2-25-1993 - Jerry Garcia Band

This started as a tweet. I wanted to review tapes and make a thread about them. However, the amount of explanation and sidebars that a proper discussion would warrant just wouldn't fit on twitter. It's the wrong format.

However, I'm gonna have to learn how to write. Like, really write. And I hadn't considered the enormity of that until right now. 

So this will probably suck for awhile. Sorry.

First tape I want to review is this Jerry Garcia Band tape from 2-25-1993, Set 2. I'm fascinated with 1993 for the Grateful Dead (more on that some other time), but I'm unfamiliar with this year for JGB. I'm eager to delve in. 

I wonder how the taper got his microphone & tape deck inside. The closeness of the voices in the tape put me right in the audience. It's a bit muffled too. I can feel the edges of the Warfield Theatre, the intimacy of the show. Occasionally I'll hear a nearby "woo!" or "Jerry!". It takes a minute to get used to the sound quality, but overall it's a good audience tape, with no warbling and little hiss.

Jerry's guitar sounds great. John Kahn's bass is a bit muffled. Same for Melvin Seals's organ. I've always suspected that deadheads preferred audience tapes over soundboard tapes because of how audience tapes nullify the ear-splitting (not quite, but an acquired taste for sure) tone of Brent's keyboards. However, with Melvin, it just makes his gorgeous organ playing blend into the bass. 

David Kemper sounds clear on the drum kit, and Jacklyn LaBranch and Gloria Jones sound great, as always, on backing vocals.

Jer opens the set with Earth, Wind & Fire's "Shining Star". A good "Shining Star" from JGB feels like gently floating in space, surrounded by twinkling stars. Jerry belts the chorus with extra "oomph" at about 11 minutes, much to the approval of the crowd. However, the best part immediately follows when the Warfield crowd begins singing the chorus without Jerry - which almost never happens at Dead shows. The Grateful Dead were never a "crowd take the mic" band, and I'm not sure Jerry was either. I think Jerry was having mic issues. That's more plausible, to me. Even the crowd seems unsure at first, before confidently taking a second chorus from Jerry.

Jerry comes back in with "don't you go away!" and the audience loves every bit of it. That's the joy of these audience tapes - a good crowd roar will take the listener's emotions with them. Overall, it's a pretty good "Shining Star"!

I enjoy the next song, "Eyes of the Maker", but it's not a great fit after an already-glacial Shining Star. It's beautiful, but much more of the same from the band. The audience is getting restless, and you can hear them calling for songs afterward. Jerry obliges with another classic - Sam Cooke's "Wonderful World". Jerry doesn't know much geomgragphy but knows the crowd loves this song. We have upgraded from slow tempo to semi-slow tempo. 

 Finally, a groove - "Ain't No Bread in the Breadbox" by Norton Buffalo. I had no idea it was a 1991 song, it always felt decades older. I can imagine the spinners in the Warfield balcony, finally getting their rotations in.  

 !!!Side A Filler!!!

There is some really good filler on here. Filler, for the uninitiated, is when the creator of the tape uses the remaining tape minutes (that's not long enough for the next song) for a completely different song from a different era. To me, this is pure dessert, it's the whipped cream and the cherry on top.

On this Jerry Garcia Band tape from 1993, the taper has treated me with... a "Caution (Do Not Stop On The Tracks)" jam from the late 60s! I think that's what it is. I'm not as strong with the late 60s, but the sudden pivot into a hard-driving Pigpen-led jam is always a welcome diversion from a sleepy JGB show. As the Jam reaches a frenzy, the tape runs out of minutes and delivers a satisfying KA-CHUNK to end Side A

Side B begins with "Lucky Old Sun", and my god if it isn't interminably slow. Any energy that the show had with "Breadbox" is immediately killed. Don't get me wrong - these performances are beautiful - but if you came to the Warfield on 2-25-93 expecting to shake your bones in the second set, you'd be a little disappointed. Not entirely, however, as Jerry and Melvin trade solos, and we get to hear Melvin go completely ham on the Hammond.  

As a reward for my patience, a bouncing "Midnight Moonlight" to end the show. I've always liked "Midnight Moonlight", because Melvin does this choppy-style playing on his organ, and there's no exception here. Always a good time.

!!!Side B Filler!!!

It's just a selection from the show 2 nights later, on 2-27-93. Comes in at the end of "I Shall Be Released", and we get a ponderous "Mission in the Rain". I love Mission. I don't know why the Dead stopped doing it in '76, it's such a pretty song - and still better than a lot of their output that DID get heavy rotation. And of course, the lyric about the rain in San Francisco gets a BIG reaction from the Bay Area crowd. 

I had to tell myself not to skip the last song on the tape. I don't like Jerry's "Simple Twist of Fate". The crowd's not into it either - small conversations are beginning to appear in the recording, the only time this happens on the tape. Clearly, "Mission" was the reason the taper selected this show as the Side B filler. 

Generally I wish this tape had more upbeat songs. "Breadbox" and "Midnight Moonlight" were fun, but the show kinda dragged. The Side A filler was the best part. Audio quality was good. Appreciate the taper filling the entire tape with music.