Exploration in New York state is the name of the game today. Sometimes you just want something to get lost in and the Watkins Glen Soundcheck Jam is one of those pieces of music.
From my understanding the concert at Watkins Glen was huge, 500,000-600,000 attendees or something along those lines back in 1973. I believe both The Band and The Allman Brothers Band were on the bill as well. Of course, as was their forte, when the Dead faced a milestone they tended to drop the ball (e.g. Woodstock, Egypt). Their actual performance at the Watkins Glen show isn’t much to write home about, but folks have long raved about the soundcheck jam, which you can hear here.
Any other noteworthy instrumental jam passages that should get the Dead For A Year treatment? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Phil starts to exert himself and pushes to the lead. Bobby competes with him for a while, but seems to settle into playing with harmonics and seeing how many different ways he can approach the concept of rhythm guitar. After a while Bobby starts to take some more lead-like strides and Jerry lays back on some chords, but the roles quickly reverse. Lots of varying ideas being thrown out here and it seems as though everyone wants to chase each one as far as they can. Bits and pieces of what would become Slipknot continue to pop up all over the place. Sometimes it’s just part of a phrase, but they’re there.
The directive is clearly exploration. Throw something at the wall and see what sticks. This is exactly why people love the Dead. Instead of getting overly analytic an descriptive at this point I say just listen to it and see what nuances you notice. This is one jam that improves with repeated listens and provides new surprises each time. The only downside is that it fades out at the end when there’s clearly more fun to be had!
Fading in from somewhere, Phil sets up a series of slow, rumbling figures that allows room for twinkling and swelling guitars. Billy knocks around on the toms and cymbals wantonly, as Lesh steers further into the deep. This segment is the jammy part of “Dark Star” in all but name until about 2:30, where it perks up into a groove more consistent with “Eyes of the World” but is clearly not that, either. A shift to some punctuated themes conjures up the complex jams found later on the Blues for Allah album. Weir plays some of the most free stylings I have heard out of him as the band gives him room. Garcia lights into some light scrubbing, alternating with his favorite modal noodling next. Billy is just grooving his head off to the jazzy theme here. I bet he dug this kind of thing best of all, from the sound of it. After 9:00, a breakdown lets us hear Keith working the electric piano. Garcia leads the jam into slightly creepier space, not seeming to care where he may end up. Weir pushes him out there with sympathetically disorienting chords, delivered through volume swells. Now it is just the two of them, though Kreutzmann cannot resist riding his hi-hat. Keith interjects subtly as the deepest depths of space are plumbed. Then, he surprisingly triggers a two-chord happy vibe that could be a fast-paced “Fire on the Mountain”, years before its time. Everyone hops on, and a kind jam on that theme permeates most of the remainder of this track. Before it fades however, one more shift in the groove happens, this time toward the direction of the so-called “Mind Left Body Jam”. But then, fade it does, unfortunately.