This is a much-expanded revision of highlights from this show.
The bizarre soundboard mix of this late ’72 Dead tape reduces the band to a trio of Garcia, Weir, and Lesh. Drums and keyboards are almost totally absent. Vocals are very faint, nearly silent in one channel.
The channel mix changes over the course of the show. At some times, all that’s in one channel is Garcia’s guitar. At others, it’s Garcia and Weir’s guitars, alone together. Crazy, frustrating, sound board mixes abound in late ’72 – which is tragic – but this 11/12/72 Kansas tape is a beautiful gift.
Garcia can create an entire, mesmerizing musical narrative all by himself. You know that the rest of the band is laying down the landscape for his story, but he nonetheless seems so calm and delicate, like he already knows where things are headed. Notes and runs that are incendiary in the context of the whole band's performance aren't played bombastically.
"It was around 1972 or '73 when I finally unlearned all the things that had hung me up to that point.” (Garcia, 1978, Guitar Player Now, source @jerrygarcia)
Meanwhile, the intricate, twining Garcia/Weir duos are a spectacular window into their guitarist mind-meld. I find the “NFA > GDTRFB > NFA” to be particularly wonderful.
This expanded mix pulls everything from the show’s “isolation channel” that I found really compelling, resulting in mono mix downs.
I have also included the stereo trio edits of the “Bird Song” and “Playin’” jams. It is quite astonishing to play either song as a Garcia guitar solo, followed immediately by the Garcia/Weir/Lesh mix – which seems whole and giant – and then to realize you’re still missing the keyboards and drums.
I have shortened many of the tracks to edit out stretches where nothing interesting is happening, which is typically where you become very aware that you are listening to an incomplete mix. Often this meant cutting out all the places where vocals should be (and faintly are), but I let the guitars lead my edit choices, so phantom vocals appear here and there.
Several isolation tracks (one channel, full song) made it through unedited, even though you’ll supply the rest of the song in your head: solo Garcia-only “Box of Rain” and “Playin’,” and Garcia/Weir “Friend of the Devil.”
100-minute mp3 mix zipped up here
Disc One: Solo and Duo (71 minutes)
- Bird Song Edit (Garcia)
- Stella Blue Solo (Garcia)
- Box of Rain (Garcia)
- Friend of the Devil (Garcia, Weir)
- He’s Gone Edit (Garcia, Weir)
- Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down the Road > Not Fade Away Edit (Garcia, Weir)
- Big River Edit (Garcia, Weir)
- Truckin’ Edit (Garcia)
- Playin’ in the Band (Garcia)
Disc Two: Trio (30 minutes)
- Playin’ Jam Edit (Garcia, Weir, Lesh)
- Bird Song Edit (Garcia, Weir, Lesh)
- Train on Cocaine (Garcia)