Gettin’ Churchy: JGB at the Stone, Sunday, November 30, 1986

LN jg1986-11-30.jgb.all.aud-corley.21301.shn2flac

Spun on its 34th anniversary yesterday, this show supplied me with a delightful hour and a half of easy-feeling post-coma Jerry Band. “Stop That Train” opens the show for the second and final time ever (also 1/29/77), and returns to the lineup after nine years away (11/26/77a). “My Sisters And Brothers” also returns after a long hiatus (7/30/77, when it showed up as the encore). Twitter commentator @Fireonshakedwn1 pointed out that these songs formed staples of the post-coma Jerry Church vibe, and I agree. Fitting for them to come back on a Sunday night.

As ever, it’s hard not to read back from what I know of this historical period into what I am hearing, but Jerry certainly sounds sprightly out of the gate. A crowd member shouts a “welcome back, Jerry!” and the big fella thanks him. Even something as mundane as “you got the do re | I got the mi” gets a little juice. The seeder of this fileset (the only one in circ), Chris Ladner, refers to the “Van Moondance themed comaback”, referencing the advent of both “And It Stoned Me” and “Crazy Love” in the JGB repertoire, and coining a term about late ’86. Again, these tunes are just pleasant. The filth and grunge of the pre-coma are washed off — “Oh, the water | let it run all over me” — and Jer’s just playin some old favorites in the city he loved for the fans who showed him so much love and support while he was sick. It’s really sweet stuff.

Some of the arrangements aren’t quite where they’d end up, and that’s fun, too. I’d like to trace the evolution of the start of “Stoned Me”, for example. David Kemper does some super-interesting hard syncopations during “Forever Young” which I don’t recall hearing much of. It’s like he’s trying to put some more bounce into it, while Jerry wants to keep it slow and soft, a classic Garcia Band scenario that Kemper (I think – probably in the Barry Smolin interview) described as having his foot on the gas and the brakes at the same time. I do like this version of “Forever Young” a lot – it presents a little burn later on that works.

As ever, the amazing John Corley pulled a killer tape. If you know John Corley, please ask him if he’d be willing to have his masters redone – they are very much worthy of more optimal, high res treatment than they got 20 years ago. (I am NOT complaining.) Since I was there, I’d also like to pin down some tape archaeology, as I recall it. Corley apparently broke down his Nak 700s for stealth and put them in a silly hat. He hit the Stone a lot, and his tapes are pretty uniformly killer. I am fuzzy on the details, but when Bob Menke and Jim Powell were still friendly, one of them either transferred DATs (that would have been Bob) or acquired them from a third party and got them onto CD. Ladner and jjoops had formed the “misSHN in the Rain” offshoot of “The Music Never Stopped Project (TMNSP)”, which was mostly working from CDs, ripping them, shn’ing them, and getting them to the tol.etree.org FTP server as a single integral collection. This collection ultimately provided the main foundation for what when to archive.org. The GD stuff went live, the Jerry stuff never could (not through the front door, anyway). But I digress. The misSHN guys were trading with Powell, and that’s how most of the Corley tapes went from CD to the Lossless realm.

Listening notes below the fold, nothing major in there that I don’t report above. But I do recommend this show if you are looking to chill.

Jerry Garcia Band
The Stone
412 Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133
November 30, 1986 (Sunday)
Corley MAC shnid-21301 shn2flac

–set I (8 tracks, 7 tunes, 44:06)–
s1t01. //Stop That Train [#5:14] [0:18]
s1t02. Think [5:38] [0:07]
s1t03. Run For The Roses [5:12] [1:49]
s1t04. ambience (1) [0:53]
s1t05. And It Stoned Me [6:25] [0:10]
s1t06. My Sisters And Brothers [4:47] ->
s1t07. Forever Young [7:41] ->
s1t08. Deal [5:44] (2) [0:07]

–set II (7 tracks, 65:35)–
s2t01. Harder They Come [11:31] [0:12]
s2t02. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door [11:37] [0:33]
s2t03. Crazy Love [4:34] [0:24]
s2t04. I Shall Be Released [6:54] [0:07]
s2t05. Dear Prudence// [11:14#] [0:07]
s2t06. That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day) [8:13] [0:06]
s2t07. Tangled Up In Blue [9:55] (3) [0:08]

! ACT1: JGB #21b (THE Jerry Garcia Band)
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – guitar, vocals;
! lineup: John Kahn – bass;
! lineup: Melvin Seals – keyboards;
! lineup: David Kemper – drums;
! lineup: Jacklyn LaBranch – backing vocals;
! lineup: Gloria Jones – backing vocals.

JGMF:

! Recording: symbols: % = recording discontinuity; / = clipped song; // = cut song; … = fade in/out; # = truncated timing; [x:xx] = 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/19861130-01

! db: https://etreedb.org/shn/21301 (this fileset)

! band: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2012/01/jerry-garcia-band-personnel-1975-1995.html

! map: https://goo.gl/maps/Vr6EBXU6KvA2

! JGBP: http://jerrygarciasbrokendownpalaces.blogspot.com/2012/07/stone-mothers-412-broadway-san.html

! R: field recordist: John Corley

! R: field recording gear: 2x disassembled Nakamichi 700 in the silly hat > Sony TC-D5M

! R: field recording location: FOB

! R: lineage: MAC > CD > DAE (EAC0.9b4, offset corrected, secure mode, QPS QUE2410) > edit (Soundforge 6.0) > tracking (cdwav editor) > sector boundaries confirmed (shntool) > SHN (shorten3.4) via C.Ladner. shn2flac 11/30/2020 jgmf.

! R: seeder comments: Jerry continues the Van Moondance themed comaback with a young performance of Forever Young. Tape flips at start of Deal and end of Dear Prudence with silent gaps removed using SF6. Thanks to J. Powell for the CDR source. misSHN in the rain, 12/03.

! R: this is a killer freaking tape, maybe a bit overloaded? THANK YOU, John Corley. Kahn not particularly audible, otherwise instruments come in nicely.

! P: Garcia sounds lively in set I. 

! song: Stop That Train (s1t01): Last played 11/26/77. 

! P: s1t01 STT The arrangement sounds a little uncertain, with the guitar parts pretty much just following the lines of the lyrics.

! R: s1t01 STT cuts in

! P: s1t03 RFTR JG sounds happy to be alive. Even “you got the do-re | I got the mi” has a little oomph.

! s1t04 (1) crowd guy: “Welcome back Jerry!” JG: “Thank you.”

! P: s1t05 Stoned Me had the little Van intro that he used for Crazy Love, too. They would re-arrange the start of this one pretty soon.

! P: s1t06 MSAB JG’s voice is fatiguing now. Interesting how notable it is – about a half hour into the show. So he is still building his stamina. This one hadn’t been played since 7/30/77.

! s1t08 (2) JG: “Thanks a lot. We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

! P: s2t01 HTC his voice sounds a little fatigued already to start, but HTC bounces nicely.

! song: Crazy Love (s2t03): When he came back from the coma, Garcia picked up two new Van Morrison tunes, “And It Stoned Me” and “Crazy Love”, both from Moondance (Warner Bros. WS 1835, 1970). The latter would appear 15 times, not making it out of 1987, while the former would stick around until the end.

! P: s2t04 FY he starts off with distance is not real part, then every man. Fascinating syncopated action by Kemper 5. Doesn’t really work, but could have been made to work, and would have really been interesting I think. Some nice big burning notes 9. Good version.

! R: s2t05 Prudence cuts out, probably about 30 seconds missing.

! s2t07 (3) JG: “Thanks a lot. See ya later.”