Grateful Dead—Academy of Music, New York, NY, March 23, 1972
Early 1972 was a relatively quiet time for the Grateful Dead. Over the first few months, they only played two gigs—Winterland on January 2nd, and a short American Indian benefit at Winterland again on March 5th. During this period Bob Weir and John Barlow wrote a bunch of new songs that were recorded over a few weeks in January/February for Bobby’s first long player, Ace. Jerry’s solo record was also released at this time (along with Merl Saunder’s first studio effort) and he took the opportunity to play several local shows with Saunders, as well as a short East Coast tour with Howard Wales in support of the newly released Garcia/Wales LP, Hooteroll.
Big plans were brewing, though.
At the end of March, the band served up seven nights at the Academy of Music, a dilapidated 3,400-capacity double-balconied movie house in New York’s East Village. The Academy run—the last stopover before the historic European tour—provided a nice tune-up for the 24 dates the band would navigate in April and May. The Academy of Music shows have been widely traded and, beginning with Dick’s Picks 30, have seen a number of official releases from the Dead’s vault. Most recently, Dave Lemieux featured the March 26 show as his 14th pick.
I’ve listened to all of the Academy of Music performances—both crappy audience recordings and master reel tapes—and my preference lies with the third night’s offering, based on the song selection, quality of playing, and the blistering second set. After a 2-hour opening frame that even included some pedal steel work by Garcia on the new Weir-penned number, Looks Like Rain, we move to the big jam portion of the show, highlighted by a full-speed-ahead Truckin,’ the maiden voyage of Pig’s The Stranger (Two Souls In Communion), the first Dark Star of '72, and a screamingly joyous 16-minute Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad > Not Fade Away to close things out. Of note, the Dark Star is staggering, packed full of thematic jams, bass detours, and colorful mutations, including a Feelin’ Groovy segment, and a country-picking Sugar Magnolia-type finish before returning to the Dark Star theme at the 20-minute mark. It’s not to be missed.
A few years back, Rob Eaton got his mitts on Betty Cantor-Jackson’s master of the 3/23 show and cleaned the entire reel by hand, before making a digitized version available on the Archive. The resulting tape sounds terrific and has excellent instrument separation. Listening closely to this gig and the other dates that make up the New York run, one can’t fail to appreciate the new expansive direction that has taken hold of the band. On a bittersweet note, the Academy shows and the upcoming European tour will become Pigpen’s swansong, as he was dead within a year of the tour’s end. Somehow, though, the combination of the old giving its final heave and the new looking ahead to fresh musical frontiers would come to give many of the 1972 shows an added spark. This night in New York is surely one of those performances.