Grateful Dead

PLAYLIST: A Beginner's Guide to Grateful Dead Live Vol. 3

Hey, this is Rich Mahan. I'm the co-host of the Good Ol' Grateful Deadcast, and these are my five picks for the Beginner's Guide to the Grateful Dead Live. It's hard to pick five, but these are the five.

“Hard to Handle” - Live at the Hollywood Palladium, Hollywood, CA, 8/6/71

All right, pick number one is August 6, 1971, Hollywood Palladium. It's “Hard to Handle.” Just a great time for the Grateful Dead, the middle of Summer '71. It was back down to the quintessential quintet: Mickey had stepped away from the band, and Keith hadn't joined yet, so it was just the original five guys. It was Jerry, Bobby, Phil, Billy, and Pigpen, and they're in fine form on this show. But this track, “Hard to Handle,” that Pigpen sings is on Phil's compilation CD called Fallout from the Phil Zone, you can find it there. This came to me on a cassette and it was mislabeled February 13th, 1970, Fillmore East. And I could never see how the set lists were matching up that I could find and everything. And so I finally figured out this was that Hollywood Palladium show.

And this version of “Hard to Handle” is my favorite one out of all of them I’ve heard because there's this jam in the middle that gets away from the regular form of the song. You can hear it in the versions leading up to this that they were playing around with it, not everybody got on board. This night, August 6, 1971, everybody was on board. And everybody's playing during the jam just so on point. It's uncanny.

It starts out with Bob taking a solo, and Bob takes a great solo. It's awesome. And then Jerry takes over and it just lifts, you can feel the lift. You wish you were in the room there experiencing it. And then it goes to the change and really fun Phil's on fire by the way. I can see why Phil would pick this for the Fallout From the Phil Zone CD because his tone is fantastic and his playing is just so on point and driving the song really in a lot of ways.

But then they get back to the tonic and it builds and it builds and it just releases one more time. They go through that secondary change four more times. And then it climaxes on the five chord, which is the chord right before resolution, right? And they're just, bam, it's one of those energy moments. Ba-da-la-bam-ba-da-la-bum-bum-bam! And they drop right back down in the groove and you hear everybody in the crowd simultaneously started clapping eighth notes completely in sync all at once. It's just uncanny. And they sing the last verse, take it out and end it, and the place is just going nuts. And Pigpen, you can tell he's stoked. He's like, "Thank you." It's real heartfelt. But man, what a jam. And if that doesn't hook you, I don't know what does.

“Feel Like A Stranger” - Live at Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, CA, 10/4/80 >  “Franklin's Tower” - Live at Radio City Music Hall, New York, NY, 10/25/80

All right, picks two and three are off of Dead Set, the live album recorded at both the Warfield in San Francisco and Radio City Music Hall in New York City in October of 1980.

And it's one of those great Dead segues, even if it turns out that it was an edit. It's “Feels Like a Stranger” into “Franklin's Tower.” And I later found out, I didn't know, of course, when I had the record and was loving it, but... “Feels Like a Stranger” was recorded in San Francisco in early October of 1980, and “Franklin's Tower” was recorded at Radio City Music Hall at the end of October. So it is an edit, but it's a fantastic edit.

And just the way it goes from one song into the next perfectly in time, it's like they're made for each other, these two songs. “Feels Like a Stranger" features some amazing synth playing and riffs from Brent Midland, who hadn't been with the band for that long. He's still the new guy, certainly. And Jerry's use of the Mutron envelope filter is so very Jerry, and that bwop sound that we all love. And then going into “Franklin's Tower,” it's just everybody's everyman song, Grateful Dead song.

When you're getting into them and you hear that one, you just are able to understand it and pick it up and love it right away. “Roll Away the Dew” is just, it's easy to sing along to. Those two songs together and the way that they flow into each other and the jams in both of them, it's just top-notch Grateful Dead.

“One More Saturday Night” - Live at The Lyceum Theatre, London, England, 5/26/72

My fourth pick is from Europe '72. It is “One More Saturday Night” from May 26 at the Lyceum Theater in London, England. It's that Bob Weir straight up classic rocker. He wrote this one all by himself and he pretty much... This is the textbook version of it. This is the one. It's just on fire.

Everybody's playing so great, so inspired. You can tell they were having a great night. In fact, May 26th for Europe '72, it gave more songs to the album than any other night of the tour. And Keith Godchaux’s piano playing on this one is nothing short of textbook rock and roll perfection. It just is. It's so good in the jam. It's just... It's everything you want a rock and roll piano player to be. Straight up Good Ol’ Grateful Dead.

“U.S. Blues” - Live at Winterland, San Francisco, CA, 10/18/74

You know, I think everybody looks back and when you fall in love with the Grateful Dead, you're like, "Oh, I wish I could have seen them at Fillmore East". Or "I wish I could have seen them at Alpine Valley or the Fillmore back in the day, you know, in San Francisco." One of those places has to be Winterland, right? In San Francisco. It's just a classic rock hall.

There's a great shot of The Who playing there from behind the stage, and Pete Townsend is throwing his Les Paul in the air, and it's 30 feet in the air, and people in the audience are looking up at it like, oh my God, it's just, what a killer venue.

Well, The Grateful Dead in October of '74 played a series of shows at Winterland that were their farewell shows. They were going to take a break, who knows how long, and they filmed it for The Grateful Dead Movie. And, you know, when I was getting into the Dead, there wasn't the Internet. You couldn't go to YouTube. You couldn't watch endless Grateful Dead videos like we can now. It's golden, golden age for that. So we had The Grateful Dead Movie and at a party at a friend's house, Billy Burke's house. It was on TV because it was on VHS tape.

And it came on that there's this guy standing in front of the stage, right on the stage. He's got his hands on the front of the stage, he's wearing overalls. He's got the biggest, most genuine smile on his face you've ever seen in your life. And he's just bopping out to “U.S. Blues.” And I said, "Wow, that's such a cool song. It's just got such a great, happy feel to it." And then you saw how this guy was reacting to it. And you're like, "I want to feel that." You can just tell he's enjoying it so much. And I want that. And that's what the Grateful Dead gave me. And I think that's what they gave everybody.

And that's why everybody loves the Grateful Dead. Anybody who has any taste, am I right? Anyway, this version of “U.S. Blues” is so sprightly. And Jerry plays so great and so simply in the solo. It's just eloquent. It's beautiful. And it was just another thing that hooked me and made me fall in love with the Grateful Dead. So “U.S. Blues” off The Grateful Dead Movie Soundtrack. That's my fifth pick.