The sound is really good here.
Promised,TLEO, El Paso
Wall of Sound in its beginning stages.
Good Old Grateful Dead
It is 1973-what more could anyone want?
Not sure how far I will make it thru this year
but I am sure going to have fun trying.
animated crowd chatter
73 Bird Song!
I was thinking about how I used to get around tour
selling Mexican jewelry to all the pretty sisters
you wanna talk about a job
that was a job
I missed a few opening acts at some of the Stadium shows
but for the most part it was pretty smooth sailing
the only place I ever got told to stop was Greensboro
so I stopped.
Had a friend get a desk appearance ticket
which turned into a warrant
which got him hauled crossed country
on an outstanding warrant.
No fun in that whole deal.
Still i know of folks that got twenty years
for peddling psychedelics
that is really harsh.
I remember being in a locked from the outside situation
being inside and huffing fresh air from under the crack of a door
"Don't know what we got
until its gone"
Phil with some backing vocals along with Weir
So I am watching Gunsmoke the other night
a later version in color
and they have some episode about a short guy
who turns into a WERE-ELEPHANT during the full moon.
I don't know it was so goofy
it kind reminded me of one of Bobby's odd jokes.
Anyway I never found out if Matt Dylan ever showed up
to get it all straightened out.
Mexicali-This tune is tight. It lost something by the 80's
but it is raunchy, rockin' and it is polka time.
Notice how Bob gets plenty of help with the chorus.
DEAL-so this came out on the Garcia first solo album along with Bird Song.
I went and looked that up because sometimes I think about where do certain tunes originate.
LLR-pretty tune this version is Weir only sans Donna
in fact haven't heard anything from DJG this night.
True Story I met a girl at a Rainbow Gathering in Kentucky
Absolutely beautiful Sister, We spent some time together
She left a little early from the Gathering
or I might have asked for a ride.
Got her number and called her
when I got back to N.Y.C
I called (back before cell phones)
Somebody maybe her Mom
tells me, "Oh you haven't heard
she was killed in a car wreck"
That hit me hard.
Tennessee Jed- this is an improbable Dead tune
but if I was so inclined it made for great community dancin'
Again Phil with the backing vocals
Might be Donna as well
Box of Rain-see to me this might be the ultimate GD song
I know Garcia only gets a small solo but I just think all that is embodied by the music is embodied in this tune.
Phil seems to add inflection at so many different points
if you listen to the different version it would be almost impossible to find it sung the same twice.
Also Donna is all Country swagger and down home Sweetness
she really has to track with Phil and where he is putting emphasis
BELIEVE IT IF YOU NEED IT..
Key point in the song, if it wrecks- it is here
this one most certainly does not.
If I had to pick one song to sing with the Heart of Gold band!
"A short time to be there"
P.I.T.B- yes that is the combo right there
except for Bird Song it has been pretty straight ahead 1st set
Love the wha-wha in 73 with G-Set the best example,
They are moving at a pretty good clip
with meltdown potential.
More of Phil's bass in the mix
Weir's rhythm
and Billy
Keith underlying then his piano counterpoint to Garcia & Lesh
My theory with this gig is it is a university hall.
The band plays with a purpose
as in there is a clock on the wall
This jam is BAD-ASS
and HIGH-OCTANE
If you notice they play the DARK STAR>EYES>CHINA DOLL
which was performed as a more extensive version
on 2-15-73 Dane Coliseum.
I am not there yet but it looks like they didn't go as far out with the STAR or the transition from EYES>China Doll.
this is a solid first set
no noodling here

Set Two
How about Wave the Flag to open
Crowd likes it
Me &My Uncle-follow this tune through the years
love the crowd response to equipment malfunction.
In between Set One & Set Two
I went to work.
I am employed at a Kitchen right now
Taking the expression
WILL WORK FOR FOOD,
VERY LITERALLY
I have been waiting all night for
DARK STAR>EYES>CHINA DOLL
Came home and PBS running America & the Holocaust
Talk about heavy, Sickening what demonic people
will do as pawns of the devil against Zion
and the worst part is that many of those
now calling themselves friends of the Palestinians
are pushing for the elimination of Israel from the face of the earth.
I can prophecy from Scripture
"Israel MY glory"
Whoever blesses Israel will be blessed
and whoever curses Israel
will be cursed
That will be human history
until JESUS returns.
2000 years The ALMIGHTY has cast HIS net
and built His Church
But all roads are leading back to Jerusalem.
Read the Book of Revelation
for details on the end of the age of the gentiles.
which is one day closer than it was the day before.

Dark Star-pretty trippy crowd digging on it.
Some space there
Quick transition into EYES
I don't know exactly why
but EYES from 73 & 77 are epic
Listen to the backing vocals during EYES!!!
With Garcia rendering lead vocals and guitar
"Sometimes the songs that we hear
are just songs of our own"

The jam on the back end of EYES is sizzling
Not as heavy on the Stronger than dirt or Slipknot
but they were double timing right into the China Doll drop off

A china doll is a doll
made partially or wholly out of glazed porcelain.
A true ballad in the sense that it has no jam outro
just those beautiful la la la la la la
again the ensemble singing is SWEET CHOIR SWEET!!!


As far as I am concerned like I have said many times about shows from this era. everything after those epic sequences are gravy.

Around & Around-"Kept on Dancin"
Weir gets nice and fired up
watch those vocal cords brother
huck berry tunes played by Garcia-yeah!

GDTRFB- called by Weir
another tune that rocked.hard
I can say I do like the 1985 version for creative segues
but if you want to just dance a hole 1973 just right.

I am going to sign off now and just listen to the end of the night
Keep your lamps trim and burning!

If you torrent from bt.etree, DON'T Seed or Leech anything that's remastered by DFries. He's been remastering several Charlie Miller SBD's and is very critical & disrespectful of him.

A very good show, but not like some from this year.

This show is the source.

I beg to differ with the comments below. The WOS, a fantastic achievement, main WEAKNESS is vocal. This is because the phase cancellation that is used (with two vocal mics), gets you a null-effect in theory, it actually ends up (among other things) rolling off the high frequencies dramatically, and also created other anomalies in the the time domain, and comb-filter effects. What a fantastic PA, in so many ways, but it was the vocals that were the bug-bear (apart from cost, weight, time to set up, and so on!).

Highlights: Eyes Of The World

A flex-a-tone. Maybe Billy, Donna, or a stage hand.


http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/textf/Flex-A-Tone.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNVpDPqckKc

and no one commented on bird song..........
this and the year before at the creamery.
so beautiful so DAMN beautiful..........

This is a well played show with a killer pitb.the darkstar is short but inspired.a strong first set followed by a sweet second set.highly recommended.

...of what the GD sounded like in concert in early 1973.

You just have to understand that this recording is not truly a soundboard. There was no soundboard. What here transpires is a feed from off of the mains that a member of the kwipment krew, or one of the other people backstage, understage or offstage who was assigned, or perhaps not assigned the task of plugging in a two track reel-to-reel or cassette tape recorder into the direct feed. The band adjusted the sound on stage themselves and this, what you are hearing, is what they were hearing.

Sometimes they got quickly in synch on it and other times they thrashed around searching for the sound. Usually by the second set they were in synch.

This representation is a particularly well stage-mixed effort.

Much of the playing and singing is flawless.

Many of the songs (too numerous to describe) are all-time keepers.

All of the previous reviewers of this concert have aptly stated its merits. I am merely commenting as a fan who was privileged enough to attend many Wall of Sound shows. I still don't believe there was anything like it.

I am an admirer of Mayer sound and his P.A. inventions I am aware of the fact that Furthur and other jam band groups, as well as many concert halls employ his systems, but he cannot deny that the W.O.S was superlative.

And I am happy to report that he doesn't. He acknowledges that he cannot duplicate the sound that you now hear. The bellweather in all of this is the clarity of the vocals. No P.A. System has ever duplicated such clarity.

Now I know many of you don't give a shit about the clarity of vocals, or even care about vocals -- you just want to hear Jerry's guitar solos , but the clarity of the vocals is the key to overall P.A. fulfillment.

This recording is the fulfillment of many a forgotten dream of people whom the Grateful Dead's music makes sing.

Agreed, the 10:33 instrument in Dark Star is a saw. I've heard it called "singing saw" before. you can bow it and bring a string across it like used with a violin, or shake/flex it and get this sound instead. The Gans was stumped! Amazing!

my guess is a 'musical' saw. Can't tell if it's bowed or just shaken, though...

one of the first GD tapes I got!

Anybody know how that sound is made (presumably by BK) at 10:33 in Dark Star?

Thanks Charlie for the great work: where'd you find Around x 2? Let's dig up 4 more songs after Playin!
To the previous poster, Chris U. Pigpen passed away on March 8, 1973, just after the Champaign show(s).

My friend Smokingcrateretc's review below is impossible to top in certain respects, but that won't stop me from making a few completely subjective comments

First and foremost, we must bear in mind that this show was performed (and recorded!) less than one week from the 2-15-73 show in Dane County ... and this Illinois show is vastly inferior overall ... but not all bad.

This is the Dead after the Europe 72 3LP is released, where they spread their musical balls on the table. Pigpen is dead. The Wall of Sound is growing. 'Eyes of the World' has been written.

That said, what is most interesting to me about this show is how uninteresting it is compared to other shows from this time period. It's not that the band isn't into playing but there is no forward progress here. It is a Dead show. Cool. It could be worse. But it could be a whole lot better. Like a week earlier, in Dane County.

Vibratory passions dancing amid Jerry's guitar... I can't say much. The porous sound flows, each minute slowing enough to ripple and give a fleeting glimpse of all it is as change- the dynamics of an ever-changing universe. Brahman's hand thrust forth through nature touching each soul with a hand of light we are shining as... can I feel what is sound, hear what is seen? My senses are delusions, the sound is deceit. I'm removed from myself when I here such passion coming through... because beauty has no form. Here its shaping. Seven voices become one, and then truth comes forth in its silent voice. Here the day, the Dead. The music of eternity. It lasts as long as this song (Dark Star). The wave ebbs... It returns. All these transitive passions... they are holistic, they come together, greater than they could have been in all their moments. The Dead have raised high, and transcended, all form; they utilized the unvirse's dynamics in the way of all radiance- through a medium through which all is, is the abounding sounds of a joyous venture from which the sweetness of a flowing soul can run free. Yet Dark Star is omnipresent also, vacant yet inhabiatble. They return to this form quite often... I here it again and again. The ghost of truth is haunting. Look beyond the Dead, see that beauty from which they shone. See the people you are among, and the day radiant from their faces. The dynamics of an ever-chanching universe are terpischorean. Your movements are its dance. All are as one- swift, united, harmonizing beauty to send it forth into eternal day. Can you hear the Dead shine upon this? This form is no ghost, though just as transitive. The emboidemnt they fulfill in '73 is bliss-inducing transcendence, arising from the form of truth to shine its musical rays dancing in a thousnad ways as one. Like us :). Beauty, together in a thousnad movements and single dance greater than those thousand movements through which it is. The day, the week; the eternal. The child, the adult; the beauty forever among them. The Phil Lesh bass, the Bob Weir guitar; the voice of one great truth, arising from the songs they produce. Here it comes as it goes; perhaps this epitomizes not just '73, but the truth of all beauty- the holism of all beauty, the voice of one truth speaking through all. I feel it; its vibratory. Its a thousand rays upon a single lotus, and harmony shows that beauty is one

This show is a gem i stumbled on it while looking for something else but i took a look at the set-list i said hmmmmmm interesting and proceeded to listen while searching for a long lost show but i digress this show is great it must have been a real treat for the good folks of Illinois that night in 73 it's got just about everything a dead head would want in a show and a special kudos to mr Miller for the work he put in makin it sound great too!

This Playin' Is. Nothing more can be said for what it is because it simply Is. Give it a listen and you too will also see that it simply Is.

Thanks for the cleaned up recording, Charlie.