Customer Reviews

Live / Dead

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

If there had to be only one Grateful Dead CD to run out and get, "Live/Dead" would have to be it. This album tops the list of many Deadheads as the bands best album overall. There's plenty of reason for it as well. This is the Dead in their prime and at their very best performance-wise and music-wise.
"Live/Dead" opens with the famed 23-minute version of "Dark Star". This is the ultimate Dead-jam track. The band plays off each other like seasoned pros. Jerry Garcia performs one of his greatest guitar leads here and his voice is in ship-shape throughout. This version of "Dark Star" still holds up even today.
After "Dark Star" runs its 23-minutes, it is followed directly by "Saint Stephen". The studio version of this track appears on "Aoxomoxoa" but the live version included here is much more agressive and stronger. This leads into another Dead jamfest entitled "The Eleven". The interplay between all the band members is clearly in evidence here. Bassist Phil Lesh pumps out a chordal bass structure in 11/8 while drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart lock everything into place. Jerry once again flys high on his lead guitar.
"The Eleven" leads directly into "Turn On Your Lovelight". Now, it's Pigpen's turn to steal the show. Over the course of 15-minutes, Pigpen leads the band and the audience in a swaggering sing-along. He really knew how to get the crowd going as it can clearly be heard here. Kreutzmann and Hart grab the spotlight as well performing their famed drum duet.
Next up is "Death Don't Have No Mercy", a somber piece in which you can almost feel the pain in Jerry's voice. Great musicianship here as well. Then there's the self-explanitory "Feedback", 8-minutes of it to be exact. This is another prime example of what the Dead shows were like at this time. Sometimes they'd jam and the improvisation would disappear into a howling gale-force of feedback for several minutes. The track included here is just one of those examples. Later on, these parts of the Dead shows would become known as "Space".
To close the album, the Dead bid us goodnight with a sweet acapella rendition of..what else but "And We Bid You Goodnight".
I don't consider myself a Deadhead but I do call myself a fan. I did not begin listening to their music extensively until the untimely death of Jerry Garcia in 1995. "Live/Dead" was the first Grateful Dead album I ever owned and I'm quite pleased that it was. This one still gets the most plays in my CD player.
If you're new to the Dead's music and have never owned anything by the band before, "Live/Dead" is an ideal place to start. You won't be disappointed.

Let's make something clear here: I'm not a dope-smokin' hippie. In fact, I'm a button-down Sideshow Bob right-wing type. (Perish the thought!)

Why am I telling you this? Certainly not to antagonize you. Only to make clear that when I say that the surpassing glory of the Grateful Dead was their capacity to be the world's most roof-shaking JAM BAND, it ain't because I'm a '60s acid casualty - it's because this group has universal appeal.

That's right: universal appeal, at least for anyone who appreciates intellectually and emotionally compelling instrumental, vocal, and improvisational rock music. The Dead were actually far more versatile than their detractors ever give them credit for (they played CONVINCING country, blues, and folk music - no mean feat - as well as the hardest of hardcore psychedelia, rock, and jazz-rock), but still it has to be said that they were the only group in the world that could spend 30 minutes improvising around the pedal-point signature of "Dark Star" or the hammer-lock riff of "The Other One" while completely holding a sober man's attention. The drugs, the hippie culture associated with the group, and the clutch of febrile imitators that have sprung up in the Dead's wake (yet are unworthy of holding Keith Godchaux's jockstrap) have all unfortunately obscured the brilliance of their music.

Which is a shame, because Live/Dead, the FIRST (but it warn't the last!) live album the band ever released back in 1969, lets that jammin' freak flag FLY HIGH. The shortest song on this album is a blink-and-you-missed-it 6 minutes 32 seconds, but the length of the songs shouldn't be taken to indicate laziness or indulgence. For an album which only has 5 actual songs plus an 8-minute squall of exploratory feedback, there's actually an immense amount of substance. "Dark Star" itself is endlessly rewarding, and needs little praise from me given what's already been written by others here. Suffice to say that it is the centerpiece of the album.

"St. Stephen" follows directly out of "Dark Star," and punches with far more force and grit than the weak studio cut from Aoxomoxoa. Raising the stakes, the Dead then traipse across a delightful bridge ("William Tell has stretched his bow") before jumping off the other side into the kaleidoscopic whirlpool of "The Eleven," where both band and audience become so deliriously dizzy with joy that even Jerry's audible mistakes just enhance the feeling of barely-controlled ecstasy. (In his definitive Beatles study "Revolution In The Head," noted music critic Ian MacDonald wrote that he considered this performance of "The Eleven" to embody the boundlessly optimistic "Spirit of '67" like nothing else he had ever heard).

The aerial highs of "The Eleven" finally give way to blues-shouter Ron "Pigpen" McKernan's jaunt through "Turn On Your Lovelight." (Another incidental note: the original 2-LP forced you to get up and flip between "Dark Star" and "St. Stephen," "The Eleven" and "Lovelight," a necessity induced by vinyl limitations, but one which really hurt the flow of the album nonetheless. The CD, however, segues all of these songs together as one long block of music, the way they were meant to be heard.) Pig raps and rolls while Weir and Lesh play call-and-reponse with the backing vocals and Garcia darts in and out with bouncy bop-rock guitar lines. At 15 minutes, a song like this SHOULD drag (I've heard many live versions where it does), but it's a testament to how tight the group was that night (1/26/69 for this and "The Eleven") that it doesn't sag at all.

"Turn On Your Lovelight" finally tumbles to an orgasmic close (Lesh: "And LEAVE it on!"), and we're left with an uncharacteristically dark, bleak end to our journey with the Garcia-sung "Death Don't Have No Mercy" (this is probably the best version I've heard, though the one featured on Two From The Vault is close) and a squall of disarming, yet compelling feedback...but what's that we hear right before the conclusion of the album? "Lay down, my dear brothers/Lay down and take your rest/Oh won't you lay your heads upon your saviour's breast?/I love you, but Jesus loves you the best/And we bid you goodnight, goodnight, goodnight." Ah yes. A sweet little send-off to make clear it's all been in good fun.

Live/Dead gives the lie to every claim ever made about The Grateful Dead being underachievers who coasted on musty left-wing nostalgia or a mediocrity made possible by drug-lowered standards. These songs, despite their length, aren't the slightest bit indulgent, and prove - for those whose prejudice hasn't sealed their ears - that the Dead were, on any given night, the best show in town.

Live/Dead (unlike, say, Without a Net) has a vibe to it that makes me feel like I'm right there in the audience. I'm not sure what it is about it that gives me that feeling, but it's there. Perhaps its the starkness of the recording, which sounds like it was made in a small club. Maybe it's the fearlessness of the musicianship. They SOUND like they're fresh-faced kids exploring music and having a great time at it.

All I can say is that very few live albums give me the chills like this one does. The jamming is unreal. And I agree with other reviewers, this does seem like the definitive version of "Dark Star" (which I'm listening to as I type this).

Of course, "Dark Star" inevitably seques into "St. Stephen" and "The Eleven" and, man, I feel like I'm in concert heaven. Every song is strong. The entire CD is outstanding.

Oh, and the sound quality is awesome. Rhino did a stellar job remastering this in glorious HDCD.

If you want to know what the Grateful Dead sounded like live, this would be the CD to start with.

You could make a case this is the greatest rock-n-roll album ever recorded.
Sacrilege?
Sure, it can't complete blow for blow with the songs of Abbey Road or Let It Bleed, but this was a great band at the very high point of its powers with 3 of the 4 original "sides" recorded as one long 60 minute jam on perhaps their crispest night ever. (A 20 minute "Other One" jam from their first set that night shows up on the "So Many Roads" compilation and is almost equally as good.)
The main thing that differentiates this album from any of their other live albums (or famous live albums from others of the same period like Allmans - Fillmore East, which it blows away) is that it is incredibly tight. That may seem odd when talking about a jam band, but in the entire 23 minute Dark Star (probably the highlight) I don't believe there is one wasted note, one repititious thought that would have been worth wiping out in the studio.
It's pretty clear that the Dead conceived of this album as a "song cycle." They had tried this, less successfully, on Anthem of the Sun, but here it works great, with the album starting out almost ethereally with a jam out of a song we never hear (Mountains of the Moon) and ending almost as eerily with a spooky "Feedback" jam which becomes a one verse gospel dirge. In between, Dark Star builds in intensity brilliantly through successive jams off the same basic riff, St. Stephen moves wildly through multiple chord and rhythm changes, The Eleven (the only place where there may be a few wasted notes) is just wild and weird. The musical break between The Eleven and Turn on Your Lovight (which came at the record flip originally) is brilliant and this is the tightest version of Lovelight anywhere, which means that vocalist Pigpen leads the band through a series of increasingly soulfull raves. Catch the way they sing "inside out" at the end of Lovelight! Death Don't Have No Mercy is a wonderful gospel-blues that starts to wind the album back down to its original starting point. Check out the wonderful audience interaction nearly at its end.
In all, a briliant band, playing together, with great intensity and precision yet completely unafraid to take an idea and spin it out and see where it goes. You benefit from the fact that they had been playing these songs (differently) each night for several months so that they had both been building a library of riffs and cues and each member of the band could almost tell where the others were going. The greatest ever?

It goes without saying that the music here is amazing. I fall into that category of being more than a casual fan but definitely not a Deadhead, but of the 25 or so Dead recordings I have(mostly Dick's Picks and other archival recordings) I can say without reservation that this is my favorite of them all. This version of Dark Star>St. Stephen>Eleven> especially should convince anyone who hates the Dead that maybe they may be good after all. Great collective improvs, churning grooves, what more could you want from a Dead show? The sound is another issue. The original vinyl issue had great spacious sound. The initial Cd reissue sounded faithful to the vinyl sound. This new version though, when played back to back with the old version, shows that there was quite a bit of studio tampering done. Not overdubs or fixing bum notes, far from it, but listening on headphones lots of stereo panning and echo and reverb was added, especially on Dark Star and Death Don't Have No Mercy. Usually this is bad but it improved the songs and was a part of the original release. The new reissue, while more faithful to the actual sound of the concerts, will sound radically different to discerning listeners. Yes its moer faithful to the way the shows went down, but it will not sound like how and older fan will have remembered it. The new version is still ok, and a new fan will probably love it and wonder what all the fuss about remixing is about. Anyway if you want a faithful concert sound then get the new version, and if you want a spacier sound then look for the vinyl version or old cd version.

This album, in mine and many other opinions is the grateful dead's finest hour. It perfectly presents AMERICA'S FAVORITE BAND in probably the most wonderful music the human ear can hear. If the Dead hadn't released this album,I don't think there would've been the legions of people like me referred to as Deadheads and they probably wouldn't have been as famous for their amazing concerts. This masterpiece shows the usual highlights of a Grateful Dead concert which I would without a doubt sell my kidney and myself into slavery to see. The first great highlight is one of the Grateful Dead's finest hours, the incredible DARK STAR!!! Some say that this version was their best and with Tom Constanten on organ and the fact that it lasts 23 MINUTES!! When Keith Godchaux played nothing but the piano during Dark Star I think it made it sound like great Elevator Music. In my opinion, Dark Star can only be played with an exploratory organ like the one found here. Enough of me praising the Dark Star, this album contains one of Pigpen's finest hours with one of the best versions of his "rant and rap" showcase Turn on your lovelight. For those of you readers who are unfamiliar with Pigpen, his real name was Ron McKernan and he was instrumental (pardon the pun)with the formation of the Grateful Dead in 1965 when it was he who convinced the late Great Jerry Garcia (1942-1995) to switch from being a jug band (Mother Mcree's Uptown Jug Champions) to an electric band- The Warlocks. (The band, shortly changed their name to the Grateful Dead after learning that another band had the same name and Jerry Garcia finding Grateful Dead in a dictionary.) Pigpen,whom in my opinion was THE GREATEST FRONTMAN in the history of rock and roll was pretty much their leader when he was healthy. and he had a great raspy and powerful voice He really knew how to give a great show and he certainly did here. Well, I think I've praised this gem enough. If you are just getting into the Grateful Dead, I would strongly suggest that you avoid the Best of compilations (Skelatons from the Closet, What a long strage trip it's been and Very Best of the Grateful Dead) and start out with this if you want to know why there are Deadheads Then get Europe '72. Ron "Pigpen" McKernan 1945-1973.

This album represents one the greatest performances of the Grateful Dead. Unfortunately, this HDCD release does not make the grade. Not only was the original re-mastered to HDCD, but also apparently, the entire album was remixed for the worst. The glowing cut of the original was "Dark Star". On "Dark Star", one could close one's eyes and imagine being in Outer Space, floating in some dark mysterious Day Glow universe. And, on this release, the effect is totally lost. Yes, the bass is more defined when this album is played on an HDCD CD player. However, the mix loses all the ambience and reverb surrounding Garcia's guitar. Garcia is just shoved flat into the left speaker. Perhaps, the mix works on "The Eleven", simply because on the original release the sound was congested, and this mix tends to separate out the instruments. On the other hand, the drums on "Turn On Your Love Light" actually sound better on the original, in spite of the increased HDCD dynamic range. Buy the original Grateful Dead approved non HDCD-version instead.

I've been told that to declare the existence of a definitive version of "Dark Star" is to reveal oneself as a Dead pretender, a neophyte in this unique world of fandom. Well, it's entirely true that I never followed the band around the country or tripped on acid, shrooms, or anything else while listening to their music, but what I have done is listen to many, many versions of "Dark Star," the track that got me into the band. All I can say is, I've never heard an improvement on this 1969 version (although the rendition on "Dick's Picks 4" is very close). For those who know the Dead only from their 1986 hit "Touch of Grey," check this out. This ain't the same band, baby. Not by a long shot.

Notes on the remaster: This repackaging has improved the sound quality a bit, lengthened the intro to "Dark Star" by a few seconds, and throws in a goofy radio promo from when the album was released as well as the original studio version of "Dark Star" (hard to believe this trippy 23-minute, slow-jam masterpiece emerged from a bouncy little 2:44 studio track). Not a must-have if you've already got the old version, but a nice improvement.

If you already have Live Dead the new remastering is hardly worth it. The 2 extra tracks are the studio version of "Dark Star" and a brief track that's nothing more than a vocal announcement. Neither adds a thing to the original album.

The 5 stars is simply for Live Dead, not the new version. Unless you have a top of the line HDCD player there is no need to replace the CD you already own.

"Live/Dead" was the album that made me a Deadhead. Since I first heard it, in 1971, I've worn out 4 vinyl copies of it and have had 1 CD of it permanently borrowed from me. This was the Dead at the top of their game; this is what all of the fuss was about. There's never been another assemblage of rock musicians who could play off each other the way Jerry and the boys could, in the late 60's and very early 70's. After 36 years of listening to "Live/Dead," I still can't get over how much ground they were able to cover, nonstop, between "Dark Star" and "Lovelight." If you're not a Deadhead and don't plan on becoming one, buy "Live/Dead" and feel confident that you're hearing the phase of the Grateful Dead that earned them their reputation.