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| the Keystone faithful, 8/20/81 by Bob Minkin |
I have riffed on sound quality and terroir and all that before, but man, what a difference a good aud tape make. It can make enough of a difference that sometimes listening to multiple recordings of the same performance will give it a Rashomon-like quality. Case in point: 5/8/82 is a show that is right in the armpit of a JGB era that I can usually take or leave. This particular lineup was well settled in its drug-fuzzed routine, reliable and occasionally scorching hot but not often all that inspired. This show is on the short side. It has a Don't Let Go, so I am sure that I'd given it a listen at some point and was evidently left unmoved, since I couldn't remember anything about it. But I was tempted to listen to this newly circulating recording (note: I wrote this last May and forgot to post it) made by John Anzaldo with a Walkman "three feet from the stage in the center," and I am glad that I did.
#1: the board tape
To paraphrase JGMF, there are some serious damp, cheap motel towel vibes happening here. To my ears, most post-Bettyboard 1980's JGB sbd tapes are disappointing listening experiences; this tape is essentially the X-Ray version of the Anzaldo aud that I really came here to talk about. I think Harry Popick was running sound for the JGB at this time (his gig with the Dead was mixing their onstage monitors, not the front-of-house sound). Judging from the auds, Popick's house sound was great, whereas the board tape is a straight PA feed (i.e. what wasn't loud enough in the onstage amps and would need to be reinforced in the PA): that means not much guitar, plenty of vocals, plenty of keyboard, plenty of kickdrum, zero room ambience. So go figure, listening to this tape didn't make much of an impression on me. No thanks. Maybe not bad raw material for a new matrix source, though.
#2: Jeff Knudsen's tape
Jeff Knudsen taped a grip of Keystone shows around this time, and I don't think it's unfair to say he was a more casual taper than some of the other regulars. Most of his recordings circulate with a personal reminiscence of the show, which give a lot of fun color and context to his recordings. Some of them are surprisingly good, given the circumstances: he found a spot, surreptitiously set up his mics (stuffed in a sock and held in his armpit), and proceeded to have a good time. This one is decent but sounds a little muffled. But everyone clearly was having a pretty good time. Disclaimer: we owe Jeff Knudsen -- and anyone who made the effort and spent the money to run tape at all these taper-unfriendly JGB shows -- a huge debt of gratitude. Thank you, Jeff Knudsen!
#3: Ohr Weinberg's tape
This one sounds pretty good. But it's only the second set, because, as Weinberg relates, "we were at a Robert Hunter show in SF and Hunter made a crack about why we weren't at the Jerry show in Berkeley... so we drove down to Berkeley just in time for the second JGB set." Fortunately the complete source (below) sounds even better. And, fwiw, the Hunter show does circulate: presumably this is also Weinberg's tape, from Jeff Knudsen's collection. Double duty! Thank you, Ohr Weinberg!
#4: John Anzaldo's tape
Back to our man on the front lines, who I imagine was standing right in front of Jerry like one of those dudes in the picture up top, trusty Sony Walkman at the ready (don't be skeptical; there are some Walkman aud tapes from the fall 82 tour that are surprisingly good). The vocals are low, as is usually the case with tapes recorded this close to the stage. But that Tiger sounds as rich as can be, and everything else is a little more gentle in the mix, but still well-balanced: drums, bass, Hammond organ, and small but unobtrusive touches of electric piano. You are right there, shoulder to shoulder with the few, the proud, the yahoos who've been partying since they got on line at 4:00 that afternoon. I confess that perhaps the recording quality is swaying my opinion, but this show has now come to life for me. Don't Let Go, unsurprisingly, is one highlight, powered along by Kreutzmann finding new angles throughout the jam while never leaving the waist-deep groove. I also submit the first chorus of his penultimate solo in Tangled Up in Blue (@5:15, after the "I lived with them on Montague St" verse) as a small shining jewel of Pure Jerry Perfection -- it's not a speaker-shredder like 2/4/81, but more like the epitome of butterflies being let out of a basket. I am also really feeling his hard dig into Tore Up Over You, although, this being 1982, he loses the thread for his final solo after too much wait-time for the keyboardists to do something interesting (spoiler: nope). Elsewhere, he's hot to trot and jumps from song to song with very little lag time, including an unusual hustle from Simple Twist into The Harder They Come into Midnight Moonlight to end the night. Not quite one for the books, but one more Saturday night where everything (mostly) clicks into place. I would never have known it, though, were it not for this fine aud tape. Thank you John Anzaldo!
