Dead of the Day: 12-06-1973

Cleveland Convention Center

Cleveland, Ohio

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

What we have here for our Dead of the Day is one of those superlative shows where nearly every note seems to be in the perfect place. It is not necessarily that this is the best show ever – though you could easily argue that – but instead that every song is gorgeously satisfying and all harmoniously fit together into an arc of seamless loveliness.

Recording info

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Identifier:

gd1973-12-06.147505.sbd.pc.miller.flac1644

Source:

SBD > Master Reel > Dat

Notes:

Notes: — This is a pitch corrected version of shnid=132361 — Thanks to Rob Bertrando and Joe B. Jones for their input on the pitch correction

Description:

Set I

Bertha
Mexicali Blues
Loser
Black Throated Wind
They Love Each Other
Beat It On Down The Line
Deal
El Paso
Row Jimmy
Greatest Story Ever Told
China Cat Sunflower >
I Know You Rider
Around & Around

Set II

Ramble On Rose
Me & My Uncle
Here Comes Sunshine
Big River
Dark Star >
Eyes Of The World >
Stella Blue
Sugar Magnolia

Comment

Longest Here Comes Sunshine (15:38)
Third longest Dark Star (43:28)

Jerry Garcia – Guitar
Bob Weir – Guitar
Keith Godchaux – Keyboards
Phil Lesh – Bass
Bill Kreutzmann – Drums
Donna Jean Godchaux – Vocals

Lineage:

Dat > Samplitude Professional v11.2.1 > FLAC

Transferrer:

Charlie Miller

Play

Pause

Back

Forw.

Volume

00:00

1

Bertha

09:40

2

Mexicali

05:36

3

Loser

08:28

4

Black Throated Wind

07:39

5

They Love Each Other

06:35

6

Beat It On Down The Line

03:42

7

Deal

05:53

8

El Paso

05:03

9

Row Jimmy

11:18

10

Greatest Story

05:57

11

China Cat

09:24

12

I Know You Rider

05:50

13

Around And Around

05:09

14

Tuning

00:18

15

Ramble On Rose

08:06

16

Me And My Uncle

04:00

17

Here Comes Sunshine

17:36

18

Big River

04:54

19

Dark Star

44:00

20

Eyes Of The World

14:13

21

Stella Blue

10:23

22

Sugar Magnolia

09:43

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Of course, there is the matter of the monster Dark Star in the second set, coming in at three-quarters of an hour and sparking controversy on Dead message boards everywhere. Is it the greatest Dark Star of them all or just a self-indulgent fount of mindless noodling? Well, we think it is closer to the former, but it is up to you to decide for yourselves. So, we are not going to say anything more about the incredible music that is here, but just leave it to you to sit back, relax, and give it all a good listen. We are sure you will not be remotely disappointed, even if you do decide to fast-forward through the Dark Star right to that Eyes> Stella.

Yesterday’s Dead of the Day:

12-05-1981 – Market Square Arena – Indianapolis, Indiana

Other December 6th Shows and Recordings:

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Comments

4 responses to “12-06-1973”

Scott Shlomo Krane

December 6, 2021

This one’s a late-1973 gem which I stumbled onto late. The setlist for the first set goes as follows: ‘Bertha’; ‘Mexicali Blues’; ‘Loser’; ‘Black-Throated Wind’; ‘They Love Each Other; ‘Beat It On Down The Line’; ‘Deal’; ‘El Paso’; ‘Row Jimmy’ and ‘Greatest Story Ever Told’, from the Bob Weird-helmed, anonymous Grateful Dead album (credited to Bob Weir) album, Ace (Warner Bros., ‘72).At this point in the first set, actually towards the end of it, the show features an approximately 15-minute ‘China Cat Sunflower’>‘I Know You Rider’. The ‘China Cat Sunflower’ alone runs some 9:35, and is full of sprightly jamming by the post-Pigpen Grateful Dead. The riff is I>VII riff is performed as funky as can be by Bob and Phil, and Jerry hardly starts in with the lead guitar line for very long before he delivers the vocals to the first verse. The song is not performed too quick, but at a moderate tempo, with everybody taking their time, somewhat, following the lead of the two drummers, and paying attention to what they’re doing for the sake of accuracy. Jerry’s short solos between verses are audio specimens of spine-tingling beauty. At abut 4:30, the jam interlude comes in, played with a really funky rhythmic feel, and we hear the first harmonic teases, er, signs of ‘I Know You Rider’, the predictable following song selection, as in this era we had no standalone ‘China Cat Sunflower’; it wasn’t since probably early to mid-1969 that this happened, and standalone renditions of ‘I Know You Rider,’ occurred in the band’s early days in the mid-’60s, and on rare occasion in the ‘80s. At 7:54 we get a tease of ‘Uncle John’s Band’ jam—and it goes on slightly longer than expected—Jerry’s soloing over G D C D chord progression.Next, the boys play a cover of ‘Around & Around’, the hit early-Rolling Stones tune from their album, 12 X 5, which was released in 1964, the year Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions provided the acoustic genesis and prototype for The Warlocks and old-school-Grateful Dead. A seven-minute ‘Ramble on Rose’, originally released on Europe ‘72 (Warner Bros., ‘72) is next, followed by ‘Me and My Uncle’, the homicidal cowboy tune, which first made in appearance in Dead setlists in mid to late-1969). The Jerry Garcia-penned music and Robert Hunter-penned lyrics for the next song introduces the second set:”Wake of the flood, laughing water, forty-nine,/ Get out the pans, don’t just stand there dreamin’/ Get out of the way, get out of the way,Here comes sunshine, here comes sunshine.Line up a long shot maybe try it two times, maybe more/ Good to know you got shoes to wear when you find the floor,/ Why hold out for more?Here comes sunshine, here comes sunshine.Askin’ you nice, now, keep the mother rollin,’/ One more time, been down before,/ You just don’t have to go no more, no more.”The second set features a 16-minute rendition of ‘Here Comes Sunshine’, replete with a killer jam section that features some twangy, laid-back guitar mastery from the ax of Jerry Garcia, relatively slow lazy-boned honky-tonk, country-funk.Then, onto a cover of Johnny Cash’s ‘Big River’ and a…wait for it…44-minute rendition of ‘Dark Star’. The long, exploratory ‘Dark Star’ transitions into an epic ‘Eyes of the World’, played for 14-minutes and change. The ‘Dark Star’ alone is on of the most underrated and longest-in-duration of the Dead’s entire career. At the early middle of ‘Dark Star’, the music drops out and we are treated to white-noise and ambient instrument and amplifier feedback. This isn’t caused by just Phil Lesh, alone, but Jerry and Bobby get in on the feedback ‘Space’, sans drums and acoustic piano manned by then-newcomer, Keith Godchaux, in the middle of the 44-minute sound exploration of modal—we’ll call it—jazz-rock-fusion, if not simply psychedelic-modal-rock. After a while, Phil starts dropping bombs on his bass, amidst the low-humming and squealing of the amplifier for the bass guitar; Jerry can be heard throwing in volume-swells and noodling ever-so-slightly. After a while, the form of ‘Dark Star’ is revisited, and we reenter the improvised musical territory of the ‘A’ mixolydian exploratory jamming. At some point, probably before the feedback segment, Jerry comes in to sing the first verse, and remind us what song this is, amidst the tune’s 44-minutes of enigma, as if we didn’t know, as if we forgot for even a split-second that what we are experiencing is none-other than ‘Dark Star’ circa-late ‘73.The jam in ‘Eyes of the World’ comes in at about seven-minutes into the live track. At 7:36, the band changes values from [E] major[7] to [B]minor—for the first time—and then the jam dissolves into atonal space, with the drums momentarily falling out, and then the whole band comes crashing back in, at once, altogether. At 10:13, the boys play the maze-like riff pattern which accompanied the ‘Eyes of the World’ jams of 1973 and 1974. Who else could have written a segment of music as trippy, as creative, as lovely as this, than old Phil Lesh—the star of the early-’Eyes of the World’-show.The final song of the second-set is a heartfelt, Garcia-sung, ‘Stella Blue’ and Bob Weir takes over lead vocal responsibilities on the single encore for 12/6/73, a 9:41 ‘Sugar Magnolia’.

Reply
GratefulEd

December 6, 2021

Billy was the only drummer in 1973.

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Chris Dixon

October 11, 2023

I was at this show, my first Dead show (only saw them a handful of times). It was a very early Wall Of Sound and was crystal clear. Most memorable was the bass guitar presence, I think he was using a quadraphonic pickup at that point but in any case they really had the low end dialed in, no doubt helped by the resonance of the second stage they built out over Public Hall’s permanent stage (and Cleveland Public Hall is the proper name of the venue btw, the Convention Center was/is another space in the building)

Reply
andy L.

December 7, 2023

What an outrageously good show from start to finish. Truly, the energy and imagination of this night must be heard to be believed. Worth revisiting over and over.

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