9/10/72 Hollywood

I may downshift into brief(er) show reviews just to keep my momentum going. September = school (both dayjob and night school) = considerable readjustment of priorities, but then again, more work = more reason to procrastinate.  At any rate, my TDIH radar noticed that it’s almost the anniversary of 9/10/72 at the Hollywood Palladium, a lesser known show in a great era, but a personal favorite.

https://archive.org/details/gd72-09-10.sbd.patched.greenberg-powell.22793.sbeok.shnf

If I need to sell you on listening to a September ’72 show, then you need to find a different GD blog — but while this one doesn’t burn as brightly as many of the highlights of this venerable month, there is still a lot to recommend here. A 35+ minute Dark Star of this vintage would probably be the biggest one of those recommendations (with David Crosby sitting in, no less), but there are plenty of other gems. Apart from the standard 72 fare (a 20 min Playing in the Band, sure sure), this Bird Song is up there with 8/27/72, 6/22/73, and 9/7/73 as one of the best 70’s performances, and Sing Me Back Home ranks as my personal favorite ever (sorry, 8/27). Plus there’s a long, leisurely He’s Gone>Truckin’ (almost 27 minutes total!) to open the 2nd set and a rare-for-the-time Black Peter, too.  In the following weeks, they barnstormed the east coast with some of the best shows they ever played, but something about this night feels like the hell-for-leather energy of later ’72 was softened with a starlit Pacific breeze.  I love it.