should i give the grateful dead a chance?

https://i.redd.it/7lseuddg57zz.jpg

Just celebrated 50 years of this gem the other day:

https://archive.org/details/gd73-05-26.sbd.cribbs.17076.sbeok.shnf/gd73-05-26d1t01.shn

Reviewer: jvande - favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite - June 1, 2019
Subject: My First Dead Show
I was a big McIntosh and JBL fan, so the wall of amps and speakers was the first thing that struck me. Framing that were two towers with a female dancer on each one 25 or more feet up. My roommate described one of them as “Water Woman” because of the sinuous moves she had, as if her arms didn’t just have joints but could bend any way she wanted. I couldn’t believe how much energy both dancers had!
My Girlfriend and I weren’t far from the stage but my roommate and his gf sought out a spot much closer that he later claimed had some kind of swirling surround sound thing going on. I wasn’t surprised that could be a thing at such an event, but I also had to consider that it could have been more to do with his state of mind. I believe both are true.
After the sun set behind the band we walked back to my VW Wesfalia camper, cracked open San Miguel Darks from the icebox, and drove to the Mexican Restaurant on the north side of Santa Cruz and continued comparing notes.
¡ One of the most memorable concert experiences of my life !

I can’t help but think that the author may have omitted a detail or three.

Last night I watched the entirety of The Grateful Dead Movie, even though I was looking through my fingers at times due to the extensive footage of hippies making fools of themselves - LOL at this being released in 1977! Musically it seemed such a mishmash of various styles, none of which were played in an especially compelling way: a lot of (frankly) bar band stuff, some attempts to sound like The Band, some tepid funky rock, some lumpy jazz rock noodling etc. I can get on board with Jerry Garcia to some extent - he plays some lovely guitar, though a lot of aimless guitar too, and his voice can be quite affecting - but Bob Weir? In two and half hours of this movie he didn't do a single interesting thing - playing, singing, songwriting. The rhythm section seemed better than the last time I listened to the Grateful Dead, I suspect this was largely due to there being one drummer playing reasonably as opposed to two drummers playing badly. Phil Lesh explaining how he had a different set of amps for each string of his bass (or sumthin') was pretty hilarious!

Bob Weir? In two and half hours of this movie he didn't do a single interesting thing - playing, singing, songwriting.

I'll concede the latter two (and he only wrote music for the most part iirc, not lyrics) but the guy was clearly one of the more sophisticated and unique rhythm guitarists in rock

I love the Dead, and I've never made it through that film. The animated sequence is excruciating, and the performances never struck me as particularly special. But wrt Lesh's super-special bass amplification, part of the problem is that you apparently had to be there for the Wall Of Sound. Dick's and Dave's Picks from '74 are all stereo board mixes, and audience recordings can't accurately convey whatever was special about that PA. I've heard and read accounts from people who were there saying how incredible it was -- particularly Phil moving his bass around "in three dimensions" -- but there doesn't appear to be any aural documentation that reflects that.

The worst thing about the film by far is the hippies (and, no, I don't mean the Dead themselves).

I'll concede the latter two (and he only wrote music for the most part iirc, not lyrics) but the guy was clearly one of the more sophisticated and unique rhythm guitarists in rock

Sure, but it’s that sophistication that I find especially boring.

I just listened to a live “Looks Like Rain” on Sirius FM and thought if anyone else, maybe Van Morrison, sang it I would like it more. Weir is an adequate vocalist (at best) on some songs, but then he writes overly complex stuff like “Weather Report Suite” that are beyond his scope and the results are often painful.

I view weir as comic relief while jerry takes a breather

Looks Like Rain is the most embarrassing lyric in the catalog

Especially when Bobby starts trying to get really soulful with it.

His raspy bullshit ad-libs toward the end of any live performance of Estimated Prophet in the late 80s or later

Weir is more Robin to Jerry’s Batman.

He’s got his moments and a couple of his tunes were among the ones they would really stretch out.

Bob picks up a slide or starts singing Chuck Berry…yikes.

whatever, I love it when they do “promised land”

“Looks Like Rain” is an odd one for me. I really like the one on Europe ‘72 — Jerry’s pedal steel playing helps — but I can’t stand any other version. The post-hiatus renditions are uniformly awful, but I don’t even like any of the ones from ‘73-‘74.

Looks Like Rain is like krypton for a Dead show. Slow dirge sucking all life from you.

I've been giving The Grateful Dead Movie a chance for the past two hours and I'm still not getting this band tbh. Jerry Garcia is a good guitar player though.

― Maggot Bairn (Tom D.), Saturday, 3 June 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Any Dick's Picks from '68-'70 is good to great. Garcia was a really good guitar player.

With some terrific songs and hard jamming.

whatever, I love it when they do “promised land”

this is their one good 50s number. the rest are snoozy but promised land goes places.

With some terrific songs and hard jamming

Take your word for it, I've never heard anything approaching a terrific song from them tbh. Basically I've got too much other music to listen to.

The animated sequence is excruciating

I would watch a feature-length version of the animation from that movie.

_With some terrific songs and hard jamming_

Take your word for it, I've never heard anything approaching a terrific song from them tbh. Basically I've got too much other music to listen to.

Stfu calstars.

They're really NOT for everyone though, which is why I resisted them for so long, and still struggle with them. I can't think of another band with so many potential minuses still beloved by so many.

Thin singing. Garcia is very effective when he's on, but health and drug problems many times got in the way. Bob is a much poorer vocalist, often dorky or shouty. Donna is famously erratic. Brent is up for debate.

Self-indulgent playing. One person's hard jamming is another's excessive noodling. Not every song needs to be 12 minutes long, and they often struggle to find the zone.

Eclectic influences. Actually I consider this a feature, not a bug, but not everyone gets their combo of rootsy Americana colliding with jamming rock and free-form experimentation (just ask my wife.) A few things that others love that I do not include: Pigpen's blues raveups like "Lovelight," 20 minute covers of "Dancing in the Streets" or "Good Lovin'," most of their country and all of their Chuck Berry covers, and honestly many of their jazz/psychedelic excursions. (Looking at you, "Dark Star.")

All that said, I have still listened to more Dead in the last decade or so than I ever did previously, and I should pull together a similar list of reasons why.

"They're really NOT for everyone though, which is why I resisted them for so long, and still struggle with them."

Well I know Tom D likes free improvisation (like I do) so I think he might enjoy some versions of Dark Star as several other things from that era. I like the jamming in a lot of those gigs, that's what makes the songs -- which I agree aren't great by themselves, they would hardly survive a cover -- the improv does elevate them.

I can't say I want to try much beyond Pigpen. Even if he was alive I reckon what they were doing had a time limit. So '70 or so seems a good point to check out.

'70 was a pretty good year but suffers from a relative drought of soundboards due to circumstances at the time. some of the best '70s performances are on grotty audience tapes

one of the things i do love, one of the things that got me into the dead, was the mixes put together on save your face. sometimes they'll just have these really unexpectedly beautiful moments - what i particularly love is the jerry-phil interplay. some of that is really special. the "europe '72 dark starlets" and the "shortlist: summer of '73 improvisation". oh, i also like "shortlist: 1976 out of nowhere jams" a lot!

Bob is a much poorer vocalist, often dorky or shouty. Donna is famously erratic. Brent is up for debate.

It's hard to separate Bob's vocal ability from just how I feel about a given tune. Like, a solid Estimated or Playin' is enjoyable. The best Looks Like Rain in the world can't save the lyrics. I regret to inform anyone not a fan that it contains lyrics such as, and I quote: "Ever waken to the sound of street cats makin' love?"

(I didn't think it was possible for me to dislike that song more than I do- but the use of "waken" instead of just.... wake? lol is not helping).

Donna is supposedly a Good Singer, and is supposedly singing background on Suspicious Minds. But I've listened to at least a hundred, possibly more Dead shows with her and I can't draw that conclusion. Very occasionally and towards the end of her run with the band she sang lead on one of her songs, not even real Heads are into that.

Brent is probably, technically, the best singer they ever had. But his voice.... he goes HARD into beer commercial territory, especially on the 80s songs he wrote. Some of them are alright, but they don't really fit with the rest of the bands repertoire. His voice has that Bob Seger-ish smokey, whiskey-soaked, pushed quality to it. It's a sound. It just doesn't really fit IMO. But he's not horribly off key or anything like that. His B3 playing is really superb, great rock keyboard player.

I never saw them with Brent but I did see them with Bruce Hornsby and he's probably the other best singer/keyboardist they had. He was only there for a minute but he was there.

You know who the real worst singer was, though? Phil. Everyone likes Box of Rain, it's one of those songs that even non-fans will admit as a pretty decent one on one of the albums that most classic rock fans can begrudgingly admit is a decent album (worth noting that that's a Dead song that Jerry doesn't play guitar on and Phil doesn't play bass on, lol). But Phil's live vocals are just bad. Even worse when they got back together ten years ago and Phil wound up singing like 1/3rd of the songs.

I say all that as a fan! I think so many things about the band don't work, that when they fall into place it really is amazing. I'd advise non-fans to at least check out the first Jerry album, all just Jerry and one of the Dead drummers, good songs, just enough experimentation to make it a little off-center.

Bob picks up a slide or starts singing Chuck Berry…yikes.

This happens in every dead show from 1972-1995.

I just caught part of one of those endless 1969 "Lovelight"s on Sirius. Left the car to run an errand, came back and it was still going. BAAAAAAYYY-BUUHH! I'm down on my KNEEEESSS! OWWWWW! Just not my thing...

There was also a godawful 1989 "Estimated" with Bob doing his screams that goes into a wanky Jerry MIDI-flute solo before it disintegrated completely and then roughly segued into Brent's "Blow Away" which is, yeah, gravel voiced and overwrought.

But earlier I also heard a hot "Help/Slip/Frank" (Swing Auditorium '77) and a recent Dead and Co. "Eyes of the World" that was really surprisingly nice, and the studio "Althea," all of which you would miss out on if you pass after Pig does.

And I pretty much have no issues with Bob's slide playing.

In summation, it all depends what you like and what gets on your nerves, and they have plenty of both to offer me.

I think so many things about the band don't work, that when they fall into place it really is amazing.

OTM

One of my fave eras in their history is the early to mid 80s when many of their parts were at a low point but occasionally things just clicked in a magical way. The She Belongs to Me encore at the Greek in 1985 is my go-to example.

Obv they aren’t everyone’s cup of tea and that’s fine!

Brent sounds like he's struggling to take a shit when he sings. Might technically be good, but he's at the bottom on their singer rankings.

Very occasionally and towards the end of her run with the band she sang lead on one of her songs, not even real Heads are into that.

I'm a Sunrise fan.

not going past Pigpen means you miss all that early fantastic playing from Keith, esp 71-73

xp same, but I will rep for the entire terrapin station lp

not going past Pigpen means you miss all that early fantastic playing from Keith, esp 71-73

Ignoring post-pig dead is kinda like ignoring post-jones stones or post-sid floyd except that you can't just say that classic rock sucked in the 70s and go from liking 60s psych bands to liking 80s new wave/punk bands with the dead.Loosing pig didn't change their approach all that much, they just continued to do their own thing, taking 60s psych and folding in country, disco, prog, and then somehow stumbled into a hit in 1987... Which brings up another point about the dead, they did have some really great songs too, they weren't just about long improv jams.

There were a few absolutely gorgeous Donna performances of "Sunrise" - the one from 10/2/77 been one I've really enjoyed recently. I also like Donna's takes on Loretta Lynn's "You Ain't Woman Enough".

not going past Pigpen means you miss all that early fantastic playing from Keith, esp 71-73

Agreed. It’s p tough to argue that era isn’t the peak. But to each their own.
― tobo73, Tuesday, 6 June 2023 bookmarkflaglink

Ok I'l have a look at Dick Pick's from that time.

xyzzzz - highly recommend Dick's Picks 19 from that window, from October of '73. Killer show.

Thanks

comparing Pigpen to Brian Jones and Syd is insane, he's minor league

I wasn't comparing pigpen to Brian Jones and Syd Barrett, I was comparing their bands after these 3 departed to say that the Dead didn't change their approach as much as the Stones & Floyd did, but all 3 bands had long successful careers after losing them. I have also read that Pig was considered the "front man" for the Dead until alcohol faded him and took his health.

And that seems weird to me, I love the dead, but I can't stand pigpen.

ah sorry understood. he was embarrassing

I know, I think that if I was around in the late 60s, I would've been standing in the crowd at a dead show with my hands in my pockets and I would've been horrified to have him call me out for playing "pocket pool" and trying to get me to hit on the girl next to me instead. It must've been even more uncomfortable for the women at those shows with him on stage yelling at all the single guys in the audience to grab a girl and take her home.

Pig can be seen as cringey now but he was a vital part of the Dead and they really changed after he left, they lost a little something. I personally love Lovelight a lot, I love his raps, yes, they're kinda gross but considering the Dead used to dose people on the regular and did nitrous and tripped balls all the time, a lead singer encouraging people to fuck in the 60's and 70's does not seem like a huge deal at all, and by all accounts Pig looked like a biker but was a kind and gentle soul

also wtf the Donna bashing on this thread is way worse than anything Pig ever said on stage--she likely couldn't hear herself sing because of the loudness of the band, pretty sure there werent monitors really when the dead played

waterface OTM re: Pigpen. What's most tragic about him for me is that toward the end he was really starting to come into his own as a songwriter with his originals featured on the Europe 72 tour (i.e. "Mr. Charlie," "Chinatown Shuffle," and especially "The Stranger (Two Souls In Communion)"). I'm not the biggest fan of his extended raps, but I always have time for "Easy Wind" and "Hurts Me Too."

Donna's vocals improved a lot starting in 76, which is when they got the vocal monitor situation sorted properly.

waterface and J. Sam otm, Pig was really starting to level up his songwriting before he got really sick, I think he could have really developed into something special with a few more years

fwiw, there was a two part delve into his life on the official Deadcast that is really interesting.

Donna rules fuiud

also otm about the monitor issues