Jerry’s New Year’s Eve – LN jg1975-12-31.jgb.all.aud-Falanga-Menke-8664-retrack.noshnid.shn2flac

GarciaLive 5
GarciaLive, volume 5, December
31st 1975 Keystone Berkeley
(2014) is out, available via jerrygarcia.com.
Let
me start by expressing gratitude for these GarciaLive
releases. Having been a massive outlier in my interest in Garcia on the side,
having often expressed frustration at the paucity of Jerry shows released under
the old regime, I am glad to see the music coming out and happy to buy these
releases, not least because they are generally very, very well done.
The
overall packaging is nice. I appreciate that the booklet picture of the
Keystone is correctly placed from ca. 1981 – accuracy is important, and is very
much appreciated by those of us who take our metadata like we take our coffee
— seriously. This is an improvement over the inclusion of a photo from
11/26/77, without identification, in a release of the show dated 3/22/78 (GarciaLive 4). I read David Gans‘s
liner notes once quickly, and they look spot-on (more on that below),
well-written, well-edited (I had complained about the editing on the killer
12/14-15/74 release), and informative. Good job, David. I haven’t listened to
it yet, but I have heard that it sounds nice and I fully expect the fat, full, Betty
Cantor-Jackson
sound. (I hope she is getting paid for these releases!)
Priors on this
performance
But
I have always disliked 12/31/75 as a Jerry Garcia Band performance and as a
Jerry Garcia life event. The main billing for the show is that it’s Jerry
Band’s only NYE show. That’s true, but it doesn’t go very far if the music
isn’t good.
I
have known the performance from the tapes. I would have been listening to the
very early shns of the soundboard (like this
badboy
) and, especially, the Louis Falanga-Bob Menke upfront
(possibly onstage) ambient recording (shnid-8664),
since these were fresh on the etree FTP sites. All told I probably listened to
the Falanga-Menke tape a good 3 or 4 times through, the board once or twice.
That’s a lot for any single show.
People
generally consider this a great one, but insofar as you’ll indulge me in
arguing about taste, I’ll tell you that I think that’s just flat wrong. My
hypothesis here is that this is something like the “Cornell Effect”
from Deaddom, in which great sounding tapes find mass-circulation relatively
early, Patient Zero of the Betty Board contagion, and the show becomes legend.
(Cornell is actually a great Dead show, but that doesn’t preclude it being
overrated.) JGB 12/31/75 at the Keystone has the added Dead appeal of guest
shots by Bob Weir (very rare with JGB, only other times it happened were
in June ’82 and once on Broadway in ’87, off the top of my head) and Mickey
Hart
. Nicky Hopkins draws lots of attention, it’s New Year’s Eve at
the Keystone, and why shouldn’t it be great?
But
it isn’t. As a musical performance, it has some OK moments, and it’s rarely
downright awful, but mostly it’s just boring. That has always been my view.
Listening
Preparation
But
being a loyal customer, wanting to give the show a fair hearing, I decided to
get the release, and to prepare my listen by revisiting the Falanga-Menke tape.
Pin down the metadata if I could, just prepare the ground. Like a dog circling
around a patch of lawn, if you know what I mean. And of course it became a
rabbit hole, but I’ll try to cover some ground and walk away from all the
things that must be walked away from, conditional on the finity of our time
here together. Anyway, I have some listening notes below the fold, but here are
a few takeaways.
Players
Confusion
bedeviled the sociometrics of this gig from the beginning. Les Kippel wrote in Dead Relix (1976) that
Contrary
to advance rumors, the Grateful Dead did not play this past New Year’s Eve.
However, Bob Weir and Chris Herold from Kingfish did show up
to play at the Garcia Band’s show at the Berkeley Keystone that evening. Bob
played rhythm guitar and sang backup vocals, and sang lead on “C.C. Rider.”
Other material played at the show included “Catfish John,” “Road Runner,” and
so forth. Rumor has it that that might have been the Garcia Band’s last
performance.
A
few issues later, attendee Jim Wasserman (1976) wrote a letter to the editor,
correcting Kippel that the drummer was not Chris Herold, but, he thought, Bill Vitt. This is a great letter,
which I reproduce in whole so Corry can read about Grayson Street (see Arnold
2009
).
I
was at the show, and some of the info you said about it was incorrect. Chris
Herold of Kingfish was not there. Weir was there as you said, but I believe the
drummer was Bill Vitt, sitting in for Ron Tut [sic]. Also, Mickey Hart showed with Weir for the second set – – and
played a very primitive drumset used by the warm-up band (whom I didn’t know).
The
first band consisted of the drummer, (a bass, snare, tom tom, and two cymbals
in the total set) and a slow blues slide guitarist who was pretty good, but
generally a let-down for the opening of a New Year’s show.
The
Garcia Band was also joined by Matthew
Kelly
of Kingfish from very early in the show. The overall performance was
quite good, once the boys got it underway, however. There was what seemed like
hours of tuning up and the band took two very long breaks. The show was like a
fine old’ party, and I think that’s just what Garcia was into — partying on New
Year’s Eve.
So
witness one says the non-Hart drummer was Chris Herold, witness two says it was
Bill Vitt, and Corry (Arnold
2009
) comes along and has it as Greg
Errico
. I
become confused
. (I knew it wasn’t Tutt, who as drumming for  the Rainfall-besuited Elvis in the Pontiac Silverdome.)
But
that’s all over now, because now we have Official Documents, and it’s Mr.
Errico on the skins. (On the Falanga-Menke tape one can hear Nicky slurring
“Thanks Greg” at note 3). Otherwise, it’s as we have understood things:
Matt Kelly on harmonica (throughout the show, as I hear it, should pin it all
down), Bob Weir on guitar and Mickey Hart on drums (sets II and III).
Setlist
In putting
together what I have around this show, I found a 5-minute fragment of tape that
I remember some guy sending me some years ago, labeled 12/31/75 Nicky solo
“Maple Leaf Rag”, a tuneup from the start of the show. I had always
vowed to give it some attention, and I did on this occasion. It is five minutes
of tape from an alternative audience recording (i.e., not the Falanga-Menke
tape). It’s nowhere near as good as theirs, and it is degraded, but it is
nevertheless revealing. First, the smaller point, I can hear taper talk where
guy says “that looks like the guy from Kingfish”. I wonder if Les Kippel
was recording this, or if in some other way the taper’s guess became Dead Relix‘s error?
Second,
the tuning is not just Nicky, it’s the whole band, as far as I can tell. And,
it’s not Scott Joplin’s “Maple Leaf
Rag”
, as advertised. It’s Joplin’s “The Entertainer”. I can’t tell you how much I love this
little snippet. In terms of the American musical mosaic, it occupies the same
part of the canon, just replacing one singleton, now a never-played (Maple Leaf
Rag), with another (Entertainer). But I also love it because it’s Nicky Hopkins playing “The
Entertainer”.
He is so brilliant, and he can make even the most
well-worn classic sound fresh as daylight; this is about as pure a piano tune
as you can find, being played by about as pure a piano player as ever graced a
bench.
Very
cool. But also, tinged. Dawson’s Hopkins biography (2011) shows clearly that
Nicky was the ultimate sideman, lacking in any of the discernible talents and
inclinations that might make one a successful front man, except his musical
wizardry. He was shy and quiet and ill-suited to the role (see my “Bloody
Hell”
), and yet this seems to have been the role that the JGB (Garcia,
Kahn and Tutt) and/or Nicky himself allowed to operate. There’s just something
desperately sad about Nicky playing “The Entertainer”, with all of
his (and its) beer hall authenticity, warming up for the big show. Later, sweetly
optimistic about 1976: “It might even be good for me; you never know”
(note 7). To your health, Nicky.
“Mother
Nature’s Son”
is a Garcia singleton, part of the small, compact, tastefully
curated set of Beatles material he played publicly.
Performance
You
can see the listening notes, and I have already given my bottom line summary.
It’s OK in parts, it’s bad in parts, but mostly it’s just boring. It’s a
mehfest.
Other Context
Here
is a little bit of color around this gig, which was contracted for the standard
$500 JGB-at-Keystone rate (this would rise to $750 a night in 1977), but probably
saw considerably more than that moving around.
  1. Nicky is wasted. You knew this, but he’s really, really wasted. He’s at that horrible place (note 7), where he’s both “pissed as a rat’s nightmare” and “dry as a fuckin’ boneyard”. I believe him.
  2. This is the last JGB #1 gig, as Nicky exits stage left. The conventional wisdom is that he was just too wasted and he had to go. I will argue in the book that he was never planned to last beyond the New Year. Either way, a few days later he’d be gigging a little with ol’ pal John Cipollina, he never played with Garcia again, and he entered, from this night, perhaps the darkest period of a life too full of them.
  3. Jerry and Mountain Girl are breaking up (Jackson 1999, 266-268). Right around this time Jerry deeds the Stinson house to MG and moves in with Deborah Koons in Belvedere.
  4. Late 1975 has always been my guess for when the opiates become regularized. I don’t know if the following refers to 1975 (it could be any year through 1975, really), but I have always thought it could have: “one Christmastime, on a whim, [Ron Rakow] took it upon himself to score some [China White] for himself and Garcia” (Jackson 1999, 289).
  5. Money is tight, the Dead are going to have to start touring again, the Grateful Dead Movie is already an albatross that would hang around Garcia’s neck until mid-1977, etc. etc.
I
guess my point is that this is a pretty dark time in the Garciaverse. I would
hate to extrapolate from that to this particular performance (the Winterland
shows from a week and a half prior are actually quite good). And it’s possible
I am letting that darkness shade my listening, though I don’t think so.
The Show as a Release
So, I find this release a little problematic insofar as it’s not a great performance, and it’s got all kinds of darkness around it. I understand the marketing appeal of the Dead guys’ presence and the fact that it’s Garcia’s only New Year’s Eve with the JGB. I also understand that quality tape is probably in sparer supply than one might wish. I am not going to be too hard on The Powers That Be, but would certainly argue for “great performance” as the first criterion of interest to this particular paying customer.
Anyway,
references below, then listening notes below the fold.
REFERENCES
Arnold,
Corry.
2009. December 31, 1975 Keystone Berkeley Jerry Garcia Band. Lost Live Dead, December 13, 2009, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/12/december-31-1975-keystone-berkeley.html,
consulted 12/31/2013.
Arnold, Corry. 2010. 2119 University Avenue, Berkeley, CA:
The Keystone Berkeley. Lost Live Dead, December
31, 2010, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2010/12/2119-university-avenue-berkeley-ca.html,
consulted 4/22/2012.
Arnold, Corry. 2011. Jerry Garcia and Keystone Shows
Overview. Lost Live Dead, January 2, 2011, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/01/jerry-garcia-and-keystone-shows.html,
accessed 7/23/2012.
Dawson, Julian. 2011. And
On Piano … Nicky Hopkins: The Extraordinary Life of Rock’s Greatest Session
Man
. Foreword by Klaus Voormann. San
Francisco: Backstage Press.
Jackson, Blair. 1999. Garcia: An American Life. New York: Penguin Books.
JGMF.
2010. JGB:
December 31, 1975, Keystone, Berkeley: who was drumming?
.
JGMF.
2014. “Bloody
Hell”
.
JGMF.
2014.
Nicky
after JGB
.
JGMF. 2014. Grateful
Dead Three Ways: December 20, 1975
.
Kippel,
Les. 1976. Bits. Dead Relix 3, 2
(March-April), p. 19.
Wasserman, Jim. 1976. [Letter to the editor.] Dead Relix 3, 4 (July-August), p. 2.

LISTENING NOTES
Jerry Garcia Band
Keystone
2119 University Avenue
Berkeley, CA 94740
December 31, 1975 (Wednesday)
Menke-Falanga shnid-8664 shn2flac-patch-retrack
–set I (10 tracks, 53:13)–
s1t01. The Entertainer [1:35]
s1t02. talk (1) and tuning [1:45]
s1t03. Let It Rock [12:35] (2) [0:51] %
s1t04. Mother Nature’s Son [2:01] ->
s1t05. (3) It Ain’t No Use [11:24] (4) [0:17]
s1t06. God Save The Queen [0:43] [0:08]
s1t07. They Love Each Other [7:31] [0:15] % [0:34]
s1t08. tuning and talk (5) [1:36]
s1t09. Pig’s Boogie [10:54]
s1t10. talk (6) [0:40]
–set II (5 tracks, 53:11)–
s2t01. talk (7) and tuning [3:31]
s2t02. New Year’s countdown [0:19] -> Auld Lang Syne
[0:48], tuning [0:34]
s2t03. How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You) [7:58] [1:01]
s2t04. Catfish John [15:20] [1:05]
s2t05. Mystery Train [7:13] -> drums [0:59] ->
“New Years Jam” [12:25] -> Mystery Train [1:38] (8) [0:11] %
–set III (5 tracks, 33:08)–
s3t01. tuning [0:30]
s3t02. Tore Up Over You [10:14] [0:24] %
s3t03. barroom ditty [0:36], tuning [0:20]
s3t04. C.C. Rider [8:05] (9) [2:14]
s3t05. (I’m A) Road Runner [9:17] (10) [1:27]
! ACT1: Jerry Garcia Band
! lineup: Jerry Garcia – el-g, vocals;
! lineup: Nicky Hopkins – piano;
! lineup: John Kahn – el-b;
! lineup: Greg Errico – drums;
! guest: Matthew Kelley – harmonica (whole show)
! guest: Bob Weir – guitar, vocals (sets II-III);
! guest: Mickey Hart – drums (sets II-III).
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/19751231-01
! db: shnid-8664 (Falanga-Menke shn); shnid-4468 (sbd shn).

! venue: JGBP
| LLD
Keystone Overview
| LLD
Keystone Garcia gigs
! R: field recordist: Louis Falanga and Bob Menke;
! R: field recording gear: Sony ECM-270 + Sony ECM-250 >
Sony TC-152.
! R: field recording location: mics onstage;
! R: lineage: unknown transfer by Bob Menke ca. early 2000s > CD > Jim Powell’s CDs > Jack Warner’s CDs > jjoops’s
CDs > extraction (EAC) > re-tracking (WaveMerge and CD Wave) > .shn
encoding (mkwACT) > sector boundary alignment (shntool) by
[email protected], ca. 200xxx.
! R: patch material from unattributed aud, noshnid, supplies
s1t01 and through 1:29 of s1t02.
! personnel: Old notes had the following, presumably from
TJS: “entire show with Mickey Hart and Matt Kelly; Bob Weir plays during
set III.” I don’t think so. Maybe the GarciaLive 5 liner notes will clarify.
! setlist: s1t01 comes from a scrap of tape I picked up
somewhere, labeled as 12/31/75 Nicky Hopkins Maple Leaf Rag, piano solo. It’s a
classic Scott Joplin ragtime, all right, but it’s “The Entertainer”,
and Jerry and the rest of the band are noodling along. Awesome! This is a
singleton.
! s1t02 (1) taper talk @ 1:17  “looks like the drummer from
Kingfish”
! P: s1t03 LIR Nicky is off key and elsewhere for the first
45 seconds or so, then he comes in. @ late 5-min mark Nicky says something
inaudible.
! s1t03 (2) JG: “We have a couple of friends sittin’ in
with us.” @ 13:15 Nicky, off-mic, slurring badly: “Where’s me fucking
drink? I’m dry as shit.”
! s1t05 (3) NH, slurring: “Thanks, Greg. Thanks
Jerry.”
! personnel: harp comes on s1t05 IANU
! s1t05 (4) JG: “Thank you. Matthew Kelly sittin’ in on
harmonica.”
! R: s1t07 TLEO brief drop @ 7:04
! P: s1t07 The performance is a little loose, Errico is
awesome for just stepping in, but he hasn’t ever played that song, ever.”
! s1t08 (5) @ 0:35 NH “Steve, get me water? I’m dry as
a fucking [inaudible]. Just water’ll be fine.” @ 1:05 NH: “All right.
11:16. Oh, 44 minutes to go. God help us all, every one of us, for ’76. That’s
all I’ve got to say. Except … we’re gonna do ‘Pig’s Boogie’”.
! R: s1t09 Pig’s Boogie disruptions @ 8:03-8:05
! P: s1t09 PB John Kahn takes a nice lead piece 5ff, very
well done.
! s1t10 (6) NH: “First of all, no, I’ll do that later.
The band. From right to left.” [someone else: Nicky, Nicky, Nicky]
What?” JG: “We have some more people who are gonna sit in with us …
it’s gonna take a coupla minutes to set everything up. We’re gonna take a
little break and come back around midnight, I think. Thank you.”
! s2t01 (7) NH “//to the next year” … tuning % @
13:07 “I’m just dry as a … I don’t know. If I weren’t pissed as a rat’s
nightmare, right now I’m just dry as a fuckin’ boneyard. 11:57 All right, we’re
gonna go into a number, because it’s gettin’ very very close to that fuckin’
point in time. … 2 minutes … less than one minute to go … I’ll give you
the countdown.” NH: “It might even be good for me, you never
know.”
! R: s2t03 HSII NH solo late 2 is hard to hear, PA issues?
Things are a little off-kilter 4 minute mark, Errico a little off.
! P: s2t04 CJ male high harmonies behind Jerry … who is
that?
! P: s2t05 MT drums start 7:14, I hear two drummers. John
Kahn joins in 8:14, Nicky a few notes 8:37 ish, Jerry back, and in late 9 and
10 he’s fully engaged. In 12:45 ish Jerry is playing some very strong guitar,
but the problem is that there’s no one else really directly engaging him and
egging him on here. Nicky is playing, but it’s not very loud in Jerry’s monitor
(which is what we are hearing on this recording). Tempo picks up late 13, Kelly
comes in, now they are playing together. A little more bass and drum interlude
starting late 19 over 20, but Jerry starts playing MT again 20:20ish, drops the
change 20:40 and he and Nicky connect perfectly on the 1! Nicky had great ears,
even pissed as a rat’s nightmare. ends 22:18
! s2t05 (8) JG: “We’re gonna take a break for a little
while, and try to figure out what to do … we’ll be back in a little
while.” He had put some slight tension on “what” in “what
to do”, he sounds cogent but maybe a little exasperated. He’s probably
wondering what the fuck Mickey is doing there.
! setlist: s3t03 ditty probably has a name
! s3t04 (9) Nicky: “All right, we’re gonna carry on
past 2 o’clock. [crowd yelling] Hold it … but, in order to … hang on a
minute while I remember it … I forget … please have all your bottles and
glasses emptied in order for us to carry on past 2. OK? All right. And once
again, from all of us, a very happy ’76 … whatever.” Kahn yells
“Road Runner” and Garcia says “OK”. Nicky: “Is there
any central heating? I mean air conditioning? I’ve [inaudible].” Taper
talk around 10:12: “Mickey Hart is really intense.”
! P: s3t05 Road Runner Garcia is playing some great guitar,
which sounds great on this tape, in the 6-minute range. Excellent.
! s3t05 (10) after Road Runner JG: “Thanks a lot. We’ll
see y’all later on.” Guy near taper: “Aww, shit.” Crowd is
hollering for more.

Comments

15 responses to “Jerry’s New Year’s Eve – LN jg1975-12-31.jgb.all.aud-Falanga-Menke-8664-retrack.noshnid.shn2flac”

  1. Jerry's Brokendown Palaces Avatar

    12/31/75-Nicky Hopkins last appearance with Jerry.

  2. Fate Music Avatar

    Yes, I said "This is the last JGB #1 gig, as Nicky exits stage left."

  3. Corry342 Avatar

    There are a number of interesting details about this recording, if somewhat frustrating ones. First of all, neither Freddie Herrera (Keystone owner) nor Matthew Kelly clearly remember the gig. Greg Errico recalled showing up and being surprised that Nicky Hopkins was in the band. He also recalls that Hart did not play a drumkit. He recalls Hart playing cowbell. This sorta/kinda fits with the memory of Hart playing some percussion type instruments along with Errico.

    Herrera generally recalls that Garcia didn't like bands to open for him–an interesting insight in its own right–and says that a band wouldn't have opened for Garcia on NYE. This begs the question of Jim Wasserman's memory. However, it is possible that a duo/trio played before JGB, not a full band, and perhaps there was some percussion equipment on stage. Given what NYE does to people's memories, that's close enough for me.

    There is clearly a third guitar on CC Rider. Kelly doesn't remember if he played guitar at the gig (since he doesn't really recall the gig). He might have, although it would have been the only time Kelly played guitar with Garcia or the Dead. However, anyone else who might recall whether there was another musician on stage either has permanent brain fog or is no longer with us (not that any of them might remember either, of course).

  4. Nick Avatar

    Maybe one more piece worth considering is that Greg Errico played with the JGB a few weeks earlier on 12/17, covering for Tutt. Nicky announces him during the band introductions and says that the band "only had one quick rehearsal with him." Tutt didn't have an Elvis engagement on 12/17 (according to elvisconcerts.com), and I wonder if Jerry already had Errico in mind for the NYE gig, since they certainly would've known by then that Tutt was going to be otherwise engaged. It's interesting that Errico was surprised to see that Nicky was in the band on 12/31.

    As for Mickey, it sounds to me like he's on a full drumkit and not just a cowbell or other percussion — the drum duet in Mystery Train sounds like two kits, as does the percussion in every song in the 2nd-3rd sets.

    I do agree with your feeling about the general quality of the music, although I do quite enjoy the Mystery Train>"New Years jam."

  5. Fate Music Avatar

    12/17 … I can't say I even remember that show, need to revisit.

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I was at this show. First of all, you and the other fine blogs dedicated to this do an amazing job, so I thank you wholeheartedly. Now, I will say, having been there, sometimes in these sort of cold evaluations of tapes/performances, something is lost. I mean, it's Bob & Jerry at the Keystone on NYE!!! What part of that could possibly be Meh?! I went to this show and watched it all unfold in real time. You know how people go to a Jerry show and call out Bob or something dumb and it's dumb, because it never happens – like CSN show and calling out NEIL. So, it's New Year's and Jerry and Nicky come on around 10:30 after probably some little warmup. Yeah, JG sometimes had a solo artist or a duo like when Chris and Lorin Rowan would play or maybe (just trying to remember about this) someone like Steve Seskin. I haven't listened to the tape in a while, so you will know about this, if you listen immediately, so I'm guessing that Matthew didn't come out right away, but maybe around They Love Each Other or It Ain't No use, but he could have come on in the beginning. Anyway, they take their break and just before, Jerry says that others will join them and of course, we're wondering and think that we're getting the big tease or well, we don't know what to think. Then, just before midnight, out walk Weir and Matthew Kelly. Remember, this was when the Dead were not playing and no one knew for sure if they would get back together, although they had done the Jerry & Friends shows and put out Blues For Allah. New Years Eve in a tiny place like the Keystone with Bob and Jerry. Only time Bob & Jerry at the Keystone. Yes, it was a "work in progress", but it kicked ass! It was New Year's Eve. There was not one person in the place who was MEH about it! I'd be lying if I could tell you if Kelly was playing guitar on a certain song:) He might have, but keep in mind that Kelly's harmonica can sometimes sound like a rhythm guitar the way it blends in. That was also the first time that Jerry and Bob played CC Rider together, if I'm not mistaken. For folks like you who are so into this, I am surprised that this gig wasn't given more significance. It's not just a big deal historically. Keep in mind that if the audience was blown away by this, the band was, too. It's a NYE party – exactly and everyone was enjoying it. OK, pretty much any show with Merl Saunders and Jerry was better than probably any JGB band show, in my view. This one definitely sticks out as one of the best that I saw Jerry play solo electric without Merl on the stage. I'm sure you all have heard a ton of tapes that would prove that wrong, but whatever. I saw Jerry a lot solo until maybe around '83, when I left the country. Saw some again later on, but well, once he started doing those super-long Knockin On Heaven's Doors, it was downhill, as far as I was concerned. Definitely love some of the other stuff later on, but as you mention with his heavy drugs, there were a lot of down shows ahead. Before 1975, there weren't any.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Correction – of course, I mean, at midnight, out come Bob and Mickey – and Matthew joins them again too, of course.

  8. Fate Music Avatar

    I love it. Thanks, anon!

    Your point is 100% acceptable to me. I agree that listening to tape in my man-cave is going to render things very differently from having heard it live and in person. All I can do is report based on the former. Reporting based on the latter is where you come in, and I am glad to have your thoughts about this. It must indeed have been quite a party.

  9. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Oh yeah – we were flipping out! Thanks again for all the incredible posts! I'll just add that while I appreciate all the work that Lemieux does, he never saw them prior to '89, I think he has said. He does a fine job and I get why he is doing the work, being younger and being able to carry it forward into the future and his education and experience. That said and with all due respect to him, I sometimes wonder if he has the proper perspective, not having been there, to always know which shows to put out. I can imagine that it gets extremely tricky, mind-numbingly so, listening to all of those tapes. Also, what is available and is good quality, etc. play their part. And yes, the experience and the nostalgia of being there can blur the realities of the performances, too. And I will add that I get the impression that he is very open to having the old timers give their input. Anyway, this plays into the man-cave stuff:) I'll say that I'd like to see a release of my favorite GD show – Santa Barbara '74, which I'm sure is on nobody's top tape list.

    I'm curious – tape-wise, forgetting about Merl shows, which I think are in another stratosphere, which JGB tape is your favorite? I'll also add that I forgot how much I liked the band with Keith, Donna and Maria – a very good period.

  10. Fate Music Avatar

    I love Santa Barbara '74! I lived not far from the campus stadium for a year, and of course I love that that show had Great American Music Band as an opener!

    Favorite JGB tape depends on the day. I need to think on it a little bit .. 🙂

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Yes, actually it was Great American String Band, of course (with Jerry, as opposed to GAMB without him). Speaking of that, I saw them at the Keystone just before Santa Barbara and it is a show that I never see listed anywhere. What was really unique about it was a couple of things. They had set up some heavy-duty microphones and I was told that they were recording it for an album. Also, Peter Rowan and Jack Bonus got up and they did Midnight Moonlight and maybe another song (Hobo Song?). Hopefully that tape still exists and will get released someday. It's so long ago, but it was probably before the GD tour started in May. Feels like it was on a Sunday night – maybe May 5th? Incidentally, I also went to Reno 1974, which was fantastic! Three sets! A big stadium, but very roomy – field about half full and a few folks in the bleachers with Phil coming down into the audience at one point to interact with the crowd. An early example of Deadheads taking over a small city in a very nice way.

  12. Fate Music Avatar

    "actually it was Great American String Band, of course (with Jerry, as opposed to GAMB without him)"

    Things are not that clear. On 4/20/74 at the Pilgrimage Theater they were billed as Great American Music Band, and Garcia was there. It's really quite a hodgepodge.

    Tell me more about 5/5/74!

  13. Corry342 Avatar

    Anon, thanks so much for the description of NYE 75. So far, this is the first eyewitness account from someone who actually recalls the event (as opposed to musicians who had to be reminded that they were even there). It's a point well taken that at the time, the appearance of Garcia and Weir on stage together would have raised all sorts of hopes. Although the Dead had played a few shows, there was still no certainty they would return for touring.

  14. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    The lineup was the GASB lineup with Buell Niedlinger, Grisman, Garcia, Nictern, Greene and Peter Rowan and Jack Bonus on one or two songs, including Midnight Moonlight. I can remember some of the other songs played, especially because I'd never heard them before "I'll Be A Gambler, If You Deal the Cards" and "My Plastic Banana Is Not Stupid". I suppose that Swing 42 and some of the other standard songs of their setlist were played also. I also saw them not too long afterwards, as you mentioned, at the Santa Barbara GD show, which was also amazing and my favorite GD show. It was the first time I'd seen Jerry in California and either my first or second concert ever in the Western US. Also, definitely my first time at the Keystone. Not sure what else you'd like to know, but it was a magical night. Got to meet Jerry before the show in the back room too, but that's a whole other story:) And it was billed as the Great American String Band.

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