But I was wrong. They aren’t so good. Not for me anywhere.
A while back I read with interest a story in the New York Times about how sophisticated many Deadheads had become in their quest for the very best live Dead recordings:
There are at least five different levels to how fans talk about the Dead. The basement level concerns the band’s commercially released albums. This is how a lot of interested but inexpert people once talked about the Dead — myself included — in the early 1980s. I had a couple of skunky-sounding audience tapes, tinkling out distant brown scurf from Nassau Coliseum, but I was an unconnected kid. I listened to “Live/Dead,” “Europe ’72,” and “Anthem of the Sun” — all in the racks at Sam Goody.
The next level is periods or eras, the conversation I was prepared for. There was the aggressive, noisy, color-saturated improvising from 1968 to 1970; the gentler and more streamlined songwriting and arranging of ’72 and ’73; the spooky harmonies of 1975; the further mellowing and mild grooves that lay beyond. Next comes the level of the Dead’s best night: Jimmy’s level, one based on years of close listening to noncommercial live recordings, from the band’s own engineers or radio broadcasts or audience tapers. These began circulating in the early ’70s and became commonplace by the mid-1980s, after I had wandered off the trail.
After that comes particular songs within particular performances. (Some will say the “Dark Star” from Veneta, Ore., on Aug. 27, 1972, or the “Dancing in the Street” from Binghamton, N.Y., on May 2, 1970, encapsulates much of what they like about the Grateful Dead.) Beyond that is an area with much thinner air: here involving, say, audience versus soundboard tapes, the mixing biases of different engineers, techniques of customizing early cardioid microphones, and onward into the darkness of obsession.
…
Because of the culture of taping and collecting around the concerts, the audience developed a kind of intellectual equity in the band. And as the fans traded more and more tapes, in the nonmonetary currency of mind-blow, a kind of Darwinian principle set in: the most-passed-around tapes were almost quantifiably the best. If a tape wasn’t that good, its momentum sputtered, and it became obscure.
Deadheads have often been polled about their favorite show, through fanzines and Web sites. The answers have stayed fairly consistent. May 8, 1977, at Barton Hall, Cornell University. The pairing of Feb. 13 and 14, 1970, at the Fillmore East in New York — perhaps the first widely traded shows. The Veneta and Binghamton shows. You’d think the canon would have been displaced as more and more information came along, but it hasn’t, really; it has only widened. I have spoken to young Deadheads who, surprisingly, respect the ancient judgments. “I’ll stick with May 8 because of its historical importance,” said Yona Koch-Feinberg, an 18-year-old from Manhattan. “That’s almost as important as the musical ability of the evening.”
Having read this stuff, I was curious. I’ve hate most jam bands and their noodly appendages—that is, the live shows and the shell-necklaced subculture that follows these performers around. I like songs and hooks. I don’t like endless guitar solos stretched out over the same mindless, virtually unchanging beats. I also don’t dig smoking weed amidst the kind of people who are usually into that sort of thing. But, while it’s easy enough for me to ignore crap like Phish and String Cheese Incident, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the Grateful Dead. This is due solely to their two early 1970 gems, American Beauty and Workingman’s Dead.
Those two records are everything the “live” Grateful Dead are not. Concise, focused, witty, poignant. Brilliant. I wouldn’t change a single song from either record. But every time I’ve heard a live recording of the band, I get bored really quickly and turn them off.
I thought, after reading this article, “Maybe I’m just hearing the wrong stuff. Lemme get my hands on this magical May 8th show from 1977.” So I downloaded it using the magic of bit torrent. The verdict? Damn it does sound really good. But it bores me for the same reason all jam band music bores me. Too many damn notes and too much navel gazing. It’s light jazz for potheads.
That’s not entirely fair. There are some great songs in here. I mean, it’s impossible to fuck up a great tune like “Loser”, and at 8 minutes it’s pretty svelte compared to the 16 and 25 minute numbers elsewhere in the set. But mostly, the stellar sound grabbed from the board can’t hold my interest throughout the lengthy musical interludes between the comparatively rare and hoarsely sung verses & choruses
As I’m writing this, it’s May 8th 2009. 32 years later to the day. And I’m listening to that “amazing” show right now. In 8 hours, I’ll be on a plane headed for San Francisco. But thinking about the Dead hitting their magical stride one night more than 30 years ago and visiting their old stomping grounds—I don’t think it will bring me any closer to the mystery of why so many people strive to become “experts” on the band’s live shows. And it sure as hell doesn’t explain why people would follow around lesser imitators with similar fervor years after Jerry Garcia has passed away.
If May 8th, 1977 is as good as it gets, it wasn’t good enough to change my mind about their live recordings.
I know you don’t care, but I’m right there with you. Love those two albums too, find their live recordings fairly unbearable.
I care. When these rare moments of agreement come, I always care.
When their jams came together, albeit rarely, it was a cool epiphany. Most of the time it was endless noodling.
Oh, and McIntosh amplifiers for Christ’s sake.
Baleen, this makes me think of another band, and acutely so at that.
Terrapin Station is also an album i like a lot. Those three records are all very good song records, and as such i prefer them if i was going to listen to dead recordings.
However, I saw the dead live a couple of times, once it was a whole weekend stint in Telluride in 1987 where they closed the town and one had to park miles and miles away, and take a bus in. And around every corner in town there was some guy with a guitar trying to play me his version of Knockin on Heaven’s Door or trying to trade acid for tickets. It was horrible but fascinating all at once.
The band seemed so inconsequential to the whole event that I don’t think I watched/ listened to the band for more than 30 minutes total over the whole 3 days and 3 concerts we were in town for. However, when it was there as background, and you could hear it everywhere in the town regardless of how far or close you were, and in the midst of all the craziness and stupidity going on, it seemed incredibly good. Like one of those paintings you can only see by looking out the side of your eyes, but the minutes you look at them straight on, you no longer see them.
I’ve listened to a few live recordings and as far as i’m concerned they are unlistenable. I always imagined that they were more like mementos for those who had been there or wished they could’ve been there or collectors items. you know, not really meant to be heard. Unless i guess you were trying to recreate some deadhead like event in your backyard or something.
I will definitely try that record. I’ve not listened to it. Wake of the Flood is another I’ve always meant to check out. Know if it’s any good?
I’m pretty sure i’ve listened to most of the dead’s output up to like 1980 or so. But i dont remember Wake of the Flood, so I guess that’s not a good recommendation.
I do warn you that terrapin is fairly indulgent, especially the title track, but for me it works, and it has some killer horns (french if i remember correctly).
Word. I offer this harsher critique too:
I stayed in Telluride through a concert season. Telluride, in a small San Juan mountain valley is, if not the heart, a vital organ in the jam band subculture. The city concert stage on a small meadow with striking sunsets and beautiful vista no matter which way you look (except into the pits of hippie chicks). I never saw the Dead live but this would have been the place to see them to get the full effect. I did however see String Cheese Incident and let me tell you, if you want to ruin a beautiful mountain valley experience book them for a two day extravaganza. Not only does the music suck, stay endlessly in the pentatonic and drone on and on, but so does the hairy boring fan base.
You’re in to this stuff, you join the family. You join the family, you give back your “I dig the Enlightenment” button.
The many typos in this post hurt my eyes. Sry, peeps. It’s what I get for writing it the night before I leave for vacation.
Well, guess I’m 3 years too late, the above posters may be raging deadheads by now or perhaps deceased. Either way, I must stick up for my fellow Grateful Dead fans and respectively disagree with the previous posts.
I’d preface this by saying I’m 29, never saw the dead, had no particular influence to push them onto me, don’t find the culture following jam bands around personally appealing, don’t (usually) get high before listening, and simply stumbled across them when a friend’s brother put on a live show when I was maybe 16. I kind of liked it, got my hands on some more, and grew to love the sh*t out of their live performances and have ever since.
This is a hard thing to explain, but live dead is not something many people like the first time or two they listen to it. It just doesn’t come naturally and if you are impatient and an instant gratification good/bad dichotomous type of person then it is something you may never understand or enjoy.
I’d kind of compare it to wine (or for me good craft beer) – most don’t like the taste of alcohol first few times they try it. But with time and persistence and an open mind it grows on you, you find new things within it you couldn’t have seen at first, you begin to look past the initial ethanol flavor that turned you off and see how much more there is beyond, how complex the flavors/smells/colors can be, how much they can vary from one bottle to the next, then you may begin to appreciate more subtle things as you gain experience and after you have refined your palate you may come across that first amazing beer/wine that absolutely knocks you off your feet – it flows perfectly, it isn’t harsh but is bold enough to get your attention, it provides innovation/improvisation on what came before it, and pretty soon you have gone from not liking it to taking pleasure in experiencing new versions of it. You went from saying this is boring or I don’t get this or I don’t like it because it isn’t like others I’ve had to saying this is beautiful.
I found a personality in their music – a deep honesty, a lack of bullsh*t, eagerness to push their limits, and just so down for having a good time and enjoying life and yet with a sarcastic and realistic side, and this all came across in their music. Once I began to experience this I began to listen differently. I began to hear the notes that Jerry was choosing not to play. I also found it helpful to let my analytical side and ideally my ego go (sort of a meditation thing?) and just let the music take me over. Once you can do that you realize some grateful dead shows can take you amazing and crazy freakin places unlike any other music I have come across.
But first you have to get to know them, you have to want to get to know them, and not just casually like listening to a well known show one time. You have to put them on, go about your day, and just not pay too much attention – sort of like the above poster said about the paintings that are great out of the corner of your eye – do it again and before you know it they are growing on you. It just takes some time.
The good shows/sets are not about individual songs, they are about taking you somewhere. You don’t listen to the grateful dead and say well that version could have been closer to the studio version or they forgot the words here or that jam didn’t really go anywhere – you are missing the point entirely if you do that. GD shows/sets often have an overall path and it is the experience of going down this path you need to be “looking” for. Shows may steadily build in intensity/emotion, meander, bottom out, and then build up again, and if your lucky climax (like your 5/8/77 show does with the morning dew). It is cliche but they are truly an experience, it wasn’t that often and certainly less so into the 80s and 90s but from my experience they really were capable of transcending traditional music. You feel like you just went on a long run, or had a long crazy dream, or watched an awesome movie, or whatever you might liken the hour plus experience to.
If you ever experience this, then it is all over. There are hundreds of shows you will now have to listen to because every time you do you find out something new, you can read about the scene and other’s takes on the show, compare and contrast different versions of songs as there are so many (and so many different songs overall), and with the music there is just so much going on and it is so deep that you can enjoy it on multiple different levels. You can get your detailed-orientated-multiple-personality-manic-follow-every-note-side on and simultaneously preserve that trained ear which knows how to look from a distance to pick up those subtle but amazing experiences that are realized over listening to entire sets or shows and not individual tidbits.
I have listened to hundreds of GD shows many of them many times but have only listened to one GD studio album one time. That is just not what it is about. The band didn’t even want to make studio albums. Hearing somebody say they really like Working Man’s Dead and American Beauty but can’t stand live dead is like hearing somebody say they really like McDonald’s hamburgers but don’t like an entire freshly butchered steer. You know that they just don’t have the comfort level, perspective, ingenuity, or desire to realize how that big hunk of meat – with a little patience and open-mindedness – can be turned into 1000 times what that little hamburger ever was. The hamburger is convenient, nicely packaged, easily reproducible, requires very little investment, tastes pretty good the first time you try it, and its easy to wrap you little hands around. Sure you like it. The hundred pounds of raw meat – well you haven’t a clue. You give it a taste without knowing what you are doing and find it tastes terrible. You don’t know what to do with it, where to start, how to carve it up, how to cook it, where the best parts are, any idea just how good those parts can be if treated properly, and find the whole thing intimidating and frightening. Thus you throw your hands in the air and give up. You conclude that the hamburger is better. But I’m telling you right now, if you have the time and patience and can participate in the process of turning that steer into a perfectly cooked filet from start to finish you will experience something infinitely more valuable than you do by going through the drive through for you 99 cent hamburger.
So let me ask you this: do you like free jazz?
oh and if you hate phish, well then you are just a hater I suspect – phish and GD really don’t have much in common other than the type of people that you associate with them and the fact both have been known to play for long periods of time without stopping – oh, and that both are really freakin good live.
phish is so diverse, talented, and with so many amazing performances freely available for you to download that for you to say you hate them is just kind of stupid. Like saying “I hate the Beatles” or something.