In one of the earliest Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane excursions outside of the United States, Bill Graham financed the presentation of these two seminal San Francisco bands for a week of shows at Toronto's O'Keefe Center.
This second to last night of the run is a perfect example of primal Grateful…entire summary
Jerry Garcia - lead guitar, vocals
"Pigpen" McKernan - vocals, organ, percussion
Bob Weir - guitar, vocals
Phil Lesh - bass, vocals
Bill Kreutzmann - drums
In one of the earliest Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane excursions outside of the United States, Bill Graham financed the presentation of these two seminal San Francisco bands for a week of shows at Toronto's O'Keefe Center.
This second to last night of the run is a perfect example of primal Grateful Dead, recorded five months after their first LP release and a mere month before they would begin work on their most ambitious and experimental album, Anthem of the Sun.
The set begins in progress, with the band performing "The Lindy," a song they had electrified from their jug band days. Next up is a very early arrangement of bass player Phil Lesh's composition, "New Potato Caboose," a song that clearly shows the band moving away from their early sound into more adventurous territory, and beginning to experiment with unusual and multiple time signatures.
The set closes with a monumental take on "Viola Lee Blues," another electrified jug band song that had become the first of their songs specifically designed as a vehicle for instrumental jamming. It's an amazing performance that begins with the band pounding through the first two verses and then heading straight into outer space. The jam goes through many spontaneous changes with the tempo increasing each time and Garcia developing his trademark style of repetitive banjo-style riffing with the accents constantly changing. Eventually there is nowhere left to go and they reprise the final verse of the song before releasing a wail of bone crunching feedback. Out of this total bombardment, they're heard playing the "Looney Tunes" cartoons theme as the tape fades out seconds before the conclusion of the set.
Read more about the Grateful Dead in Crawdaddy!:
"Are You Grateful For the Dead?"
"The Golden Road: A Report on San Francisco"
"A Last Farewell to Bill Graham"
"Good Riddance to the 40th Anniversary of the Summer of Love"
"Record Business '68"
"Shopping For Vinyl With Paul Williams"
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