Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks, Volume 13
Date: May 6, 1981
Place: Nassau Coliseum
Set List:
DISC ONE: Alabama Getaway>Greatest Story Ever Told, They Love Each Other, Cassidy, Jack a Roe, Little Red Rooster, Dire Wolf, Looks Like Rain, Big Railroad Blues, Let it Grow>Deal.
DISC TWO: New Minglewood Blues, High Time>Lost Sailor>Saint of Circumstance.
DISC THREE: He's Gone>Caution/Spanish Jam>Drums>Jam>The Other One>Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad>Wharf Rat>Good Lovin', Don't Ease Me In.
Chronology: A year after the official release Go to Heaven in 1980. It would be 6 years before the Dead released another studio album, In the Dark. The Jerry Garcia Band would put out the weak Run for the Roses in 1982, but this is an era where the Dead concentrated on live shows. The official release Dead Set reconfirms just how well they were playing at this time.
Surprises: Greatest Story Ever Told, They Love Each Other, High Time, Caution/Spanish Jam, The Other One.
Stupid Rock Critic Myths Shattered: The band is dumb and lazy.
Performance: Consistent with the minimal low points not being worthy of mention.
Phil Lesh is probably rock's most emotive bass player. On the Bob Weir/John Barlow penned "Lost Sailor>Saint of Circumstance", here on Disc Two, Lesh alternates swift, short bar changes in tempo against slow, free floating sustained notes. Bob Weir's voice floats against a quietly moving background, lost in the sound and drifting among almost hidden structure points. Percussion is lightly stated. Rhythm guitars are so subtle that Garcia startles you when he launches into his first solo. Different versions of this song play out in different ways. In this particular version the sailor's predicament about landing ashore has no resolution. Lesh keeps the ocean wash going even against the brief excursion on land. This sailor has no moorings. Uneasiness is sustained. The only time the band gets together and burns is when the sailor breaks the landlubber hypnosis and sets sail. Possibly this tale is about flight from responsibility, maybe even depiction of psychosis. I don't know. Expectation as a preferred mode of existence, more important than destination? Expectation/flight as goal? The band moves together as the sails are raised, Garcia unleashing a flurry of notes that sound like five guitar players riffing around each other; pushing forward, Garcia scatters squealing seagulls in his wake, and Lesh charges forward, doesn't look back until high sea yields protection, and the lulling sound of lapping waves are allowed to resume. "Sailor>Saint of Circumstance" is an academic musical invention. Many of Weir's song structures are purposely loose, cannily giving the band room to work this kind of magic. But the academy resides in Lesh's sense of musical form. It's there on the tone he displays on the thunderous versions of "Looks Like Rain" and "Let it Grow." In simpler form, the academy is present in Lesh's braggadocio and brutality on "New Minglewood Blues," the chicken-strutting goofiness of "Little Red Rooster" and the wide-eyed gothic psychedelia of "The Other One." This is a great Lesh album, the recording does him justice - and if you are a Leshhead, this is a good one.
Of course, a whole record of music from the academy would make this a less compelling effort. The strength of Dick's Picks, Volume 13 is in the variety of successful playing styles sliding into each other effortlessly. The academic Dead are here, but so are the good old Grateful Dead. There's a beautiful, aching rendition of "High Time." Garcia rings Pigpen's bell on a well-placed single note on a moving "He's Gone." A welcome "They Love Each Other" contains some unbelievably delicate rhythm and lead work (the band plays sweet all around this ode to complete devotion, and Garcia baby-talks on guitar). The harmonies are strong throughout which helps nice versions of "Don't Ease Me In," "Dire Wolf" and "Deal." "Little Red Rooster" is the best version I've ever heard: barnyard glory has never been this vivid: you can smell the hay.
Always a delicate point, "Drums" is great. Loud, soft, slow, fast, techno boom to bone rattles, it's an entertaining running, jumping, standing still celebration.
A personal favorite is "Caution/Spanish Jam." Lesh smudges a blanket of notes beneath a spooky phantasmagoria that leads to an uncertain space where it's hard to tell who is playing what. Brent interjects startling rolling keyboard riffs that run the voodoo down like he's trying to recreate Bitches Brew. Entering the "Spanish" phase the band gets so visually contrapuntal, it's more like watching a beautiful girl dancing, then listening to a band perform. And on "Looks LIke Rain" and "Let it Grow:" there are times when Lesh steps up side by side to Garcia, and they seem to contemplate the musical universe together, lordly Gods of creation.
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