We join our regularly scheduled 5-night run of farewell shows already in progress – specifically, at the U.S. Blues encore of the middle show. Even with a verse edited out, it works as an opener.
However, having traveled this journey of 1974’s official live releases largely on the strength of two-track stereo mixes, it takes a song or so to get acclimated to that week’s world of multitrack recordings (and movie production). The fans may have experienced the Wall of Sound one last time, but consumers get something else. It’s a unique sonic treatment.
Jerry’s voice (well, like everyone else’s) has more than a dollop of effects as the production recreates that live-in-the-hall sound. Compared to the typical ’74 recording, Bob’s guitar has moved a little to the right from center. Keith’s piano definitely sits further back in the mix, as opposed to usually having the option of a right-channel foil on equal footing in Kidd Candelario’s mixes.
Maybe it’s the novelty of dedicated mics to capture audience sound, but it does feel a little canned as it moves in and out of the mix. On the good side, Phil’s bass and also Bill’s kick drum benefit from this fancy recording environment.
Of Edits & Errors
After One More Saturday Night and a generous crew introduction from Bill Graham, the audience claps along in much more organic fashion to China > Rider from the 17th. Bob and Phil shine in the China Cat as Jerry seems to intentionally hang back for a good while.
Garcia does step up with three minutes of transition jam left, leading everyone to the Rider with solid if not incendiary work. The temperature edges up in the Rider but is still never in danger of getting out of hand. It must have been so strange for band or audience member to think, “So, this could be the last China>Rider …”
Of course, the standard setlist structure goes out the window for the movie, and for the soundtrack given its massive size. So here we are easing into 10/19’s Eyes > China Doll. Like the U.S. Blues opener, this Eyes has been edited (and the same edit is found on So Many Roads).
Don’t let that or the following night’s tantalizingly passed-over Eyes > Slipknot! > Stella Blue sequence get you down, though. Even this edit runs 13 minutes, and tightened up as it may be, everyone sounds great and it retains the key components special to the era.
One of China Doll’s charms in concert was the negotiation and occasional renegotiation over tempo. On this night, the renegotiation gets it just exactly perfect about halfway through. Less common but sporting no charm is when they (looking at you, Bob) would muff the critical shift from minor to major before the lone chorus. That pivot carries the most dramatic weight in the arrangement.
Sadly, Bob screwed this one up, and in my opinion, there’s really no coming back from that.
The Long Way Home
A shot at redemption awaits immediately in the form of Playing In The Band. The PITBs of the era tended toward one of a couple standard lengths. One spring show in Portland had also hosted a whopping 45-minute version. This one, however, falls in a unique spot, several minutes longer than all the non-Portland released versions and just topping the half-hour mark.
Eight minutes in, Keith has (finally) moved to the electric piano for what I think is the first time in the soundtrack, and Garcia unfurls a couple of quality runs.
Despite relegation to supporting role in the mix, Godchaux shares some spotlight for a couple of minutes as well alongside some piercing chords from Weir.
Phil hints that a Spanish Jam might be a good way out of a quieter, more indecisive stretch (or does he? That was never going to show up in the first set). The guys prefer a more recognizable Playin’esque vibe as they pass the halfway mark.
They ride that decent jam past the 20-minute mark, and not surprisingly, Jerry starts to suggest heading back toward the song. Then he explicitly returns to the theme, but Bob never bites, and surprisingly the jam just melts away again.
The whole-step riff Phil mentioned earlier makes a brief return before everyone seems to acknowledge that they’re running a bit late to get to the theme. Even then, they would take another two or three minutes to totally exit the jam.
From first distinct mention of the theme to actual return to the song proper, that had to be the longest way home taken in a Playing this year, at least for the officially released versions. I liked it.
Fully-Grown Scarlet
Disc 2 is taken from the 17th, except for the Scarlet Begonias opener, which anchored the middle of the first set on the 19th.
Scarlet Begonias’ gradual bloom is one of the year’s success stories, of course. Not recorded until after the Winterland shows in February, its debut at the Cow Palace clocked in at a tidy 6 minutes. Not until the Boston and Springfield shows in late June did it muscle up to about 8 minutes. It spiked up to around 12 at one of the August shows in Philadelphia.
It would still vary in Europe, and I can’t tell for sure but this last Scarlet at Winterland may have also been the year’s longest. If you enjoy the Scarlet jam, then it’s all good. Jerry and Donna sound good, and Jerry’s playing moves between playing leads and adding another layer to the pulsing, chord-based space that Bob masterminds.
Like the Scarlet from a couple of shows ago, it is low on fireworks and dynamic tension, but it’s strong on creating that excellent aural space and wandering through it with the listener.
52-Minute-Jam, Part 1
The set then jumps to the 17th for a He’s Gone > Other One > Stella Blue-based sequence that tops 52 minutes. The He’s Gone intro is met with some woohoos, and for good reason. The band renders it with languid, loving care. Special credit to Godchaux, who works up some first-rate accents and fills before the outro.
He’s Gone expanded over the course of 1972 sort of like Scarlet did this year, all in the form of adding a bridge and extending that sweet, swaying coda. In cases like this, the vocal coda has to yield to instruments, and they eventually pick up a little shuffle and look toward the next adventure.
The 14th minute sees the band get really, really close to Truckin’, then float in a sort of Truckin’/Other One plasma, then finally abandon the shuffle and declare the Other One jam victorious.
What’s Weirdness, exactly? Around 5 minutes of heading into spacier terrain, followed by a brief trip to, well, Deeper Space and then a couple of minutes in Quieter Space. Really quiet. Someone’s-going-to-have-to-make-a-decision quiet.
With no Phil bomb or vocal to propel them further into that space, they find a more interesting groove for the rest of that 7-minute track before hitting what the official tracklist breaks out as 8 minutes of (officially titled) Weirdness.
What’s Weirdness, exactly? Around 5 minutes of heading into spacier terrain, followed by a brief trip to, well, Deeper Space and then a couple of minutes in Quieter Space. Really quiet. Someone’s-going-to-have-to-make-a-decision quiet.
Surprise! That someone is Phil, jolting the band out and into proper Other One territory. Bob eventually delivers one verse and chorus and sounds pretty youthful doing it before it’s back into the instrumental soup.
52-Minute-Jam, Part 2
The next few minutes leave the Other One theme and run from a good unnamed jam to a brief visit to the Spanish Jam and on to three minutes of Mind Left Body jam. It’s more of a stroll than some, easygoing and with Garcia on slide.
The guys martial their forces to cap the jam with two more minutes of Other One, with Bob surprisingly squeezing in another verse.
Stella seems to enjoy some pride of place in this “final” Winterland run, airing twice and always toward the end of the final set of the night.
That falls apart somewhat comically with about 10 seconds of awkward pivot to walking blues from Phil before hustling into the Stella Blue intro to warm applause.
Garcia rushes into and then through the first line for some reason, but things settle down into a beautiful vocal and overall performance. Stella seems to enjoy some pride of place in this “final” Winterland run, airing twice and always toward the end of the final set of the night.
Listen to Weir do his thing as Garcia slowly strums in that last verse.
If you were, for example, a nitpicky listener or, say, a rock and roll band trying to conjure a solid live document out of your last concerts until who knows when, you would reach the end of that performance and feel a sense of satisfaction and/or relief knowing that that one’s on tape.
After a single listen to Casey Jones, one thing nobody remains unclear about is Mr. Jones’ colleague’s mode of transportation or drug of choice. I like the performance, which is the first half of the encore after the disc’s previous sequence. It doesn’t get too freaked out, and they end it with a little panache.
And Now, One Last Time, The Weather
The October 18 concert contributes the entire third disc, starting with the last-ever Weather Report Suite. Some WRS segued into other songs in 1974, so I’m glad its swan song received a full, discrete performance to close out the night’s first set.
Not too many rock suites dedicate themselves to agriculture, and you have to give Barlow and Weir credit for creating a pretty good one in the 1970s. It probably happened much more often before the advent of recorded music, when agriculture was less complicated but the world had to make do without Jerry Garcia.
Speaking of Jerry, he lights it up on both Let It Grow solos, Bob sings it well, and the entire suite is well executed. The final stretch might play things a little close to the vest, but still, the last WRS could have had its picture in the Dead dictionary next to the WRS entry with no reservation.
A Little Of This …
Deadlists describes set two as 24 minutes of Seastones and over 17 minutes of Jam before Dark Star. This soundtrack fades at roughly the midpoint of the Jam, follows the Dark Star > Morning Dew, grafts on the NFA > GDTRFB from the third set, and gets out before the One More Saturday Night.
It’s complicated.
But back to the jam. Not quite funky and not too intense, it’s just kinda groovy, and you could hear it veering into NFA. Garcia and Godchaux (on electric piano) trade some solo time before intertwining their efforts, an almost always welcome development.
About five minutes in, that well has almost runs dry when Garcia issues some of those cascading lead lines to revive the whole group. In fact, the jam gets downright snappy before downshifting, hanging in midair for two seconds, and gently entering Dark Star.
The Year In Dark Star
The band tapped into Dark Star only six times in 1974. The year in live performance was bookended by Winterland shows, and Dark Star appropriately appeared both times. In between, the lucky audiences were in Missoula, Miami, Chicago, and London, with at least a month since the previous sighting. I think only Miami had no vocals, and as of September 2021, all but Chicago received an official release.
It’s interesting that they made no accommodations for the historic nature of the run – the Dead tackled some songs more than once in that stretch, but they opened Dark Star just once on that middle night and then let it be. The last Dark Star of 1974 feels right at home, opening with a longish, excellent, chilled intro that runs about 8 minutes before the first verse. Garcia is feeling it, as he over-enunciates that last “s” in “diamonds.”
The band continues in an enjoyable space. Then everyone bears down around halfway through this 24 minutes for an effective but still melodious mini-peak that the audience acknowledges.
Kreutzmann deconstructs the rhythm for a brief transition and then Jerry and Keith establish a great, ethereal new space, with the others finding their respective fits masterfully. A slightly off-kilter vibe takes its places, accents bouncing around the stage for an effective change of pace.
The last Dark Star of 1974 feels right at home, opening with a longish, excellent, chilled intro that runs about 8 minutes before the first verse.
Not too long after, the jam has run its course. Some string-scraping ensues as the band takes a 90-second atonal palate cleanser. Jerry flutters some notes that could have been cowboy song lead material, throwing the audience off the scent before serving up the first chord of Morning Dew.
Everyone on stage is locked in, but of special note, Phil plays an all-time fine and equally brief fill alongside Jerry before the “Where have all the people gone” verse, and again the crowd acknowledges.
Listen to Keith shift to the top of the keyboard for a couple of lovely, twinkly bits after the 8-minute mark.
The quieter passage that follows is Grateful Dead ensemble playing among its finest. It is not loud but in no way lacks energy. Yet they have left themselves a lot of dynamic room, and they each begin to deploy a little more and then a little more again as Jerry lifts the song toward its apex.
NFA’s Present & Future
Jumping to the next set, the NFA did start cold, just like it sounds, but it warms up fast. Phil resists the Bo Diddley thump altogether and finds a valuable if small ascending riff to push things along before the vocals.
You might or might not agree that by late ’77 and certainly ’78, Not Fade Away could get too heavy, occasionally plodding, frequently too far toward the raw end of the spectrum. The 1974 NFA’s hit a different sweet spot, often maintaining their cool along with plenty of energy and focus.
Is the difference in the drugs? Either way, I’m team ’74.
I hate to tell or remind you, but the performance suffers from a quick fadeout in favor of a minute or so of soundcheck and Garcia consulting with the crew.
Like others before it, this one seamlessly curves from the on ramp into Goin’ Down The Road Feeling Bad. Those vocals are so competent that I start to suspect the possibility of some soundtrack fixing, but then I feel bad about it.
Garcia gets the room going with some help from Godchaux, and the crowd claps along in double time. The band again gets right up to a rowdy-adjacent energy but keeps it in check and the We Bid You Goodnight coda begins.
I hate to tell or remind you, but the performance suffers from a quick fadeout in favor of a minute or so of soundcheck and Garcia consulting with the crew. It’s a somewhat undignified ending to an hour of music that is much better than I recalled, one of the most consistent single discs in the official catalog.
Tomorrow Is (Not Always) Forever
The October 19 show gets its turn on disc 4, providing all but one track, and we join the action with Uncle John’s Band to open the second set. The second UJB of the run is buoyant, lifted along in particular by the audience’s clapping in rhythm, strong vocals, and Phil’s bass.
This track is a good chance to notice the three or four very distinct textures Weir lays down in support of the arrangement.
Garcia’s solos have their moments, and/but the band coalesces with some power both at the end of the 7/4 jam and of the song to finish well.
The Dead played Tomorrow Is Forever nine times in 1972, and it last appeared on 12/11/72, also at Winterland, before taking an unexpected last bow here.
For all his jazz-inflected rock talents, Bill sounds great just laying it down for a solid Big Railroad Blues. Here’s a good first-set song that stayed in heavy rotation its first three years and then dropped off a little in 1973. What makes its appearance here surprising is that it had taken almost all of 1974 off, having made its only other appearance exactly five months earlier in Portland, at what I’d refer to as “the show with the China>Rider.”
Maybe it got the call due to the natural reflection that accompanies “farewell” shows or due to a band member request, because an even bigger surprise follows in the form of “Tomorrow Is Forever”. Donna and Jerry sound nice on the pretty country ballad. The Dead played it nine times in 1972, and it last appeared on 12/11/72, also at Winterland, before taking an unexpected last bow here.
Sugar Substitute
A Sugar Magnolia did kick off the 10/17 longer second-set sequence, and a Sugar Magnolia kicks off the sequence on the soundtrack, but this Sugar Magnolia is not that Sugar Magnolia. Garcia and team opted to bring in the performance from the 17th and splice it to the rest of the jam.
It gets a good workout but stops short of Sunshine Daydream itself. Instead, Garcia executes the clever idea to slide deftly into He’s Gone. Not a song I would’ve expected to be included twice on the soundtrack, much as I love it, but it was helped by serving as the starting point for two jams that made the cut.
Highlight: Garcia’s first solo followed by the group vocal and Weir’s guitar stylings exiting the bridge.
A brief instant of confusion a minute later, but everyone resets for the outro the crowd was definitely ready for.
He’s Gone spent 1974 giving way to Truckin’, except for one U.S. Blues and a mammoth Other One. Fans who guessed Truckin’ on this night were sorta right and sorta wrong. With Phil showing some readiness to move on, they without a doubt enter Truckin’. But before they can make it to the first verse, they opt to get off road and into the funky fields of the second Caution jam in a month’s time.
As with the breakout in Dijon, the Dead steer clear of trying to fill Pigpen’s shoes vocally. However they work it with enthusiasm (and maybe think about Good Lovin’ for just a few seconds?) for over four minutes. Less in particular gets down before the momentum drops off into Drums.
Less Drums Than Space
Of the next 10 minutes of Drums/Space, Bill’s solo is only about 90 seconds. Garcia is first back, opening with a series of drip-toned lines. Lesh re-enters low key as Kreutzmann downshifts. He tries on some different ideas while a whale-like noise emerges that without checking the film I’m guessing is Phil. Bob adds some spooky sonic objects flying past the window, too.
Light percussion and Weir accompaniment join Garcia through a quieter passage of volume-knob effects and gentle arpeggios. Keith and Phil rejoin around the edges.
Jerry telegraphs the way out in a low-key fashion but as is their style they take a little while longer to actually circle and eventually land on the Truckin’ that everyone thought they were getting 15 minutes earlier.
It’s a far from furious intro, colored by what came before, but again the vocals sound really good and are only helped by the multitrack recording/mix/mastering compared to the common very nice soundboard.
You can see where this clean but somewhat vanilla Truckin’ might’ve headed to a Nobody’s Fault jam, but Garcia winds it down.
Black Peter might feel fairly common in 1974 to stalwart purchasers, but the Dead only played it three times. Two of those have managed an official release – first this performance, and then when 6/23/74 Miami was liberated via Dave’s Picks 34. The 1974 trio would prove to be the only performances of Black Peter between 9/21/73 Philadelphia (coincidentally another official release, Dick’s Picks 36) and a late spate of 1977 appearances that didn’t begin until October.
I’d like to know why Jerry called it so infrequently … they played it consistently well, it wasn’t too slow (yet), and Jerry always sang it well.
Despite the occasional listing as a segue, Black Peter received a proper ending. The band took a couple of breaths and finished off the 10/19 main set with a 3-minute blast of summer. Sunshine Daydream bookended an hour that alternated between undeniably professional and occasionally better than that.
Playing, Take Two
Well, it came down to one more Sunday show on October 20, and following the pattern after the pieced-together first disc, the last disc is devoted to the last show.
The Cold Rain & Snow opener didn’t make the cut, and neither did the enticing Eyes > Slipknot! > Stella Blue sequence. But the soundtrack did include the band taking one last crack at Playing In The Band, Not Fade Away, and The Other One, as well as a couple of other familiar names.
We pick up the action at the start of the 2nd set and Playing In The Band. It was arguably the defining song of the Grateful Dead’s 1974 concert resume. A Playing jam with some pace on it was where the band sounded most comfortable and most consistently cruising at high altitude over the course of the year. The soundtrack reflects its eminence; at the end of the day, PITB takes up nearly an hour of running time in this set.
Playing In The Band was arguably the defining song of the Grateful Dead’s 1974 concert resume. A Playing jam with some pace on it was where the band sounded most comfortable and most consistently cruising at high altitude over the course of the year.
Garcia’s guitar flutters and darts through much of the first 10-minute while Godchaux backed him up not as much with chasing fills as with well placed chords.
The Dead stay in that gear nearly the whole time until things drop off into four minutes of Drums. That’s unusual, but then again, events onstage were unusual: after the set break, Mickey Hart had joined the guys onstage for the first time since 1971.
See if I’m imagining someone saying “Alligator?” around the 3:50 mark.
Delayed Endings / False Starts
The band breaks the drum break with Not Fade Away, crackling with a little more energy than the run’s earlier NFA. But like all the earlier Grateful Dead performances of NFA, it succeeds in part due to Lesh’s contrarian insistence on playing pretty much anything except the iconic beat associated with the song.
He’s more valuable riffing as the spirit moves him and/or adding one more layer in the weave. It’s one tune where you know Phil will be stepping up.
Like all the earlier Grateful Dead performances of NFA, it succeeds in part due to Lesh’s contrarian insistence on playing pretty much anything except the iconic beat associated with the song.
Not Fade Away crossed the 10-minute mark a couple of times on the European leg, and here it bulked all the way up to around 14 minutes. Bob and Jerry don’t quite get it together for the “Cadillac” verse, regroup, and come around for it again to the crowd’s appreciation.
Things get quiet after that but the theme holds on for a couple of minutes. Bob reiterates the intro riff basically with no help and proceeds to sing the last verse as Keith takes more profile on electric piano throughout now.
NFA wraps up and the band moves directly to the start of The Other One. However, someone wasn’t ready or didn’t approve somewhere, because they scrap that altogether and hand things back off to Bill and Mickey for another five minutes. Not smooth, but then again, why should the Dead start being just exactly perfect on the last pre-hiatus night?
The Lull: Weir Perseveirs
Phil announces the rearrival of The Other One in classic fashion. With everyone on the bus, the band rides through those instrumental fields for around three minutes (Keith, who hopped on a bit after the others for some reason, is back on electric piano).
The energy drops after that, and it’s still unclear if this will be a quick visit in passing or an actual performance with vocals. It’s not bad, but for an Other One jam, it’s underwhelming. Polite.
Finally, Garcia finds a guitar figure that seems to unlock the enthusiasm across the stage. Energy picks up, organizes into a wave on the strength of the main riff, crests and falls back yet again.
With very little real momentum behind him, Weir dives into the first verse. That seems to help, although two reunited drummers manage to make less noise than you’d expect after the verse and things keep to a steady simmer.
Bob walks an underwhelming Other One experience to a near-stop and Jerry guides the room into Wharf Rat. It’s the second one of the run, but the 10/16 performance was placed in setlist limbo: it was capped by bookends out of Seastones and then into Space.
This one is certainly more fulfilling than the Other One, but it still lacks some of the dynamics that generate a sense of drama in the best versions. Garcia gives it a little guitar spark on the way out.
Tinkering With Chemistry
From there it’s a short leap back into the Playing plasma — and just like that, any tentative or low-energy vibe disappears. The band steeps in that brew for more than three minutes before making a clean reentry for the actual reprise. Mickey Sounds good tink-tinking away on that cymbal, Donna sounds nice on her part, and everyone brings it home in more than respectable fashion.
It’s hard to say if Mickey’s presence (and absence over the previous 3 years of new material) shaped the set’s song selection, or whether the band’s desire to have to takes of some songs did, or both. But given the circumstance, a fat Playing sandwich including Not Fade Away, Other One, and Wharf Rat was a pretty Mickey-friendly main sequence to serve up.
So it’s ironic that the most straightforward stuff seemed to suffer the most from a “surprise” guest in the mix.
The PITB audio track includes about 90 seconds of backstage chat before the encore.
And Finally … Half-Step?
Back onstage, Phil and Bob refer to Mickey’s rearrival before Bob and the rest of the now-septet tell the story of Johnny B. Goode one more time. If it sounds short on this disc, it’s because it is indeed a serious edit, shedding much of Garcia’s solo work and letting the next two tracks squeeze onto the end of the disc.
It wasn’t my intent to be so underwhelmed by the non-Playing portion of this disc, but I did know that we would reach one of the weirdest Grateful Dead song selection moments I can think of.
Here in the encore of the last show until who knows when, with only We Bid You Goodnight still to come, the last precious slot goes to … Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodleoo? Really?
Don’t get me wrong, I really like Half-Step. But in this moment, a third airing of the week for Half-Step, especially after opening the previous night, is more than half bizarre.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like Half-Step. But in this moment, a third airing of the week for Half-Step, especially after opening the previous night, is more than half bizarre.
They do a fine job, and everyone sounds real nice on the Rio Grande coda. Godchaux lends nice ground support on a tremolo’d electric piano.
It sounds like Phil makes a comment, they conclude Half-Step, and Jerry pivots immediately to singing And We Bid You Goodnight. Everyone joins in as best they can for the sub-2-minute version. Unlike Half-Step, its length of service in the repertoire and of course lyrical content justify its slot. It also delivers one more layer of 1974 symmetry, having closed the middle show in the year’s opening run at Winterland.
It was spur of the moment and slightly ragged, at least a little anticlimactic for the situation. But not entirely out of character.
All in all, I’d stitch together the two Playing In The Band segments and call it a highlight reel for this final disc.
Grateful Dead
10/16-20/74 Winterland / San Francisco
Grateful Dead Movie soundtrack
CD1: u.s. blues / one more Saturday night / china cat sunflower > I know you rider / eyes of the world > china doll / playing in the band
CD2: scarlet begonias / he’s gone > jam > weirdness > other one > Spanish jam > mind left body jam > other one > stella blue / casey jones
CD3: weather report suite / jam > dark star > morning dew / not fade away > going down the road feeling bad
CD4: uncle john’s band / big railroad blues / tomorrow is forever / sugar magnolia > he’s gone > caution jam > drums > space > truckin’ > black peter / sunshine daydream
CD5: playing in the band > drums > not fade away > drums > other one > wharf rat > playing in the band / johnny b. goode / Mississippi half-step uptown toodle-oo / and we bid you goodnight
Whew. You made it through 1974. Check for any personal belongings back at the Grateful Dead 1974 Project page.
