Greetings, and welcome back to the Tapers’ Section, where this week we’ll focus on some magnificent music from the final Fillmore East run in April, 1971, as well as a killer jam from 1977.

Our first selection this week is from the middle night of the five night run in April, 1971, from 4/27/71, with the exceptional Lovelight, in which Pigpen, in his inimitable way, introduces a couple, and seems on the verge of marrying them off. Please note that all three of our Fillmore East 1971 selection this week are from the 4-CD set Ladies and Gentlemen…the Grateful Dead: Fillmore East 1971, so if you want to hear four more hours of this excellent material mixed from the multi-track masters, polish off that gem of an album, or pick up a copy if you don’t have it.

From the very next night, on 4/28/71, we have the jam of Dark Star>St. Stephen>Not Fade Away>GDTRFB>Not Fade Away, with the entirety of the jam featuring former Grateful Dead keyboard player Tom Constanten sitting in for the final time (he’d left the band officially after the January, 1970 shows in Hawaii).

Our last selection from the Fillmore East run is the show-closing jam, plus the encore, from the last ever Grateful Dead concert at the Fillmore East, from 4/29/71. This is commonly referred to as one of the best jams of 1971, and features Alligator>Drums>Jam>GDTRFB>Cold Rain and Snow, Casey Jones, Midnight Hour>We Bid You Goodnight. When we were putting the Ladies and Gentlemen album together in the summer of 2000, we knew this jam, and the previous selection from 4/28/71, had to be on there, and everything else fell into place from there.

Finally this week, to jump ahead exactly six years plus a day, we have the big jam from 4/30/77 at the Palladium (formerly the Academy of Music, site of the great seven-night run in 1972) in New York City. Every night on this Spring Tour of 1977 offered a unique sequence, and this is no exception, featuring St. Stephen>Not Fade Away>Stella Blue>St. Stephen>One More Saturday Night, Terrapin Station.

Be sure to stop back next week as we continue our journey through May with some excellent music from 1972, 1977 and 1978. Lots of good stuff coming up in the month ahead. And as always, feel free to email the address below with any questions or comments about the Tapers’ Section.

David Lemieux
vault@dead.net