we wrap up our run here at the Fillmore East with the World’s Longest-Running Sandwich Connoisseurs and Billy K

SBD: https://archive.org/details/gd70-01-03.sbd.ret.19440.sbeok.shnf

set I (early)

the last day of the New Year’s run at the Fillmore, and we start off with a tape cut into the beginning of Morning Dew. we won’t see Dew played slower until about ’74, so this version is still jaunty in the intro, but slows down in the verse. Garcia’s voice also hasn’t matured to the level of later years, which is a bit of a thing i think about when listening to their slower numbers. the jam sections sound almost vicious in this version, like the band is itching to melt the walls already- it doesn’t help that the soundboard is blown out, so it sounds like the band is just bludgeoning you. dropping into the final segment, we get gong washes and angry playing from Garcia and Weir intertwining with Lesh’s bouncing butt end. turn this up loud, i love the feeling of headphones exploding. this Dew is actually really great in the final peak, better than some of the other select versions i’ve heard out of this year.

the soundboard source changes before MAMU, Weir’s guitar gets really loud in the right channel for some reason

we’re back to the blown-out first Weir-heavy mix for Hard to Handle. the song and jam are both solid, but the source is still distracting.

Cumberland is Cumberland, with those almost-jokey clip-clop cowbells in the final chorus from Mickey

someone presumably yells a request, Garcia replies “go ahead, start it”, and the audience member yells “one two three four” in that sort of gross jokey audience way that makes you wanna jump the guy after the show’s over, sorta like if people had been yelling “free bird” between songs. that’s my rant ok thanks

CR&S has some cool melodic lines from Bob- the botched mix is cool to hear what he’s playing, but i almost wish i had an AUD or at least MTX to compare the room sound, especially with that Fillmore room.

Alligator, and we’re off to the races- Good Lovin’ teasing from the drums, but they decide against it. Garcia comes in softly with some neat arpeggiated figures thrown in. after some noodling around, they slam into the Alligator jam. immediately it’s like a maze of notes, dense and pounding. Garcia latches onto one searing two-note phrase and repeats it as a motif, with the drummers bashing the shit out of their cymbals to intensify it. Lesh plays the Caution theme for a fraction of the jam but it’s abandoned to follow Weir’s chording. a burst of feedback seems to herald the climaxing of the section, settling into a cowbell, then tom groove. spidery lines make a web with Garcia reaching up to bend the top note. Lesh keeps trying to hint at the Caution beat but we fall into a bouncy major key, GDTRFB-style. China Cat Jam. major key theme. descending line like the Eleven peak from Garcia, then the Bid You Goodnight Jam. it’s fully developed at this point and sounds great. back to the Alligator theme with high chord shapes reminiscent of the Sputnik shape from Garcia. chord vamping from everyone, leading to the “ALLIGATOR” rave-up. Garcia and the band try to head into Caution but it completely falls apart at the rails and Feedback just sort of… happens.

Feedback is Feedback and no matter how different it is, it’s always just gonna be “weird things happen”.

Lesh: “good night folks, thank you very much”.

(except it isn’t the end of the night)

Lesh: “i’d like to take this opportunity to present a commercial from our sponsors… you thought we had a sponsor, didn’t ya?”

UJB and end set.

set II (late)

late show kicks off with Casey- a tape fade in means i can’t tell if they’ve developed the intro yet or if it’s just jammed like other ’70 versions (plus i don’t remember off the top of my head, this blog is a learning experience for me too).

Mama Tried

Big Boss Man starts with really heavy Weir in the right channel and the mix sort of inexplicably switches Garcia and Weir. a typically solid harmonica solo from Pig. Garcia’s solo seems to stay in a pretty major key, avoiding really bluesy sounds.

China Cat still has the snare work in the beginning, something i’m actually glad they dropped in this year. Constanten’s organ work definitely lends a more carnival-esque atmosphere to these versions of the song. Weir’s bridge solo isn’t nearly a ’72, but it definitely rips here as well. Garcia’s solo doesn’t get intense as Weir’s, just a bit of mellow playing and some chording, then the drop into Rider.

Rider has the typically smoking solo from Garcia, starting on those growly Strat low strings and then working on up. the second solo blasts off immediately in a searing midrange, then cools down as they sing the a cappella chorus and end the song.

Garcia and Lesh play the intro to High Time out of the closing Rider chord, but someone yells incoherently in the background and they stop.

Mason’s begins with some Phil banter about the movie it was originally written for-

“[it] was going to be shot in a parking lot- no, no, it was a drive-in restaurant- no, it was a drive-in movie… with parked cars for an audience”.

something i just noticed here- they start off with “the Mason died…”, which made me wonder if his name was Mason or if it was just his profession- then i realized they didn’t sing it again that way, so maybe it was both. the first Garcia solo is much more confident this outing until they hit an odd chord that the whole band just seems uncomfortable with and they keep going. honestly, no Mason’s will ever match up to the 1969-12-28 for me, but this version’s end solo is strong enough, with Garcia finding a white-hot chord at the end and hammering the fear of the Lord into it. the ending organ line seems kind of botched, Phil slaps a chord and calls it a day.

Cryptical intro, something i’ve been appreciating a lot more recently- in my humble opinion, the song just never was the same after it left. Drums starts as complete chaos, then builds up and drops out into a quiet Other One rhythm. this doesn’t seem to really go anywhere in particular. it sounds like they were playing with their hands at a few points in there, which is interesting considering Bonham did the same thing not even a year earlier in Moby Dick. TOO bursts out of the gate pretty viciously, exploring that stop-start space that many did at the time. first verse, then some more theme jamming with some stabs at chordal progression from Phil and then rhythm switching from Garcia (which doesn’t seem to last and falls into the original rhythm). the jam cools off with some dissonant themes explored by Weir and Garcia, almost a Spanish Jam in the chord shapes, but not the same theme. the half-step chromatic jam slinks into the Other One theme again, which heats up with aggressive cymbal beating by the drummers. they’re just beating away. beating allllll over those kits. listen to that beating. man. anyway the verse has some pretty nice early Weir Yelling™ and then we get to the Cryptical Reprise. delicate playing from Garcia and cymbal playing settles into a slinky swinging groove, eliciting some crowd clapping. a BRUTAL tape cut sets us right in the middle of the peak with the organ and gong washes, leaving the buildup entirely to the imagination. luckily, it peaks hard and peaks all over for long enough to really relish in that peak. Phil chords set the time and everyone plays gently around them as it gets delicate again, with a soft, natural segue into Cosmic Charlie.

Charlie, UJB(played for a second time since the early show), Black Peter, and Dire Wolf don’t really need any reviewing, if we’re being honest

the Good Lovin’ jam kicks off with just Drums, before the rest of the band drops in one by one. there’s a lot of rhythmic play between all members here before Garcia repeats a lick to give the jam more foundation. it suddenly drops off with accents from the drummers in between the solo and then builds back to the previous intensity. Weir’s channel is pretty hot, giving the overall sonics a nice drive. Garcia plays a rhythm part to allow space for Lesh to play all over for a bit, then comes back in with a loopy solo that the drummers latch onto and almost go double time for a bit, until they enter another rhythm/accent space, stop-starting with Lesh and Garcia until they go back to playing around the beat like the beginning of the jam. this gives way to the intro and end of the song.

“everybody get in a big long line and dance around!”

Garcia’s solo in Dancin’ starts off pretty low as he was wont to do at the time. it moves up again where he repeats a lot of notes- the feeling stays the same as he moves up strings. he plays some chord shapes and Lesh follows up with an interesting chord modulation. a section of triumphant 16th note runs precedes some more chord shapes with good Lesh underpinning- something i really appreciate. the band falls out and the drummers keep on going. the crowd is going nuts over this, chanting in time with them.

Weir gets the crowd to clap in sections, which is a bit hard to hear on the SBD, and Pig tells them they can’t clap sitting down. the band sneaks back in, a bit of Weir solo lines under Garcia’s playing, both intertwining. Garcia plays more chords to let Weir and Lesh take the song, then blasts off with a piercing high note. the tape has a few blips in here, but irons out after a few seconds. the band is essentially vamping at this point, Garcia picking hard until finally the last verse and ending comes.

Lesh: “God bless New York City”

Stephen starts off the double encore with a technical issue drawing the intro out a bit longer than usual. they falter for a bit going into the 6/8 jam segment but pull it out with an ascending bassline. back to the final verse- the “answer man” directly drops into a molasses-slow Midnight Hour.

this tempo actually seems to fit the groove really well- the vocals sound odd, but the instruments have a great swampy Easy Wind-y feel. the Pig rap fits in much better. the band finds a cool upbeat-centric accent and gets relatively funky by Dead standards. Garcia’s solo has plenty of room to breathe at this tempo- in fact, it’s almost exactly a half-time Lovelight jam, even the chord structure- and Phil plays some very familiar sounding lines. i’ll be honest- i can’t follow Pig’s raps very often, for some reason i just can’t pay attention. i couldn’t tell you what he said- he was singing virtually the whole song, but i have no idea what he said. anyway, the last verse comes and the drummers bridge the band to the last chord dropping and they extend the piss out of it.

anyway, that’s it for the Fillmore run. this was overall not an incredibly remarkable show- nothing bad or cringeworthy, but not a lot of things to write home about, either. to me, it still feels like we’re running on the fumes of 1969 at this point, but i’m also a staunch 2-13 advocate so… i’ll see you next time