Originally I was going to write about the reeling and rockin’ Dark Star that went down at Betty Nelson’s Organic Raspberry Farm on September 2nd, 1968, but there’s not much to tell. The whole show smokes and it’s easily one of my favorites of the year. 1968 is the year of primal Grateful Dead – the juggernaut of a band finding its footing. Those early Stars, replete with Pig’s keys and lots of shaker and guiro, are fantastic and fun. I have to write about Stars that are perhaps off the radar and ones that take chances.

But I decided, at the last minute, since there aren’t many days of September left, to cover this gem of a show from 1991.

Thursday, September 26th was the final night of a spirited run at the Boston Garden, their first trip to the Gah-den in over ten years. The previous night was released as Dick’s Picks #17. It’s a fine show, but 9/26/91 really outshines it in my opinion.

One of the reasons why I love this show so much is because it was the first tape I ever collected. A friend of mine was there as it happened and she wrote me a long letter, where she described it to me – song by song, note by note. I fired off blanks and postage to a friendly trader in the back of Dupree’s Diamond News and in two weeks, I got a crispy AUD of the second set. READ ON for the rest of this month’s Dark Star Stories…

The band opens the second set with a formless “space” (called by other fans of this show as “The Preamble”) that unfolds delicately into the opening notes of Dark Star.

It’s a bouncy and fun Star, not unlike others played in 1991. Vince Welnick plays a retro-sounding leslie organ tone. Bruce Hornsby and Jerry Garcia trade leads and runs. Bob Weir plays his weird chord shapes and licks. Phil Lesh’s bass playing is fat and fluid, and the drummers create the groove. An almost 1972-1974 jazzy mid-tempo – a laid-back kind of vibe is really present here.

Including the little “preamble”, we have about nine minutes of jamming before Jerry sings the first verse. The band is really cooking now and Jerry’s jagged arpeggios dance above everything else, taking the theme of the jam into some interesting places. Listen around the 10 minute mark for an interesting “up and down” phrase that repeats again around 11 minutes as the drummers kick into overdrive, beating the hell out of toms and snares.

Alas, the Star gives way to a hot Saint of Circumstance and a tight Eyes of the World. But all is not lost, in fact, it only gets better.

Space is the place and there are hints and suggestions of Dark Star everywhere. Those of you who skip Drums > Space would do well to give this one a proper listen. There is some truly inspired playing by everyone, but I love the cascading reverb of Jerry’s guitar here. It reminds me of the Seastones>Space jam of October 18th 1974, the weird and murky depths and Garcia’s notes like the pinging of a submarine.

The trip through space has lead us into the lily field for The Other One – it begins with a really strange build-up that finally gains momentum and kicks into (interstellar) overdrive. It’s a brief rendition as far as Other Ones go, but the band has unfinished business – the second verse of Dark Star for instance. The drop into Star never ceases to raise the old goosebumps.

Now here is honestly and truly what makes this Dark Star so special. It’s not the fact that we get both verses on the same night, or that we also get a second set full of Eyes and Other Ones – it’s that this Dark Star actually ends. It doesn’t segue into Morning Dew or Watchtower. Like it began, the spacey jam that opened the set, it unfolds, drifts, implodes quietly into itself. I can’t say enough about Jerry’s playing here. It sounds nothing short of magic. The band slowly and deliberately put the Star to bed – descending on a pillow of glissando notes.

Attics of My Life here is an absolute tear-jerker. The Good Lovin that ends the show is a whole lot of rock and roll fun. But the double encore of Brokedown Palace and And We Bid You Goodnight that sent those folks home into that crisp Autumn night in Boston would become a bittersweet footnote to that Fall tour.

Bobby winked, Phil blew a kiss and Jerry waved after the Grateful Dead’s final performance of We Bid You Goodnight. One month later, Bill Graham, the band’s longtime friend, promoter and mentor, would die in a helicopter crash. The next Dark Star would be played on Halloween night, 1991. Ken Kesey appeared onstage to deliver the eulogy, while the band raged behind him -

“And I thought of one more thing, it’s a little heavy, but that’s what it’s about,
Nobody else reaches across the distance and puts your hands on your shoulders about this shit,
I mean, that’s the way it’s been for a long time, reaching across –
when you guys played Brokendown Palace at that gig,
I knew, Shit, This is the Grateful Dead telling/ me/ about /my son/.
It’s as big a time as it gets and old Bill knew it, you know he knew it, /he knew it/…”

• Grateful Dead: 09/26/1991 SBD AUDIO

Ben Wiser

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