Grateful Dead—Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA, June 7, 1970
w/the New Riders of the Purple Sage & Southern Comfort
On June 4-7, 1970, the Dead began a four-night stand at the Fillmore West with the New Riders of the Purple Sage and the Bay Area blues-rock outfit, Southern Comfort. The June run served as San Francisco's introduction to the "Evening With The Grateful Dead" concept. In May, the band toured the East Coast and provided all the music, with an acoustic Dead set, the NRPS, and the full electric Grateful Dead. California locals had seen bits and pieces of all these ensembles in various configurations, but not all in one show. Strange as it may seem, this was the first time the New Riders had played at a Bill Graham Productions show in San Francisco.
Southern Comfort served as the opener all four nights. They had a new album on Columbia Records, co-produced by John Kahn. Although they had been around for a year, this weekend marked their Fillmore West debut. After their no-doubt brief performance beginning at 8:30, it was all Grateful Dead. There was a New Riders set, an acoustic set, and an electric set. Garcia and Hart were part of the New Riders, and Dawson and Nelson periodically joined in for the Dead’s acoustic set, so from about 9:30 onwards, the same nine musicians were providing the music until 2:00 am. An evening indeed with the Grateful Dead.
The technically nearly perfectly performed wooden Dead set opens with Don’t Ease Me In. They follow with Weir’s reading of the Dick Reynolds country number, Silver Threads & Golden Needles. Next, a few New Riders friends are present on stage for a slew of tunes, including Friend of the Devil, Cold Jordan, and a lilting Swing Low Sweet Chariot. There’s also a lovely Candyman sandwiched in there with satisfying full-group harmonies. Garcia: “We’re going to do a few semi-electric numbers. We’ve got a million new labels! Weir: acoustic semi-electric, electric semi-acoustic, full electric, quasi-electric, demi-electric, nouveau electric.”
The acoustic Dead portion of the night closes out with a great triple play: Cumberland Blues/Me & My Uncle/New Speedway Boogie. The Cumberland is full-picking-speed-ahead and is sounding better every time they play it. We get the last acoustic/electric version of Me & My Uncle, although it will still keep showing up occasionally during Weir’s acoustic appearances with the New Riders. The set closing New Speedway Boogie slithers forward elegantly for 9+ minutes, with Garcia providing a surfeit of choice electric fills.
After NRPS’ great set, the Good ‘Ol Electric Dead plugs back in and opens with 37 minutes of Cryptical Envelopment > Drums > The Other One > The Main Ten > Sugar Magnolia. It gets right to the weird when the band seems to give a forum to an anti-war protestor. Weir offers his consent before someone onstage (but off-mic?) announces they’re from the Youth International Party and harangues the audience to “get off our fuckin’ asses and help our brothers in Vietnam.” In classic Grateful Dead fashion, when the protester finishes their impassioned freaky oration, the band bombs almost perfectly into The Other One. The mayhem continues. During the Cryptical reprise, a woman sings/speaks poetry and the band goes completely unhinged, eventually landing in a wild percussive/harmonic jam. A brief drum interlude ensues and flows into a mostly developed The Main Ten that segues into the first on-stage performance of Sugar Magnolia. It’s played in slow motion and Weir’s earliest collaboration with Robert Hunter—although a breakthrough of sorts—is far from finished.
After a goof on Louie Louie is aborted courtesy of a tape cut, the lads return to their R&B roots with a strong take on This Is a Man’s World. Pig sounds great strutting his stuff on this one and we can only ask why they didn’t play it more often. A quick country outing is next with a boss Mama Tried. Some banter and tuning pave the way for an uptempo Sitting on Top of the World with some mean skinwork by Billy. “We’re gonna stand around until a good idea comes,” Garcia says to the many requests floating up to the stage. Kudos to the guy who keeps shouting out for ‘You Don’t Have To Ask.’ “We don’t like any of that shit,” Kreutzmann yells back. Weir: “There’s a guy over there and he’s always over there and he always shouts out ‘Golden Road’ and I wanna know who he is, man, because you take the cake.” They go with Cosmic Charlie. The version is slow and slinky, but mostly a mess until the latter part of the tune when Garcia comes to the rescue with some poignant outro riffs. After a spirited Casey Jones, the second frame closes out with a barn burner of a Good Lovin > Drums > Jam > Good Lovin sequence. It stumbles slightly out of the drum break but locks in for real swingin’ thrills in due time.
The June 7 Fillmore West performance is one that still goes on giving after all these years. Recorded by Bear on a Sony 770, the sound is crisp and well-modulated. On top of that, the Dick Latvala source transfer is damn close to perfect. Plug in, and give it a listen. I think you’ll agree that it’s hands down one of the finest early field recordings of the band.