence to support this theory, except for the fact that David Lemieux had apparently recalled that two of the songs played on 2/22/68 were "Morning Dew" and "Beat it on Down the Line." 2/22 is of course "famous" for being the show with the missing (or at any rate very faint) vocal channel, and the latter portion of the show was posted years ago on the dead.net Taper’s Section as, essentially, an "instrumental" set. But that post did not include "Morning Dew" or "Beat It On Down The Line." Not much to go on, but from that rather weak premise I'm led to wonder: perhaps those two songs had not fallen victim to whatever error caused the issue with the vocals -- and, because they were intact and solid versions, they were "separated" from the rest of the tape at some time in the past with the intention of using them elsewhere. Subsequently, the "Morning Dew," at least, came down to us appended (somehow) to the Human Be-In concert. It's a theory, at any rate. I'm offering it, in part, to see if it can be rejected, or if it might at least survive as a possibility.
    -Jeff P.

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    1. I don't think that "Morning Dew" comes from 2/22/68. Actually, the same Dew that circulated as 1/14/67 was also found as filler on some tapes of 10/12/68, for instance here:
      https://archive.org/details/gd1968-10-12.139745.sbd.miller.Glassberg.flac1644
      It has two drummers but no Pigpen on organ, and the style sounds more like fall '68 than early '68 to me; so it most likely does come from the October '68 Avalon shows.

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