GRATEFUL DEAD
4/9/89
LOUISVILLE
FREEDOM HALL
VIDEO
WHAT REDEEMS A SHITTY PERFORMANCE? WHAT CAN RESTORE YOUR FAITH IN your favorite band or artist? As a fan what can you logically as opposed to viscerally expect from the same? And what about when you encounter the art or the performance long after the fact? How do you keep the rational in check when you feel viscerally about art and entertainment?
A decade or so when I became an intense Deadhead I began to scour the Internet as it existed then for anything I could on the Grateful Dead. Anything which could be read, saved, downloaded. I began to check YouTube regularly for any clips, any documentaries, any concert footage. I had blown so many chances to see the Dead when I was still in college, before Garcia had died that I had to make up for lost time. With a vengeance.
I also became obsessed with anytime the band played Kentucky, as I am a proud native son, though no longer living in the Commonwealth. I live in Kansas City, but I still bleed red and blue: red for Louisville, blue for the Commonwealth.
Imagine my joy when I stumbled upon this full concert one day on YouTube. All the boxes for me were subjectively ticked off: Louisville, Freedom Hall arena, 1989 a good touring year for the band and pro-shot footage with soundboard audio! Earlier I had nabbed a 1978 Duke show which is BRILLIANT FUN, but it's in black-and-white and Cameron, North Carolina is not Louisville. (And will be the source for a future post.) I was expecting more magic. I could hardly wait for the download to be complete.
There's an old song by the Eurythmics which goes, "Have you ever heard the sound of disappointment...?"
Well, I heard and saw it back then. I could not imagine a Grateful Dead show more lethargic, uninvolving and dare I say boring. The band's listlessness was contagious--to the audience. They stood there like hippies encased in amber. And not happy hippies but morose ones, even bitter. I don't know if something happened to the band before they went on, some inner turmoil which carried over to the performance. Or bad drugs. Something or someone fouled the mood.Particularly with Garcia,who was as unremarkable that night as he ever was before the devastating finale of 1993-95. There's virtually no interaction among them. Nor any energy.
The musical irony is that they sounded...professional that night. Even the greatest Dead shows have botched lyrics, wobbly harmonies, lenghty equipment breakdown and tuning issues. Yet the overall excellence of those many nights transcended their quirky foibles. Louisville 4/9/89 is largely devoid of those gremlins. That night they were a well-oiled machine, as the cliche goes, yet it had the impact of a soundcheck. (And I have better GD soundchecks on my hard drives or burned to cds.)
So why the hell should I be recommending this videos?!?
Leave it to Jerry Garcia to provide one moment, which I do not want to give away, which makes it all forgivable. Or almost all forgivable. It's why you miss Garcia like crazy, and why the Dead are probably your favorite band of all time.
The Hermit of Mink Hollow
Setlist:
Set 1
Hell in a Bucket
Sugaree
Walkin' Blues
It Must Have Been the Roses
Me and My Uncle
Big River
Ramble on Rose
Desolation Row
Foolish Heart
Set 2
Louie Louie
Man Smart/Woman Smarter
Ship of Fools
Estimated Prophet
Uncle John's Band
Drums
Space
The Other One
Stella Blue
Sugar Magnolia
E:Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Video assets courtesy of Lazy Cow
SBD audio courtesy of the Wheel
Audio synchronization, video patches, multiplexing, & DVD authoring by Kevin Tobin
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