Posts Tagged ‘Bob Weir’

Test of the Boomerang: Soundchecks, Rehearsals and Outtakes, Part Three

The 2009 Dead made their last stand on July 4th at Rothbury. The second year of the Michigan festival was a rousing success and the Dead’s solid show was a definite highlight. While the band got off to a shaky start on their spring tour, they proved their mettle beneath the Independence Day sky rockets.

Now if there was only a fall tour to start getting fired up about.

You can get the boards of the Rothbury show at dead.net and you find several excellent audience recordings on Etree.

Today we’re looking at some rehearsals and soundchecks from the ’90s, but I do have some pretty remarkable recordings of Jerry Garcia in the studio from 1969 for your downloading pleasure. Enjoy.

Sherman, set the wayback machine for September 1990. (more…)

Test of the Boomerang: Soundchecks, Rehearsals and Outtakes, Part Two

The Dead wrapped up their 2009 tour with two solid shows back home at Shoreline Amphitheater and then an end-of-the-tour barn burner at The Gorge in Washington. The tour started a little ragged back in April, but after the band worked out the kinks, they appeared to be in fine form. Each night of the tour featured a “dream show”-worthy setlist and made me almost nostalgic for an old school predictable setlist – devoid of such treats as “Viola Lee Blues” and “New Potato Caboose.”

All kidding aside, Warren Haynes has proven himself to be truly the hardest working man in show business. He became the nucleus of this new Dead machine, and his playing could be gently delicate in an “ice petals revolving” kind of way one moment and then full-on warp-drive ferocity the next. Also Jeff Chimenti proved himself night after night sitting at the keys. His tasteful, crystalline playing was spot-on. Hope he’s got good life insurance.

You can get soundboard recordings of the tour from Dead.net and finally the “core four” have allowed the Live Music Archive to host Audience recordings of concerts from the 2003-2004 incarnations of The Dead as well as the Barack Obama benefits last year. There are some sweet sounding AUDS out there and its fun to have access to those ‘03 and ‘04 shows with Jimmy Herring and Joan Obsourne.

Perhaps one day some soundchecks and rehearsal tapes will also surface, but for now, let’s look at the following bits of archaic lore… (more…)

Test of the Boomerang: Soundchecks, Rehearsals and Outtakes, Part One

The Grateful Dead collection at the Live Music Archive contains not only thousands of Grateful Dead concerts, it also holds a good number of band rehearsal, soundcheck, and studio session recordings. As the latest incarnation of The Dead kick off their 2009 tour, I wanted to take a look at some of these hidden gems.

Today we’re looking at a couple soundcheck jams from the ’90s, and a rehearsal from 1976. In future installments we’ll look at some of Keith Godchaux’s first rehearsals with the band, some more backstage antics in the later days, and a look at what studio outtakes are still in taper circulation, ie: the stuff Rhino left off the studio album reissues.

March 17th, 1995, The Spectrum, Philadelphia
Of course by now, virtually no stone has been left unturned in the Dead’s back catalog. Between Phil Lesh and Friends, Ratdog, and Mickey and Billy’s various projects, we’re pretty far removed from the days when rumors of “they soundchecked ‘St. Stephen’!” ran like wildfire over motel payphones, archaic BBS systems or in actual Grateful Dead fanzines.

When the Grateful Dead had settled into a fairly rigid template for songs and sets, any deviation from the formula or “break out” of an old tune was cause for much celebration and a renewed enthusiasm within the group-mind of band and audience. The best-known example of this is the great Hampton Coliseum ‘Dark Star’ breakout of 1989. The band’s signature psychedelic showcase had fallen in and out of the repertoire since the 1970s and was back in rotation throughout the early 1990s.

But while fan favorites like “St. Stephen” and “Cosmic Charlie*” never reappeared, in the otherwise bleak year of 1995, the Grateful Dead did blow collective minds when they broke out “Unbroken Chain” at the Philadelphia Spectrum on March 19th.

“Unbroken Chain” originally appeared on the band’s 1974 sleeper From the Mars Hotel — a proggy Phil Lesh composition with lyrics by his longtime collaborator Robert M. Petersen. The song was one of the handful of songs on the album that were never performed live. It’s a complex tune filled with unusual chords, myriad changes and a funky, funky bridge.

This remarkable tape recorded two days prior to showtime illustrates Phil’s enthusiasm and intensity for teaching his bandmates the material. He even uncharacteristically bitches out a roadie at one point. Even Jerry is on-board and enthusiastic about breaking out this long, lost gem. (more…)

Test of the Boomerang: Mostly Free Music

Free Phil!

Phil Lesh has just released a free Soundboard recording of the Phil Lesh and Friends concert at the Warfield in San Francisco, May 13th of this year. That was the first night of the run to close out the historic theater before being renovated and re-opened by new management. Fitting, since so many historic Dead and Dead family shows went down in that beautiful place. Myself, I saw everybody from Sonic Youth to The Allman Brothers there.

May 13th was the night that the band played the first two Grateful Dead albums in their entirety – 1967’s self-titled debut and 1968’s Anthem of the Sun. Bob Weir sat in that night as well for vocals and some serious jamming. A fantastic night of music and it’s all available here! (more…)