Published on Jan 27, 2003
It’s 1974, one month before the Grateful Dead are to take their
self-imposed hiatus from touring, and they sound tired.
Sure, it’s probably because they’re thousands of miles from
home, playing at Alexandra Palace in London. But these shows – at
least the portions captured on
Dick’s Picks Volume Seven – make it sound like Jerry Garcia
and crew weren’t always totally into these performances.
The phrase I’ve used time and time again for many groups is
“going through the motions” – and while there is no doubt that the
Dead could light things up even when they could play the material
in their sleep, overall the sound is a bit lazy. It doesn’t sound
quite like Garcia is into “Scarlet Begonias” – which was on their
latest album at the time, though there are some occasional squawks
from the “Wall Of Sound” which make one wonder how much the overall
audio may have contributed to this. This weak sound quality almost
totally derails an otherwise charmingly spacy “Dark Star” – I
almost blew out my speakers turning my stereo up just to hear the
first (and only) verse!
Now, I’ll admit that the choice of tracks for this three-CD set
doesn’t always reflect what I thought was their best material. I’ve
never been a fan of “Mississippi Half-Step Uptown Toodeloo” or
“Weather Report Suite” — for that matter, I’ve written off
Wake Of The Flood for the most part. But even some of the
classic material takes a bit of a hit on this set. Bob Weir seems
to speed through “Mexicali Blues,” while “Black Throated Wind”
never really gets any air blown into its sails. The extended
“Playing In The Band” does shine, even though Donna Godchaux shows
again that she really didn’t add much to the Dead.
Even in the worst cases, the Dead can find diamonds in the
rough, and
Dick’s Picks Volume Seven has enough of those to make
plowing through over three hours’ worth of music worthwhile.
“Brown-Eyed Women” still has the snap that it did when it first
came to people’s attention on
Europe ’72, while the suite of “Truckin’,” “Wood Green Jam”
and “Wharf Rat” — the last surprising me, since it’s also not one
of my favorites — nearly causing the speakers to self-ignite. The
“Not Fade Away” rhythm line also crackles with electricity, as does
the encore performance of “U.S. Blues.”
So what makes this compilation a must-own for the Deadheads?
Truth is, I don’t know — though I’d venture that the 24-minute
“Dark Star” will have people tripping out in ecstasy.
Dick’s Picks Volume Seven reminds me a lot of
Steal Your Face, which captured the last shows in this 1974
run — and it makes me think that this release is somewhat
incorrectly seen as being poor. The London shows seem to match
Steal Your Face in sound and energy quality — stoking the
fire of belief that the Dead, indeed, needed a breather.