12-07-2015, 03:49
The unique gravitational pull of the Dead's transitional sound in 1974 drew me back today to an A-list show that - once again - incited smiles and wonder! Various facets of 6/8 could serve as exemplars for an exhaustive range of commonly invoked DeadHead superlatives like cosmic, mind melting, and other worldly.
While the crown's inarguable jewel is the split PITB (i.e., PITB>WR>PITB reprise), don't forget the delectable WR filling, worthy of a menu listing at Katz's Deli, in addition to a second course of epic Eyes that, in small pockets like 7:10, exemplifies the maturation of Keith's trademark contribution; as well, at 10:25, for a brief period, Jerry orbits independently around a tight planetary core of jazzy fusion until the ensemble realigns along the song's signature theme...all in all, it's about 57 minutes of pedigreed Dead that could take the podium for Best of Show alongside prime cuts from any era!
While I've practically memorized a couple lines from Ross's brief, but indelible, review, I now reopen the DeadBase tome for those who might not be familiar:
"The great thing about the big 74 Dead jams is the way the band totally loses its identity as a bunch of hippies from Marin and turns itself (and the audience) into dinosaurs, galaxies, hurricanes, whirlpools, amoebas...about two minutes into the [Playin'] jam, Garcia is already so far gone into his prehistoric condor jag that the rest of the band has no choice but to 'boldly go where no man has gone before'. So, what started out as a nice outdoor-fun-festival-picnic-type event has suddenly become some kind of howling cosmic frontier back about 400 million years ago....This is unquestionably one of the most powerful Playin' jams in history" and "it culminates in a colossal giant-soundsystem roar that is probably still rattling windows at the center of the galaxy." Whew.
With formal introductions completed, it's now Miller time: https://archive.org/details/gd1974-06-08...eok.flac16
peace/K
While the crown's inarguable jewel is the split PITB (i.e., PITB>WR>PITB reprise), don't forget the delectable WR filling, worthy of a menu listing at Katz's Deli, in addition to a second course of epic Eyes that, in small pockets like 7:10, exemplifies the maturation of Keith's trademark contribution; as well, at 10:25, for a brief period, Jerry orbits independently around a tight planetary core of jazzy fusion until the ensemble realigns along the song's signature theme...all in all, it's about 57 minutes of pedigreed Dead that could take the podium for Best of Show alongside prime cuts from any era!
While I've practically memorized a couple lines from Ross's brief, but indelible, review, I now reopen the DeadBase tome for those who might not be familiar:
"The great thing about the big 74 Dead jams is the way the band totally loses its identity as a bunch of hippies from Marin and turns itself (and the audience) into dinosaurs, galaxies, hurricanes, whirlpools, amoebas...about two minutes into the [Playin'] jam, Garcia is already so far gone into his prehistoric condor jag that the rest of the band has no choice but to 'boldly go where no man has gone before'. So, what started out as a nice outdoor-fun-festival-picnic-type event has suddenly become some kind of howling cosmic frontier back about 400 million years ago....This is unquestionably one of the most powerful Playin' jams in history" and "it culminates in a colossal giant-soundsystem roar that is probably still rattling windows at the center of the galaxy." Whew.
With formal introductions completed, it's now Miller time: https://archive.org/details/gd1974-06-08...eok.flac16
peace/K