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Copied from an interview, published in Rolling Stone magazine, 8/23/69, written by Michael Lydon.



"The dance is at Springer's Inn, about 10 miles out of town, and they start out about 9:30.

A mile from the place there is a huge traffic jam on the narrow country road, and they stick

the cars in a ditch and walk, a few fragments in the flow to Springer's under a full yellow moon.

The last time they played Portland they were at a ballroom with a spring floor that made

dancing inevitable. But Springer's is just as nice. It's a country and western place, walls all

knotty pine, and beside the stage, the Nashville stars of the last 30 years grin glossily

from autographed photos, "Yours Sincerely, Marty Robbins." "Love to Y'all, Norma Jean."

"Warmest regards, Jim Reeves." "You got an even bigger crowd than Buck Owens," says

the promoter, and Jerry grins. It is sardine, ass to ass, and drippingly hot inside.

It seems preordained to be a great night. But preordination is not fate. It comes to the elect,

and the elect have to work to be ready for it. So the Dead start out working. Elation will come later.

Morning Dew opens the set, an old tune, done slow and steady. It is the evenings foundation stone,

and they carefully mortice it into place, no smiles, no frills. Phil's bass is sure and steady.

Bill and Mickey play almost in unison. Then Bob sings Me and My Uncle, a John Phillips tune,

with a country rocking beat. They all like the song, and Bob sings it well, friendly and ingenuous.

Back to the groove with Doin' that rag, but a little looser this time. Jerry's guitar begins to sing,

and over the steady drumming of Bill, Mickey lays scattered runs, little kicks, and sudden attacks.

Phil begins to thunder, then pulls back. Patience, he seems to be saying, and he's right.

Jerry broke a string in his haste, so they pull back to unison, and end the song. But Jerry wants it bad,

and is a little angry. "I broke a string", he shouts at the crowd. "So why don't you wait a minute

and talk to each other. Or maybe talk to yourself, to your various selves."

He cocks his head, with a glint of malice in his eyes,

"Can you talk to yourself? Do you even know, you have selves to talk to?"

The questions, involute and unanswerable, push the crowd back;

Who is this guy, asking us riddles, what does he want from us anyway?

But the band is into, I'm a King Bee, by that time. They hadn't played that for a while,

but it works, another building block, and a good way to work Pig into the center, to seduce him into

giving his all, instead of just waiting around for Lovelight. Jerry buzzes a while, right on schedule,

and the crowd eases up, thinking they were going to get some nice blues. The preceding band

had been a good imitation BB King, so maybe it would be a blues night. Wrong again.

"Play the blues," shouts someone in a phony half-swoon. Mickey shouts back, "go hear a blues band

if you want that. Go dig Mike Bloomfield." Another punch in the mouth, but the moment is there,

and the audiences stunned silence just makes the opening gong of Dark Star more ominous.

In that silence music begins, steady and pulsing. Jerry, as always, takes the lead, feeling his way

for melodies, like paths up the mountain. Jerry, says Phil, is the heart of the Dead. It's central sun.

While they all connect to one another, the strongest bonds are to him. Standing there, eyes closed,

chin bobbing forward, his guitar in close under his arm, he seems pure energy, a quality like,

but distinct from, sexuality, which, while radiating itself outward and unceasingly, and unselfishly,

is as unceasingly and unselfishly replenished by those whose strengths have been awakened by his.

He finds a way, a few high twinging notes that are in themselves a song, and then the others are there too,

and suddenly the music is not notes, or a tune, but what those seven people are, exactly. The music

is an aural holograph of the Grateful Dead. All their fibers, nuances, histories, desires, beings are clear.

Jerry and his questing. Phil the loyal comrade. Tom drifting beside them both on a cloud.

Pig staying stubbornly down to earth. Mickey working out furious complexities trying to understand

how Bill is so simple. And Bob succumbing inevitably to Jerry and Phil and joining them.

And that is just the beginning, because at at each note, at each phrase, the balances change, each testing,

feeding, mocking, and finally driving one another on, further and further on.

Some balances last longer than others. Moments of realization that seem to sum up many moments,

and then a solid groove of, "yes, that is the way it is" flows out, and the crowd begins to move.

Each time it is Jerry who leads them out, his guitar singing and dancing joy. And his joy finds new levels,

and the work of exploration begins again.

Jerry often talks of music coming from a place, and creating a place, a place where strife is gone,

where the struggle to understand ends, and knowledge is as evident as light. That is the place

they are in at Springers. However hard it is to get there, once there, you want to cry tears of ease,

and never leave. It is not a new place. Those who seek it hard enough, can find it.

Like the poet Lucretius, who found it about 2500 years ago;

"All terrors of the mind, vanish, are gone, the barriers of the world, dissolve before me, and I see things happen,

all through the void of empty space. I feel more than mortal pleasure in all of this."

The music goes fast and slow, driving and serene, loud and soft. Mickey switches from going to drums,

to claves, to handclapping, to xylophone, to a tin slide whistle. The Bob grabs that away and steps to a mic,

and blows the whistle as hard as he can flicking away insanely high and screeching notes. The band digs it,

and lays down a building rhythm. The crowd begins to pant, shake and then suddenly, right on the exact moment

with the band, the crowd, the band, everything in the whole goddamn place begins to scream.

Not scream like at the Beatles, but scream like beasts, twisting their faces, trying out every possible

animal yowl that lies deep in their hearts.

Jerry, melodies flowing from him like endless arabesques, leads it away again, the crowd, and himself,

ecstatic rats to some unseen pied piper. The tune changes from Dark Star, to St. Stephen, the song

with a beat like bouncing boulders, and out of the din comes Jerry's wavering voice, "One man gathers

what another man spills," and everyone knows what that means, that there's nothing to fear, brothers will

help one another with their loads, and suddenly there is peace in the hall. Phil, Bob and Bill form a trio,

and play a new and quiet song, before Mickey's sudden roll opens it out to the group, and St. Stephen

crashes to an end with the cannon shot, and clouds of sulfurous smoke.

Out of the fire and brimstone emerges the Pig, singing Lovelight, and everyone is through the mind

and down into the body. Pigpen doesn't sing. Pigpen never sings. He is just Pig, being Pig, doing Lovelight.

Spitting out the side of his mouth between phrases. Starting the clapping. Telling everybody to get their hands

out of their pockets, and into somebody else's pockets, and like laughter, the band comes in with rock-it-to-em choruses.

The crowd is jumping up and down in witness by this time, and one couple falls on stage, their bodies,

and tongues entwined in mad ritual embrace. They don't make love, but in acting it out, they perform

for and with the crowd, and so everyone is acting out sexual unison with Pigpen as the master of ceremonies.

The place, one body, built in music, fucks until it comes, the cannon goes off one final time, and Mickey

leaps to the gong, bashing it with a mallet set afire by the cannon, and it makes a trail of flame, and then

sparks when it hits the gong, the gong itself radiating waves of sonic energy. Bill flails at the drums,

Phil keeps playing the same figure over and over, faster and faster, and Jerry and Bob build up to one note

just below the tonic, hold it until, with one ultimate chord, it all comes home. The crowd erupts in cheers,

as the band, sodden with sweat, stumbles off the stage.

"We'll be back folks" says Jerry. "We'll be back after a break." Bob laughs as he hears Jerrys announcement.

"It's really something when you have to lie to get off the stage." Because it's over, gone, wiped out.

They gather by the equipment van, and all but Tom, still cool and unruffled, are steaming in the chill night air.

The moon has gone down, the stars are out, and there is nothing more to be done that night at all."



In my humble opinion, this is a show for the ages. Thank you.

- December 28, 2014Show review from RS 40