08-02-1969
Family Dog at the Great Highway
San Francisco, California
The Dead were supposed to be playing a three-night stand at Chet Helms’s Family Dog starting on August 1. But the Light Artists Guild, a consortium of 60 light shows across the Bay Area, announced a strike against the Dog and Bill Graham’s Fillmore, demanding a living wage and additional billing. With a crazy, hippie picket line going on outside that night, the Dead played without Jerry and Mickey while Rock Scully and Jerry mediated negotiations outside. Sometime during the afternoon of August 2nd, all sides came to a truce, opening the way for this show, with the entire band sharing a bill with Albert Collins and the Afro-Haitian Ballet, at the Dog.
The show itself is fairly typical 1969 fare, though there is no Dark Star> Stephen> Eleven. Casey Jones opens the action before Pig romps on Hard To Handle, giving every indication that he is, indeed, all that and more. Bobby then delivers a solid Mama Tried before Jerry gives a heartfelt rendering of High Time set off by TC’s whirling organ. A precious Silver Threads rolls out next, and then a rollicking Slewfoot harkens back to the boys’ jug band days. Afterwards, the Dead shift gears again, turning back to Pig and a bluesy Big Boss Man that is sadly cut right in the middle. But the Cryptical that follows – once again taking things in a different, more lysergic direction – will have you quickly forgetting the Big Boss Man, especially as the Dead rage through the entire Other One Suite into another massive Lovelight.
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