First Live “Terrapin” and Estimated” Highlight Grateful Dead -Dave’s Picks,  Volume 29: Swing Auditorium, San Bernardino, CA 2/26/77 (ALBUM REVIEW)

Dave’s Picks,  Volume 29 – Swing Auditorium, San Bernardino, CA – 2/26/77  is not trumpeted as one of the famed ‘Betty Boards.’ And, in fact, in his essay to this release, David Lemieux, the keeper of the Grateful Dead vault and namesake of this archive series, doesn’t make even passing reference to its source. But the supreme audio quality of the recordings is as much of a defining attribute of the title as its historical significance in the career arc of this iconic band.

Reaffirming a recurring theme of recent Dave’s Picks, these forty-plus-year-old shows document how, in this second phase of post-hiatus work, the Grateful Dead were drawing on their history as a band to re-ignite their chemistry in new and different ways. Drummer Mickey Hart, who had rejoined the group on the final night of their pre-layoff Winterland shows in 1974, was now fully ensconced again as Bill Kreutzmann’s percussion partner and the once and future Rhythm Devils make their presence felt even without any “Drums”/”Space” segment that would eventually become de rigeur in the more stylized concerts of the band in the very near future.

The two drummers are prominent (if understatedly so) on openhanded explorations such as the one on “Playing in the Band,” rendering all the more sublime a pinpoint transition into and out of  “The Wheel.” And, in exploring the nooks and crannies of expansive material. Kreutzmann and Hart left room for each other during segues like those “Help On The Way” to “Slipknot!” to “Franklin’s Tower.”  As did pianist Keith Godchaux and idiosyncratic rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, like all their bandmates, maintaining an awareness of each other that is a direct reflection of the realism in Cantor-Jackson’s recordings: in preserving all those spaces in the sound, the woman kept in mind how each distinct voice and instrument is as important as the overall mix.

The growing momentum of post-hiatus shows of 1976 and 1977–of which this primary performance, Swing Auditorium, was the first–went on to include a momentous spring tour, the epic likes of which were not necessarily relegated exclusively to Cornell ’77. Nor was the epochal necessarily limited to the stage: within a roughly coincidental interim,  the Dead recorded their first Arista Records album, Terrapin Station, the title song of which the band chose to open with ( this very night also introducing to the stage another cull from the Keith Olsen-produced record, the Bob Weir-John Barlow authored  “Estimated Prophet”).

Suffice to say the performance is ambitious, but, as was so often the case with the Grateful Dead, the challenge(s) of adventure brought out their best (see also Fillmore West 1969). Not only is the setlist proper well-executed, but the inclusion of an extra three numbers from the next night in Sara Barbara, besides optimizing the value of the three-CD package, not only act as a de facto second encore for the otherwise complete 2/26/77 show (in addition to the formal closing “U.S. Blues”), they are indicative of the breadth of material the group was drawing upon.

An ebullient “Sugar Magnolia” offsets the doleful yet bracing likes of “Morning Dew,” while Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B.Goode” stands as a nod to roots as astute as a concession to the styles of the times in the form of the disco-inflections of “Dancing in the Streets.” Next to that dutiful observation in one of the concert reviews reproduced on the fold-out insert (instead of the more user-friendly booklet), there’s also a fairly lengthy treatise on the evolution of the Grateful Dead that, detailed and largely correct as displayed its black and white formatting (contrasting the usual colorful cover art), fully corroborates the implicit message of Dave’s Volume 29, that is, the justifiably elevated stature to which  these musicians had risen, not just at this transitional phase but within rock history at large.

Related Content

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

New to Glide

Keep up-to-date with Glide

Twitter