The greatest St Stephen of all time. The whole show is unreal, but especially the St Stephen

Notable as the first show at the fabled Fillmore East, Graham's business expansion and experiment (that first required mafia blessing). They had, however, played here before he rebuilt it as the Fill E. The house sound was a few years ahead of its time and gave an experience that drew in the New Yawkas for a schedule thick with the best live bands of the day. Technically the 1st show here was the early show, but it's unfortunately lost. It was known for two things: the American premiere of Rod the Mod, and for the Jeff Beck Group blowing away their openers, the Dead. Recollections even from the early NYC Deadheads are of Jeff Beck being so hot with Rod on vox (hiding out of the spotlight), that there was a rare standing ovation. Then for the late show, the Dead went on after Beck, giving a much better set – heard here. Beck was then more famous than Rod, so people were chuffed by the singer in the dark with the gravelly voice that set the roof on fire. BTW, Ron Wood played bass in Beck's band, not rhythm/lead. 1st hand accounts have more or less concurred that the Dead's early set was:
Morning Dew
Cryptical>The Other One>Cryptical
New Potato Caboose
Good Morning Schoolgirl

We'll never hear the set, but the late show is historical as the first extant Fillmore East recording. This has the first St. Stephen - that we know of, since there are missing set lists and floating show frags. The late show is:
Dark Star>Feedback>The Eleven>St. Stephen
Alligator>Lovelight>Caution
We're missing what was a brief, early-style Dark Star; the shorter arrangement, before it went into St. Stephen – in fact The Eleven goes into Stephen! The 7" version of Dark Star had been released a couple months earlier but was probably not easily available in NYC, given how rare it has been in the area (nor was it likely played on regional radio). The taper said they recorded Dark Star on one side of a tape, and when the band wound down to a quiet section before Feedback they flipped the tape, but somehow the first side was lost. We do have 6 of the 7 songs and over an hour of the set, with the last half hour OFFicially released (but apparently the missing Dark Star isn't in the vault – see Jim F, below). For the punters it would have been unusually loud and clear compared to other bands/venues, and for those that had bought the Dead's lone album there were no recognizable songs. The two shows from the next night are missing from circ. Those sets were probably similar, but attendees have said the boys played better on the 15th (they were added to the bill after tickets were printed). There is also a 1-month gap from the previous circulating show. Perhaps only '68 diehards will overlook the quality (though it's just dandy for a '68 AUD).

Feedback is an astonishing segue, really, and must have blown some minds ... and ears! [It's extremely unlikely this was the show opener]. The Eleven is typical of the period but the playing is certainly there on this proto St. Stephen. It's crazier as it goes, and unusual – compare to the next one we have (8/21), which uses the same arrangement but is not jammed out. Alligator is brief but clearly effective, because from this moment on there was always somebody in the back of the FillE shouting "Alligator!". Love Light is uptempo, with some nice moments. Caution is a set suite, and counting it @29min, is there a longer one? It's quite the journey, but there's a lot of comping.
Overall = 3 stars

Highlights:
St. Stephen - insane early version; though the whole set is worth hearing

SOURCES: Thanx to T. Dalton/Miller/Mick E./Vernon, there's finally an improved copy (140953_late_aud), with balance and EQ fixes. The last half of the set (starting @10:45 in Lovelight) is on the Fillmore West 1969 bonus disc.

It's a shame we don't know anything about setlists from this time, I wonder how common some of these song combinations were that Summer. It seems like they were trying to figure out the best way to configure the Live/Dead suite, which was pretty much set by late August, and this was the tooling phase. This was a big gig for them so surely some kind of planning went into the sets, I can't imagine they winged this one. I'm in agreement that we're missing a Dark Star here, but likely a relatively short one, which makes it ending in feedback even stranger. I almost wonder if it was just a stall due to some inevitable technical problem or something, especially coming after the opening song of a set. It's too hard to tell from this tape if anything like that was going on, but it's a theory of mine. Or maybe they just wanted to seriously Blow Some Minds and configured a set that they thought would kill, we'll never know.

Somehow The Eleven flows out of it organically, the next oddity. It's not really a song one can begin from a cold start, yet somehow I guess they sort of do. It's a merry old version, aren't they all. Inversions continue with St Stephen and it's an important one in relation to its evolution, its more like the ones from the "Mystery 68" reels, it's different when it reappears in August. Very tight, St Stephen is one of few songs that seemed to get harder to play when they played it slower, here it rocks without a hiccup. They do more weird shit putting Lovelight in the middle of Alligator>Caution, never done again that we know of, or that I know of anyway. The Caution kind of doesn't really deliver what I would think a 30 minute Caution would deliver for me, I agree there is a bit of comping, but it still has some powerful moments and kicks serious ass.

While this aud has been cleaned up astonishingly well to a state that I adjust to surprisingly quickly - and it's a miracle we have this tape - I definitely opt to switch to the SBD for the Caution over any aud charm for clarity purposes. The distortion was definitely reduced but is still an issue. I think Lemieux might have said they only had one reel for this show, I also wonder how much more is on it. I'd think if even just Lovelight was complete he'd have figured out a way to get it onto that bonus disc. If it's assumed to be a two track reel, there should potentially be more, but I would doubt anything before Lovelight exists. It's still a hope of mine though, even if it's just Alligator>Lovelight. Either way, even without the context of being alive and around at the time, I can see how New York was never the same after this show.

um what mind wondrin-wrote
If the vocals were crisper this would easily be a 5.
Historically a 5 for location ,location, location.
and "BURN OFF BOTH YOUR EARS"
does come to mind for the lysergic jams..
PIG is not slack on that Harp during Caution reprise.