The Grateful Dead isn’t a band–it’s a petri dish for fanatics. There are four kinds of people out there. 1. Those who don’t care anymore about the Grateful Dead than they do the waste disposal manager two towns over. 2. Those who hate Dead because their music sucks and their fans are filthy hippie burnouts. 3. Those who love the band but possess the critical faculties necessary to discern a good Dead album from one that blows. And 4. Those who own some 950 Grateful Dead bootlegs and can (and will, at length) tell you which one of those 950 Grateful Dead bootlegs includes the gnarliest version of “Me and My Uncle.”
Comparing the people in Category 3 to the ones in Category 4 is like comparing your average Episcopalian to a clay-eating, rattlesnake-handling Southern Baptist tent revival preacher. I myself belong in Category 3. But let’s pretend for a moment that I fall into Category 4, and prefer listening to Grateful Dead bootlegs to such unessential life activities as eating, sleeping, bathing, screwing and mastering rudimentary social skills. Which would be my choice of best live Grateful Dead recording?
First I would have to establish some completely arbitrary criteria. I have my peculiarities, as do you, and I stand by mine.
1. The concert must be top notch. This would appear to be self-evident, but the Dead were an erratic live act, which is only to be expected given they played some 2,300 concerts over the course of their 30-year existence.
2. The concert must have been recorded between 1971 and 1974, because the former don’t include many of my favorite songs and the latter tend to include material recorded after From the Mars Hotel, the last Dead album worth owning. Call me petty, but “King Solomon’s Marbles” makes me lose mine.
3. The concert cannot include a song longer than 20 minutes.
4. The concert must include four or more of the following: “China Cat Sunflower/I Know You Rider,” “Brown-Eyed Woman,” “Bertha,” “Deal,” “Friend of the Devil,” “Wharf Rat,” and “Jack Straw.”
5. Said concert CANNOT include covers of “Good Lovin’” or “Dancing in the Streets.” This rule is both iron-clad and non-negotiable .
6. I’ve excluded are such Warner Brothers releases as 1969’s Live/Dead, 1971’s Grateful Dead (aka Skull and Roses), and 1972’s Europe ‘72. Most non-Deadheads are familiar with said albums, and your true Deadheads refuse to concede the coveted Best Ever Award to albums familiar to the uninitiated. Had I included such albums in my search, Europe ‘72 would, hands down, be the Grateful Dead album I’d choose to send into to outer space to prove to alien life forms that we’re a peaceable, heavily stoned race.
Having established my criteria, I sat myself down to listen to the contenders. It wasn’t easy. In fact it was impossible, and it quickly became apparent that I was going to have to bend the rules some. Or in my case, a whole lot. After much consideration, I’m awarding the coveted Michael Little Award for Best Grateful Dead Live Recording of All Time to Veneta, OR 8/27/72: The Complete Sunshine Daydream Concert (Live), this despite the fact that its version of ”Dark Star” exceeds my stated time limit by a full 11 minutes. If asked why I’m willing to break such an important rule, I can only reply that finding a live Dead recording without “Good Lovin’” or “Dancing in the Streets” on it is more difficult than you might think.
Little did I know it when I chose the Veneta show that it marked an iconic moment in Dead history. The concert was a benefit for the Ken Kesey family-owned Springfield Creamery, and reunited the Grateful Dead with Kesey and Ken Babbs of Merry Pranksters fame. As a result the show has the feel of a family reunion, and I’m not talking about one of those family reunions that ends with Aunt Phyllis throwing down with Aunt Dottie over a trifling bit of unpleasantness that occurred three decades ago.
As for the music, it’s fantastic. The band’s in perfect lysergic lockstep, and the songs include a fantastic take on “Playing in the Band” that falls a mere three seconds short of my stated time limit. Garcia’s at peak form on the guitar, and actually puts oomph into his never-very-assertive vocals. And Bob Weir’s vocals shine, especially on “Mexicali Blues,” “Promised Land,” and “Playing in the Band.” Neither is a particularly great vocalist, but on Sunshine Daydream they sing like their cocaine supply depends on it.
Some of the shows best moments occur between songs. Call me a bad person, but I find it funny when an emcee takes the stage to announce “A lost kid situation has come up… there’s a whole bunch of kids down in the lost kid tent.” It would have been better had he said “kids in the lost kid freakout tent,” but I like to imagine the announcement led to the following dialogue:
“Have you seen little Karma?”
“I thought she was with you.”
“Maybe we should go look for her.”
“I’m sure she’ll come looking for us.”
“She can’t walk yet.”
“Right. Can it wait a couple of minutes? They’re in the middle of ‘Casey Jones.’”
Having played the Dead game, I’m beginning to understand why your Deadheads are such a zealous bunch. Listening to 500 Dead recordings to determine which includes the best version of “Deal” could, if you’re not careful, become a dangerous addiction. Do militant Dead lovers take the pursuit too far? No doubt. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Deadheads have actually killed one another over the relative merits of To Terrapin: Hartford ’77 and Fillmore West 1969: The Complete Recordings. So tread carefully out there, people–you don’t want to find yourself getting crowned with a ceramic bong.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
