Dark Star is the Grateful Dead’s magnum opus, the supreme improvisation vehicle of the greatest improvisational rock band. To say no two were alike is a dramatic understatement. But for a shared chord structure, each can be heard as a different song entirely.
The Dead performed Dark Star more than 225 times. Most all occurred in the seven years from 1968 to 1974, after which it rarely appeared until 1989 when it was revived and played 39 times through 1994. Its busiest year was 1969 when it was played at 68 of 142 shows. Many would say that was when Dark Star reached its peak. I seem to return most to a version from another fruitful year in the life of Dark Star -- 9/21/72 (The Spectrum – Philadelphia), all 37 glorious minutes of it.
Here my focus is on a particular kind of Dark Star experience. On occasion, when deep into Dark Star, the band would wander into another song entirely only to segue back into Dark Star, making musical “sandwiches”. These explorations further diversified Dark Star by blending very different musical ideas that typically stood on their own. The interpolated songs often contrasted sharply with the spirit of Dark Star, a loose, jazzy, sometimes atonal free form jam. One has a hard time imaging how Marty Robbins’ radio-friendly country classic El Paso, John Phillips’ cowboy sing-along Me & My Uncle, or the Dead’s elegiac Wharf Rat possibly could be made to fit with Dark Star, much less as effortlessly as the Dead did so.
These sandwiches generated some of the Dead’s most magical improvisations as Dark Star would spontaneously but seamlessly give way to something else. It did not always work well, but such missteps were integral to the Dead experience too. The band experimented constantly, repeatedly taking musical and performance risks. The potential for ordinariness or even ugliness made the successes all the more revelatory and joyous. Many of the musical sandwiches built with Dark Star are jaw dropping. What follows are my reviews, from best to worse, at least as I hear them now.
4-24-72 Rheinhalle, Duesseldorf, GDR - Dark Star (25:47)>Me & My Uncle (3:42)>Dark Star (14:54)>Wharf Rat (8:59)
A grand-daddy from the well-know Rockin’ The Rhein release. Well worth buying because the studio-improved sound quality is remarkable. This robust Dark Star sandwich says, “Ye shall know us for however long we toy with your space/time continuum”. The subtle, improvised transition into Me & My Uncle is nearly imperceptible, a small work of art unto itself. They get in and get out so well, no one gets hurt. The boys had this down so cold it’s a wonder they didn’t do it more often. It beats the dickens out of me: Please, sir, I want some more. And Weir’s voice is in fine fettle. The return to Dark Star is an unhurried beach vacation with coves and inlets where no anchor can find firm sand. Late in the jam – 9:50 or so – a melody bursts through with such allure one feels he’s heard it before. I go back to this bit of genius as much as return to 12/2/73’s Playin’ Jam or 2/18/71’s Beautiful Jam. A brief Dark Star theme returns us to earth (and to Wharf Rat) with music as sad as we are when it ends. This is a spectacular sandwich.
10-25-73 Dane County Coliseum, Madison, WI - Dark Star (4:42)>Mind Left Body Jam (2:02)>Dark Star (16:42)
Arguably, not a true sandwich but rather one cohesive Dark Star with a recognizable jam embedded inside. But why argue? Its overall beauty is elevated by an oneiric Mind Left Body Jam bubbling up from within, after a recognizable step away from Dark Star. This cries out to be included among the best of the Dagwoods. And so it shall be. The body of Dark Star that follows is all swaying 1973 sweetness swung to and fro with the most delicate of touches. Keith’s gently punched keys deep in the background stand out in my mind, along with a closing movement evoking deep sea diver sounds and a small alien invasion. I am a 1973 guy. This I’ll defend.
2-18-71 Capitol Theater, Port Chester, N.Y. - Dark Star (7:03)>Wharf Rat (7:20)>Dark Star (7:13)
The so-called Beautiful Jam. There is a tendency among Deadheads to eschew well known shows, as if there were a reservoir of deeper knowledge available only to the cognoscenti. Maybe there is. I’m enjoying the search myself. But regardless, this one is well known because it is among the most sublime moments in the Dead’s entire performing history. And it happened in the first set. Mind boggling.
11-08-69 Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, CA – Dark Star (14:08)>The Other One (12:05)>Uncle John's Jam (2:34)>Dark Star (3:05)>St. Stephen (7:45)
This is a peel one’s self up off the floor, jazzy Dark Star with a wickedly meandering organ. This “best ever” candidate makes one wonder about the band’s journey from here to its greatly challenged mid-1990s shows. It was of course far from a toboggan ride straight down hill, though the bottom of the hill is where it ended. With gratitude for the happenstance of preserved tape, however, we can shake off that gloomy thought and wallow in this deeply satisfying, multi-tiered sandwich. It is so good it hardly needs explication.
12-05-71 Felt Forum, Madison Square Garden, New York, NY - Dark Star Jam (8:11)>Me & My Uncle (2:49)>Dark Star Jam (12:24)>Sitting On Top Of The World (4:33)
I’m not a fan of the opening Dark Star segment. It doesn’t particularly say anything as it tries find a groove it cannot quiet find. The seque into Me & My Uncle is preceded by furious jamming that barely breaks stride before we hear Weir step to the mike. It is not as if they move intentionally into Me & My Uncle; it just happens. Very, very nice for sandwich connoisseurs. Me & My Uncle wraps with Weir flubbing a few lines then sending us headlong back into the noisy train station where Dark Star had last left us. The tempo slows while the fuel rods are reheated and the capsule prepared to exit the atmosphere, which is what it does. Scary stuff follows. Hints of Me & My Uncle wend through the jamming like a leftover signal, while strange grinding noises (is that static?) work their way forward in the mix. I hear voices murmuring in the background. Maybe it’s the crowd or maybe a poltergeist is in the T.V. again.
6-24-70 Capitol Theater, Port Chester, NY - Dark Star (10:01)>Attics Of My Life (6:31)>Dark Star (6:39)
The transition into a gorgeous Attics of My Life is marked by ringing chords and strumming, after which there is a lovely return to the Dark Star theme and a sweet Tighten Up Jam. The sandwich is garnished by insistent Sugar Magnolia jamming during the segue out of Dark Star.
9-20-90 Madison Square Garden, New York, NY - Dark Star (13:14)>Playin’ Reprise (4:07)>Dark Star (14:44).
This late-period gem is found right where I never expected to find it, the 1990s. I love an orphan Playin’ Reprise, meaning Playin’ in the Band is nowhere to be found. Even better, it seems they reprised it from the night before (MSG 9/19/90), which is just exactly perfect. For a hundred reasons I like most every 1970s Dark Star better than those revived during the GWHB Presidency. Even so, the band’s playing in this period could reach peaks and resonate with depth and color rivaling earlier days. This is one such moment, especially Jerry’s delicate jamming in the short Playin’ bit. The turn back into Dark Star is magical, quiet, and respectful before dissolving into cacophonous space. Though the boys had lost more then a few steps, they could get still get separation when the game was on the line. I rarely travel the country called the 1990s, but when I do I visit this diner where the waitress knows my name.
11-15-71 Austin Municipal Auditorium, Austin, TX - Dark Star (12:55)>El Paso (4:57)>Dark Star Jam (7:49)>Casey Jones (5:57)
This first set treat opens with a moaning, mournful exposition of the Dark Star theme and chord structure, but in a few short minutes quietly dissipates into a jam portending darkness and anxious confusion, taking us into and through the first verse. This is a superlative Dark Star, including the gorgeous transition into El Paso, led by Phil’s bass lines. El Paso ends traditionally and the band goes quiet for a breath after which it leaps into and across some chaotic high-register scales. Maybe the lack of any particular reentry vehicle takes points away from this sandwich, but the towering weirdness of the jam after El Paso rewards my repeated listening, especially beginning at about the 4:00 mark.
10-21-71 Auditorium Theater, Chicago, IL - Dark Star (15:05)>Sitting On Top Of The World (3:23)>Dark Star Reprise (2:12)>Me And Bobby McGee (7:31)
A gentle meandering Dark Star is the first slice of this sandwich. Sweet, tuneful plucking and a dreamy reverie dissolve into discordance and furrowed brows. But from somewhere in the scary forest Sitting On Top Of The World springs to life. The transition is forced, even jarring. The peppy, piano-driven poppy sound isn’t the right resolution of the crisis in which Dark Star had left us. The band tops the sandwich with an ever so short Dark Star reprise that feels tacked-on, an afterthought. The opening 15 minute Dark Star segment is worth the price of admission and more. The whole sandwich, however, is a bit soggy.
12-31-78 Winterland Arena, San Francisco, CA - Dark Star (11:53)>The Other One (4:55)>Dark Star (1:09)>Wharf Rat (11:08)
This is indisputably a fine show, but something feels too obvious, all the way down to the crowd yelling for Dark Star right before it is played. Were they showing off? Playing to the rafters of this venerable arena on its closing night? The hard-edged jamming in and out of The Other One places this performance squarely in 1978. But I would like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony…because this is not the way it should be. Jerry was once asked to talk about Dark Star but he demurred, “I can’t…Dark Star talks about itself”. On this night, the band was uncharacteristically peacocking and only talking about Dark Star.
10-16-89 Meadowlands Arena, East Rutherford, NJ - Dark Star (13:03)>Playin’ in the Band (8:03)>Uncle John’s Band (9:31)>Playin’ in the Band (9:15)>Drums (6:07)>Space (6:14)>I Will Take You Home (4:23)>I Need A Miracle (4:03)>Dark Star (5:22)
1989? Had it been that long (over ten years) since we had had one of these sandwiches? Let’s hope it’s overstuffed! Oh, it is. Well, no points for piling on. The early noodling that generates some suspense, but then the band vaults itself into a sad place where voices are shot and MIDI computer chips turn guitars into synthesized trumpets. Dark Star is a stranger in this land. Is that a glockenspiel I hear? Never mind. Still, Jerry’s playing is mature and subtle. His runs and bends are expertly delicate and surprising. The whole trip, a sandwich within a sandwich and a bummer of a I Will Take You Home>Miracle to boot, displays the Grateful Dead experience in microcosm. The concluding segment of Dark Star is truly beautiful. One wonders if they knew the end was near.
9-26-91 Boston Garden, Boston, MA - Dark Star (13:25)>Saint of Circumstance (6:47)>Eyes of the World (12:53)>Drums (18:42)>Space (2:56)>The Other One (4:30)>Dark Star (6:23)>Attics of My Life (5:48)
Another triple-stuffed Oreo. As the old saying goes, they didn’t lose the game, they just ran out of time. This sandwich has some of the superlatives heard on 9/20/90 but doesn’t work as well. Is it the shock of an orphan Saint of Circumstance or faux transitions that cannot summon the magical seamlessness once there for the asking? Jerry’s distressed voice is inescapably distressing. The Drums>Space segment stretches out to sitcom lengths, as it often did in the 1990s, whether we liked it or not. This sandwich is lacking as so much else was in this time period.