50 years ago today, the grateful dead open 4 nights at the fillmore west with miles davis, barely 2 weeks after the release of “bitches brew.” poster by david singer.
edit of soundboard & 2 audience tapes: https://archive.org/details/gd70-04-09.sbd.hanno.6157.sbeok.shnf
miles soundboard: [1/8]
edit of soundboard & 2 audience tapes: https://archive.org/details/gd70-04-09.sbd.hanno.6157.sbeok.shnf
miles soundboard: [1/8]
4/9/70 fillmore west: with miles perhaps in the house, the dead open with ME & MY UNCLE, which does swing & shred in weird deady ways.
great moment in dead history:
garcia: ready? 1-2-
voice (phil?): what are we doing?
...band manages to land in CASEY JONES together. [2/8]
great moment in dead history:
garcia: ready? 1-2-
voice (phil?): what are we doing?
...band manages to land in CASEY JONES together. [2/8]
debut of pigpen-sung cover of james brown & betty jean newsome’s IT’S A MAN’S MAN’S MAN’S WORLD. weird mix, but band sounds crisp. weir takes leads under verse, band does restrained dance around big groove. there’s sort of a bass solo. backing vocals are doofy & cute. [3/8]
half-hour acoustic set. nice subliminal B3 throughout. 2nd CANDYMAN starting to catch a glow, with a stunner lead vocal, now featuring a solo followed by a wordless group chorus, both sounding a mite tentative. [4/8]
somebody shouts an unintelligible request & weir responds (mostly off-mic) “hey miles, play sketches!” [5/8]
fierce post-DRUMZ jam in GOOD LOVIN’ starts as abstruse bass-heavy start/stopping (& semi-soloing) & turns into slashing conversational peaks with garcia & weir. THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE likewise glistens out from the murky audience tape. [6/8]
very random C&W song, maybe with a fiddle or jaw harp, & definitely with a still-unidentified rando singing back-to-the-earth type lyrics about “slowing everything down out in the country.” parts sound vaguely like an early draft of the soon-to-be-written SUGAR MAGNOLIA. [7/8]
during 31-minute NOT FADE AWAY > TURN ON YOUR LOVELIGHT closer, sounds like pig pulls a person onto the stage, possibly even his gf vee? “mama told me there’d be days like this,” someone says into the mic as it ends. (BID YOU GOODNIGHT encore not on tape.) #deadfreaksunite [8/8]