(originally posted on Facebook)
I have dreaded this since the first time I read it was on The List. A live Grateful Dead album... sigh. It's not that Grateful Dead is a bad band. I do think they are overrated, but that's not important. What's most important to me is their notoriety as a live band. Most mainstream sources I've heard agree with the statement that Grateful Dead live can be a tough experience because the songs tend to plod on as if the band forgot how they ended. That appears to be precisely the case with today's subject, as the track list is just 7 songs long, but the album clocks in at 73 minutes.
The first song "Dark Star" has a nice instrumental lead in. A bit on the long side but pretty groovy. Then the vocals come in and everything falls apart. Different players seem to drop out at random points halfway through a fill and then join back in as if there were no arrangement at all. Then just as quickly as the vocals arrived they disappear, and we are left to hear more disorganized noodling. Every now and then there's a loud section were everyone just plays screechy half-notes. There is clearly a lot of improvising going on here. At different points one player will hit on something that sounds groovy and play it louder and louder until the rest of the band starts playing along, and then they do that thing for about five minutes. It wasn't a complete waste of time but way too much empty space for a 17 minute song.
"St. Stephen" has a solid chunky chord riff to begin and solid folksy vocals. The B-section drops this in favor of a slow blues piece that doesn't fit. There's a return to the opening riff for a few measures, then a closing march segment which isn't nearly as satisfying. This leads into the third song "The Eleven" with a loose shuffle beat and trippy instrumental. This song is tighter than "Dark Star" but still leads nowhere special. When the vocals do finally come in it's too late, I'm ready for the song to end. Like most of the instruments, the vocals just seem oddly misplaced and random.
And by the end of "The Eleven" the main riff, chord progression, and beat have vanished. The lack of a solid arrangement just leaves me to invest nothing in the parts of a song that I like, since I expect them to disappear within a minute. It would be one thing if the parts ended and I knew we were somewhere else, but the changes are slow and drag on forever. It actually makes the good parts feel shorter because I don't remember when they ended, and I have no interest in finding them again.
"Turn On Your Love Light" has a familiar opening beat and blues riff. In an odd twist, this song has more than two lines of vocals. In another odd twist, the opening riff and beat last the whole song. The whole 15 minute song. So I liked the riff, but they played it way too long this time. OK, so I'm not the easiest person in the world to please.
"Death Don't Have No Mercy" starts off as a slow blues number in 12/8, similar to "Since I've Been Loving You". It's a bit on the long side-the solo section should have been a bar shorter maybe- but pretty solid. My goodwill is quickly lost about two minutes into the next song "Feedback". Try to guess what that song is all about. If you said anything but "7 minutes of audio feedback droning through various cymbal rolls" then you don't understand the UBER AWESOMENESS OF GRATEFUL DEAD LIVE!!! Kill me. Or rather, go back in time to before I sat through 7 minutes of Grateful Dead playing feedback and kill me.
The last song, "And We Bid You Goodnight" turned out to be my favorite. Even though there were no instruments and I couldn't hear what they were singing because they were so quiet, at least the song was only 30 seconds long. To sum up, there were parts I liked but lots of filler. And unless that filler is something like vanilla cream between two chocolate cookies it's just wasted space. 1 star.
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