Grateful Dead February 12, 1970
Ungano's Night Club
NYC, NY
SBD ... 8 TRACK 1" RTR @ 7.5 I.P.S. ... MASTER ARCHIVE 24-BIT D ... SSSB
Cold Rain & Snow
Beat It On Down the Line (5)
Good Lovin' ...
Drums ...
Good Lovin'
Mama Tried ...
Black Peter
Hard To Handle
Saint Stephen ...
Not Fade Away
Casey Jones
=====
JAY'S PERSONAL COMMENTS:
There's been a LOT of controversy over whether this show actually happened; whether it was actually an "early show" at The Fillmore during this run, whether Ungano's actually was an actual club, etc. Let me give you the "arguments" about this show:
Dick Lavatla said that there WERE early shows at the Fillmore East during this run (02-11-70 through 02-14-70)...
Dick can't say anything, as he's deceased...
Bear says that Dick is being untruthful (right on Bear's own site), and that NO Fillmore East shows during this run had and "early shows"...
The Village Voice (newspaper for New York) ran an advertisement for this show, as well as a review of it...
Bear says "This show did not happen", simply because he didn't run the board or record it...
DeadBase has this show listed as "Ungano's Night Club"...
Bear says "(Bill) Graham wouldn't have allowed this show to take place"; Bill G. is no longer around to say this is a fact or a falsehood...
There is no other show with the songs played in the order that these were played this show...
My Marin County Source has shown me pictures, taken in the Vault, of the 3 boxes which contain the original and the safety reels for this show...
My MCS was at this show...
Here's a way to make an INFORMED decision about this show: listen to the MIX as well as the AUDIENCE as compared to the actual Fillmore East shows (all of which DID happen only at night, according to the NYPD). They are totally different! In this show, Pigpen's Hammond and such were buried in the mix, but in the Fillmore shows it was much more present. Neither I (nor anyone else) cannot alter a 2-track mix to change how individual instruments and/or vocals are panned, except to make the stereo mix more monophonic! This show, as well as the Fillmore run shows, have distinct mixes and distinct audience sounds, and unless I had the actual 8 track RTR tapes (which I do not), I cannot alter the mix, I can't change the audience ambience and the sound of the audience without altering the sound of the show itself (it's a physical impossibility to do!). Ungano's had a maximum legal capacity of 1,217 persons... the Fillmore East was able to accommodate thousands more.
So, you can choose what you believe to be truthful. All I can say is that when I release one or more of the Fillmore shows (which will be done in 2002 or early 2003), I think that your ears are going to be they key to you making the right choice.
[WALL OF SOUND edit: Alan Mande down in the comments claims to have been there, in what appears, to my skeptical eyes, a credible testimonial]
OK, this is out of the way. On to the show itself.
To me, it seemed like both Jerry and Bobby weren't "into" this show, only as far as their vocals go. They played their guitars like whirling dervishes, going into some excellent jams, taking the music low to loud, easy to frantic, all within the same song. NFA is a great example of this. It just "sounds" like no one wanted to sing, they wanted to PLAY. Pig was the exception, as he really got into the songs and the parts of the harmonies he sung. It's a shame that his organ and such were really LOW in the mix. The Hammond was almost non-existent for a great deal of the show.
During NFA, when Weir was doing the guitar intro, you'd almost think that he was going to play "Hey, Mona". The chords were there, and you're kind of hoping it would break into that song, but it still wound up being a highly energetic NFA. When Jerry and Bob were doing their "dueling guitar" jam in the solos sections, it really showed how much they could play like each other. If you were just played this section, and you didn't hear any other part of the show, you just might NOT be able to tell who was who on guitar! It's priceless, and it's just sheer energy (not to mention how good each of these two musicians really were, 30 years ago!).
The only problems with this show were on Track 09, there's one spot which has a 0.002 second digital jitter spot which could not be removed without introducing a click into the audio, so it was left alone (it's really quiet, anyway). On T07, during the last 2 minutes, you can hear where the original RTR tape is beginning to deteriorate. It's a shame to hear things like this, but this is why many of these reels were restored using many different provem methods. And, due to the fact that the original tapes are so fragile, at one time, reel #2 broke, and was spliced back together with a 5 second long "blank audio" section of new tape. Where this break occured, I took and cross-faded the 2 sections together. This happened during Track 08 at about the 00:38.00 time spot.
0 Comments