Hey everybody, hope things are good in your hood. Today's post is another entry from the series Classic Shemp. This is the series when I repost some emails I sent out from years past. The response was so good to these emails it led me to start the blog. So without further ado, I present to you a post from a DSO show in Aug of 2008
What's up people? Just finishing out my Jerry Week Celebrations. Jerry Week runs annually from Aug. 1 (his birthday) until Aug 9 (the day he was sprung from his mortal coil). Uh Dave, that's 8 days. I know, but the Fat Man knew that hippies could use an extra day to celebrate, so why not? Anyway, it was supposed to get off to a rousing start with the SkyView Jam '08 but Mother Nature did her best to scuttle that. I must say I really had a serious case of blue balls after that weekend Not the kind of blue balls brought on by a Cindy Crawford flashback. Something more akin to a quasi musical/psychological/metaphysical type of blue balls. One of expecting to get off through musical mysticism. Alas, it was not meant to be. Where can one find bliss, total conscience, and a sweaty good time?? Look no further that the Dark Star Orchestra.
I saw them down in Dewey Beach DE and man, what a mind blowing time. They're famous for doing Dead shows in their entirety. Most of the time, it's post hiatus ie., 1976 to 1995. But on a rare occasion, they do something from before that. This was one of those nights. They opened with US Blues, which I immediately tagged it as from summer of 73 to 74. As the first set progressed, they played Roses and To Lay Me Down, which I knew didn't debut until 74 so I was right on target. The second to last song of the first set was China>Rider. As my faithful readers know, this is my fav combo the boys do. The transition was nothing short of spectacular and they really took their time getting to Rider. They played it EXACTLY as the Dead would have performed it in 1974. By the end of the 12 song first set (I only mention this because some shows in the 90's only had 12 songs in the whole show. Yes, I'm looking at you, spring tour of 92! ), I had achieved a sweaty good time and bliss, yet still waiting on total conscience.
The second set started and they did a great Scarlet, but no Fire 'cause this was 1974 baby! Still wasn't sure of exactly which show it was, so I wasn't sure of what the meat of the second set would consist of. Then it came like a Sasquatch on 'shrooms charging out of the woods. Truckin'>Eyes. The Truckin was steller with a peak, but not the huge drop like a '77 version. And with Eyes, total consciencness was achieved. All the jams invoked sunlight flowing over amber waves of grain in a river of bliss. Towards the end of it, they did the jam that would become King Solomon's Marbles and the jam that would become Slipknot. With that, I knew it was a summer of 74 show, cause Jerry only broke out that solo in the summer of 74 before shelving it in the fall. At the end of the show, they came out and said "Tonight’s show was 6/20/74" Booyah!! While technically still the spring, it was Summer tour and that's all that counts. People around me were scrapping their jaws off the floor and giving me high fives as I called the show rather early. When people ask me, "Do you really need 80% of all the shows from 1970 to 1974?" I tell them yes, if I want to write emails like this.
Dave Kemp
BA American Studies,
PhD in rock and roll
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