Word: concerting
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...almost forgotten the atmosphere of a Dead concert, but this solicitation brought back the distinctive flavor. Dead Heads--the band's followers--are a unique and dedicated group, with a language and ritual of their own. They see the Grateful Dead as the last bastion of the Sixties' drug culture. Jerry Garcia, the focal personality of the group, presides as a hip, trollish figure who was there and remembers it when it all happened. Garcia generates the energy of the concert, not with sudden dramatic movement, but with a sparkling liquidity, both in his guitar rills and his cool, mirror...
...their current concert tour, the Dead carry on in this tradition. At Springfield they played for nearly three-and-a-half hours, but performed only 19 distinguishable songs. They came out jamming, and this is a good sign. The critical problem for the Dead in the last few years has been the individual emergency of the personalities within the group. That emergence has reached such proportions that the Coop has opened a new record section for their "solo efforts." This divisiveness has turned some of their concerts into a series of songs, each featuring either Bob Weir or Garcia...
...great length of the concert also shows the band's faithfulness to their tradition. Common wisdom has it that they cater to the four- or five-hour peak of an acid trip, and so they did at Springfield. The size and anxiety of the crowd indicated an equally enormous amount of commitment and planning. Thousands stood in line in the rain as early as five o'clock, and many were showing the signs of a "heightened awareness" by then. The gentleman to my left, for example, who had shaved half his head and tied what was left of his hair...
Once inside, however, the crowd was treated to better concert sounds than the Dead has produced in years. The show began with a slow rendition of "Sugaree." Despite its domination by Garcia's guitar and whiny voice, the song serves well as an introduction because of its rousing and familiar refrain. Having warmed the audience, the band used a faster tempo to create unusual versions of "Cassidy" and "Me and My Uncle." The first set roamed through Dead history from the early "Too Too Minglewood Blues" and "It's All Over Now," to a new song that must be called...
...decry the prostitution of countercultural standards becomes tiresome. Perhaps no group of musicians should be severely judged on the basis of its desire to be popular. But the music of the Grateful Dead has clearly suffered by its packaging over the past few years. This concert was by no means a 90-minute platter of hit songs, but there were signs of a mercenary attitude. Although the Dead had played for hours, the crowd's enthusiasm called for a less reluctant encore. In order to avoid performing a second encore Weir stepped up to the microphone and said, "Good night...