A Monster Don’t Let Go at Hartwick College, December 3, 1977

update whenever: seems like this material is lossy. One hopes the source tapes can be located and archived at higher resolution (on the sonic plane for sure, but also informationally!).

Not a huge amount to say. A show that has been MiA, around which some setlist uncertainty remains. See my overly baroque notes below.

The most noteworthy things about the show are a really nice Catfish John and a monster Don’t Let Go.The latter is particularly noteworthy. Not only is it just really good (see notes), but it has a Close Encounters theme. I have posted on some of the Fall ’77 JGB rarities; this one now joins the versions from 11/26/77 early show (inside TLEO) and the last show of the tour, December 11, 1977 at Penn State (inside Lonesome And A Long Way From Home). I haven’t compared the three versions, but it’s a pretty neat little noodle.

Jerry Garcia Band
Binder Physical Education Center, Hartwick College
One Hartwick Drive
Oneonta, NY 13820
December 3, 1977 (Saturday)
90 min tape

–set I (6 tracks, 52:23)–
s1t01. crowd [0:15]
s1t02. Catfish John [10:02] [0:16] % [0:18]
s1t03. The Way You Do The Things You Do [8:25] [0:07] %
s1t04. … Let It Rock [9:#41] [0:09] % [0:21] % [0:12]
s1t05. Harder They Come [12:24] % [0:18]
s1t06. Night They Drove Old Dixie Down [9:37] [0:15]

–set II (3 tracks, 37:31, incomplete)–
s2t01. crowd and tuning [0:38]
s2t02. Don’t Let Go [26:58] [0:12] %
s2t03. Tore Up Over You// [9:#42]

! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – el-bass;
! lineup: Buzz Buchanan – drums;
! lineup: Keith Godchaux – keyboards, vocals;
! lineup: Donna Jean Godchaux – vocals;
! lineup: Maria Muldaur – vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; … = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [ ] = recorded event time. The recorded event time immediately after the song or item name is an attempt at getting the “real” time of the event. So, a timing of [x:xx] right after a song title is an attempt to say how long the song really was, as represented on this recording.

! Jerrybase: https://jerrybase.com/events/19771203-01

! db: none as of 1/29/2011.

! map: http://goo.gl/maps/lv0Ys

! venue: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2011/09/binder-gym-harwick-college-one-hrtwick.html

! band: JGB #4

! R: source: unknown audience cassette transferred to CD by Scott
Russell; EAC (extraction) > CD Wave (tracking) > Wavelab
(editing) > TLH (fix & strip, flac8 encoding) >
foobar2000 (tagging) by JGMF.

! Show/Recording: A Saturday night show in a small college gym in the midst of the JGB’s reasonably long East coast tour of late 1977 (November 20 – December 11, 1977), this show has barely circulated in any medium (as far as I  know). There are a few missing sets from circulating tapes of the tour, but no other completely AWOL shows. The only editing undertaken here was to smooth some of the many rough tape transitions. No noise reduction or any other changes were made. The 90 minute running time of this recording is clearly indicative of a single cassette. Whether the whole show was taped, or whether the taper just had the one cassette, is unknown.

! Setlist: The Jerry Site listed four songs to start set I, which are absent from this recording: I’ll Take A Melody, Mystery Train, Mission In The Rain, and Lonesome And A Long Way From Home. I am about certain LAALWFH is incorrectly placed. There are nine other documented appearances of LAALWFH on this tour, and in all nine it ended the show. I don’t really have time to analyze where the other three “missing” songs were showing up on this tour, but I am confident that LAALWFH is misplaced. I am also reasonably confident that Catfish John was probably not the 5th song of set I. CJ was generally a second song of the night, though, as on 11/29/77 (SUNY New Paltz), it could be the second song of a set II. Anyway, when I put all of this together I am deeply suspicious about the four songs identified as missing from the start of the show. I’d bet there was one song before CJ.

! Setlist: The Jerry Site also listed the setbreak as falling beween The Way You Do The Things You Do and Don’t Let Go. But there’s a setbreak announcement that runs continuously after TNTDODD. So I am pretty persuaded that TNTDODD is the last song of set I. Don’t Let Go opened several second sets on the tour, so I am also comfortable calling it the first song of set II here.
! Setlist: Combining all of the above, here’s my best guess at a true setlist for this show: –Set I– [unidentified opener, maybe I’ll Take a Melody], Catfish John >> TNTDODD, as on this tape; –Set II– Don’t Let Go, Tore Up, and then maybe Mystery Train, Mission In The Rain, and LAALWFH.

! Recording: this is not a great copy of a not-a-great-but-not-unlistenable recording. There is a fair amount of hiss, distortion, etc. I think things may be running a tad slow. update: this apparently has mp3 in the lineage.

! Recording: s1t01-s1t02: warbling and panning s1t01 and start of s1t02 (Catfish John). It’s a little distracting, but it’s mercifully short.

! Performance: s1t02 Catfish John is tearing it up in the 8-min mark and the crowd is appropriately appreciative. If only there were a better tape to hear this more clearly! Overall this strikes me as a pretty nice Catfish John.

! Recording: s1t04 Let It Rock fades in on the 2nd or 3rd note.

! Performance: s1t04 LIR @ 7:30 Jerry does some nice fanning

! Recording: s1t06 TNTDODD quick little fade @ 0:33, pretty close to real time (i.e., nothing really missing), just a level anomaly).

! Performance: s2t02 DLG Close Encounters hints @ track 18:30

! Performance: s2t02 DLG the voice-guitar call-response near the end of DLG is fantastic! JG is really exploring lots of possibilities that I have never heard him engage before.