This
will be a short post! There is not much missing from 1971. Complete tapes
circulate from almost every show of the year.
Nonetheless,
there are a few shows where soundboard tapes have gone missing or never
circulated. This is a list of the 1971 shows we don’t have the full SBD tapes
for. Most of these are likely in the Vault. Some of the gaps are covered by AUD
tapes, while others are missing altogether and are only known from audience
memories.
Songs that are reported or AUD-only are in italics.
*
1/21/71 Freeborn Hall, University of California, Davis, CA – complete AUD/partial SBD
A good AUD tape covers most of the show; SBD fragments didn’t surface until recently. Deadbase claimed that Mickey Hart was absent, but this was mistaken: he’s playing. Sugar Magnolia & Black Peter were reported in Deadbase but are missing from the AUD tape, which may have a gap here. It’s unknown whether SBD reel 3 (with the splendid Other One and the last Cosmic Charlie until 1976) is in the Vault.
REVIEW: https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/07/january-21-1971-freeborn-hall-davis-ca.html
*
1/22/71 Gymnasium, Lane Community College, Eugene, OR – partial SBD
Ken Babbs introduces the band. The setbreak is uncertain, but this may be the first hour of the show. The tape is a muddy nth-generation cassette and is not the most appealing listen. A newspaper review says the Dead played from 11:30 to 2:00, so at least half of the show is missing on this tape, but no setlist details are known for the rest.
https://archive.org/details/gd71-01-22.sbd.cotsman.12592.sbeok.shnf
REVIEW: https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/01/january-22-1971-lane-community-college.html
*
3/5/71 Oakland Auditorium, Oakland, CA – no known tape
Midnight Hour, Turn On Your Lovelight
This was a Black Panther benefit. The Dead played a short set, less than an hour to a small audience after the Panther speeches; Ken Kesey also attended. (Phil Lesh remembered someone shouting in a quiet jam, “Free Bobby Seale!”) Apparently no one recorded it – the audience was searched and “anyone with a tape recorder was barred.”
https://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/02/march-5-1971-oakland-auditorium-oakland.html
(see comments)
REVIEWS:
https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2019/06/march-5-1971-oakland-auditorium-arena.html
*
3/13/71 Jenison Fieldhouse, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI – SBD in Vault
Sugar Magnolia, Me & Bobby McGee, Johnny B. Goode, Truckin’, Casey Jones, Playing in the Band
Latvala said this show was in the Vault and even played a few tracks at a Dick’s Picks release party. Otherwise, not one note has circulated. The first 3 songs are per Deadbase, the next 3 per a setlists.net witness. (“Somewhere in the second set a guy near us in the bleachers said, "I think I may wake up in the morning still listening to the Grateful Dead!"”)
*
3/17/71 Fox Theatre, St. Louis, MO – SBD in Vault
Truckin’, Hard to Handle, Next Time You See Me, Me & Bobby McGee, Cryptical Envelopment > The Other One, Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad > Not Fade Away, Johnny B. Goode, Turn On Your Lovelight?
Next Time You See Me and Me & Bobby McGee from the first set were included in a
dead.net Taper’s Section, which noted: “3/17/71 has a few technical issues at
key points in the master tapes (specifically bad cuts in the reels during Hard
To Handle and the Other One suite).”
The Dead started late (as usual) but played a regular 2-1/2 hour show. Garcia made a rare guitar change during the show, switching from his Peanut to a Les Paul before NFA. A newspaper review singles out Pigpen’s vocal in Lovelight, but a witness on setlists.net says “Pig did not do Lovelight at this show.”
*
3/21/71 Expo Center, Milwaukee, WI – partial AUD
Cold Rain & Snow, It Hurts Me Too, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Truckin’ > The Other One, Me & My Uncle, Hard to Handle, Loser, BIODTL, Me & Bobby McGee, Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad, We Bid You Goodnight?
45
minutes of an average audience tape were released on a vinyl bootleg, which is
all that circulates of this show. (Pardon the inconsistent italics; there’s no
available SBD tape for this show.) It’s unknown whether this show is in the
Vault.
It
was long claimed that this was the full show and the band left early “to catch
a plane,” but this is not true. The Dead played a 2-hour show per a newspaper
review, normal for early ’71, although there appears to have been no setbreak. None
of the newspaper reports mention the show ending early. The actual song order
is unknown (except that Cold Rain opened). Possibly the full show was recorded,
but the original tape has never appeared. (An alternate bootleg LP also
included Connection from the NRPS set.)
A standard Hard to Handle is about the only thing recommending this tape. Something goes wrong with the source in NFA>GDTRFB and it sounds like two tapes playing at once for a while. The Dead wrap up GDTRFB in a hurry, apparently not bothering to reprise NFA; but a newspaper review implies that they sang We Bid You Goodnight at the end of the show.
https://archive.org/details/gd71-03-21.aud.cotsman.12074.sbeok.shnf
*
Spring ’71 Digression
There are a number of short shows in early ’71 that may seem incomplete but are in fact the entire show (such as March 14 or 20). It’s a little surprising to see some second sets from March with only 5 or 6 songs, but several shows from this period (like March 24) are weighted toward long first sets with mini-second sets. Two-hour shows are common, but a number of shows clock in at even less than 2 hours, whether due to late starts, curfews, band malaise, or other reasons. Showgoers sometimes claim the Dead actually played a 3 or 4-hour set, but the tapes don’t bear this out.
*
5/29/71 Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA – complete AUD/partial SBD
The SBD of the second set circulates. The first set is still only available as a fair AUD – it has a nice long Hard to Handle and the first Promised Land since 1966. Two songs from the second set are missing from the SBD. This was the infamous “acid punch” show where the audience was dosed, so the newspaper reviews say little about the music, focusing more on the nudity and freakouts.
REVIEWS: https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2019/07/may-29-1971-winterland.html
*
5/30/71 Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA – complete AUD/partial SBD
The first set is apparently not in the Vault and only circulates on an AUD tape, in worse quality than the night before. It has a strong Morning Dew and ends with a big Good Lovin’ with Garcia playing slide in part of the jam (unfortunately there’s a tape flip when it gets spacy). The second-set SBD was released on a limited-edition “Winterland” vinyl LP.
*
8/24/71 Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL – partial SBD
This show was found among Keith Godchaux’s “houseboat tapes,” and supposedly “all that was salvageable” was released on Dick’s Picks 35. Nothing has circulated other than that selection, except for an audience tape of “Empty Pages” that was stuck onto the 8/23/71 AUD. This suggests that more of 8/24 may have been taped as well, and for that matter, might still be out there on old audience tapes disguised as “8/23/71.”
*
12/1/71 Boston Music Hall, Boston, MA – complete AUD/partial SBD
This
is the only show from the fall tours that doesn’t have a complete SBD tape
circulating. The first set is only available on a rather harsh AUD tape. It’s a
standard first set with a rowdy Boston crowd.
One of the reviews mentions that during the intermission a tape was played over the PA: “It featured piercing guitar feedback and cavernous waves of applause. For twenty minutes…grating, annoying – and after a while maddening.” Ned Lagin said recently that this was his tape: “a stock recording of a crowd clapping that was sped up & slowed down until it sounded like white noise. It was an early iteration of Seastones that was worked on in stages at Mickey's studio.” (See the entry for 12/1/71 on Nedbase.)
A note on the 1/24/71 Seattle show, which some say was cut short due to a curfew:
ReplyDeleteOne Archive witness says that "the venue tried to stop them but Pig kept going." (Weir announces, "We're running short on time but we're gonna wrap it up with this number." The Dead then start their closing medley and don't stop playing for over an hour.)
Another witness says that after this, “Much of the crowd left as the lights were brought up too. Some sort of deal was cut with the Seattle cops and about 20 minutes later the band fired up again and didn't quit until almost 4:00 am.”
A delightful but doubtful story. The newspaper review says the show started late but the Dead played "for nearly two hours" (the length of the tape), ending at 1am. No doubt the reporter left at that point, but considering how sloppy the Dead sound by the end of the show, I'm skeptical that they'd come back on stage and play for several more hours, or that the venue would welcome this.
& a note on 3/20/71 U of Iowa:
One Archive witness says, “This is incomplete, I remember an incendiary China Cat.”
This might be plausible, but in the second set you hear Garcia start playing China Cat after Sugar Magnolia. He stops - the audience is getting rowdy and abandoning their chairs. The Dead pause for a while, then resume with Around & Around and never get back to China Cat, and there's no audible break from there to the end. With no evident tape cut, most likely the show is complete as is.
I've always been surprised that these gaps in March 71 haven't found their way out of the vault. Would love to hear those Other One's that are missing.
ReplyDeleteOn another note I always thought 1/24/71 w/ bits of 1/21 or 1/22 would make a great release tape quality be damned. Would be a good document of Mickey's last few days with the band on the first go around.
Early '71 was never the most sought-after period by collectors, but it's tantalizing to see there are still a few non-circulating Other Ones from that period. The missing SBD reel from 1/21 would be awesome if it still exists.
DeleteNRPS tapes from these first two 1/71 gigs also exist - among the first if not the first with Spencer Dryden,, everyone freshly rehearsed from studio time.
Delete