Skip to main content

May 25, 1974 - Grateful Dead - UC Stadium - Santa Barbara, CA

Love 'em or hate 'em, the Grateful Dead are the ultimate American rock band. No other was more storied, more enduring, or more reflective of American music to its roots.

Here is a nice performance by them 35 years ago today, on a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon in California, in front of their infamous "Wall of Sound". (The recording has initial tweaks as they work out the mix).

The Wall of Sound was probably the most complex and fine-tuned PA system ever devised. Basically it allowed the band to play in front of the PA, without need of stage monitors, so they would be hearing exactly what the audience was.

It barely lasted a year (1974), since the band had to haul it around the country in three tractor-trailers (in the midst of the first oil supply problems).

The band basically went broke from it...



Opening Acts : Maria Muldaur; Great American String Band; Elvin Bishop

Set List:

I
U.S. Blues
Mexicali Blues
Deal
Jack Straw
Scarlet Begonias
Beat it on Down the Line
Brown Eyed Women
Me and My Uncle
Sugaree
El Paso
China Cat Sunflower
I Know You Rider
Around and Around

II
Promised Land
Ship of Fools
Big River
Tennessee Jed
Truckin'
Let it Grow
Wharf Rat
Sugar Magnolia
Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad
One More Saturday Night

Encore : Casey Jones


Band Member Photo Credit : Dean Abrams



Phil Lesh's Alembic bass : "The Godfather"
U.S. Blues

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Red and white, blue suede shoes
I'm Uncle Sam, how do you do
Gimme five, still alive
Ain't no luck, I learned to duck

Check my pulse, it don't change
Stay seventy two, come shine or rain
Wave the flag, pop the bag
Rock the boat, skin the goat

Chorus
Wave that flag, wave it wide and high
Summertime done come and gone, my oh my

I'm Uncle Sam, that's who I am
Been hiding out, in a rock and roll band
Shake the hand that shook the hand
Of P. T. Barnum and Charlie Chan

Shine your shoes, light your fuse
Can you use them old U.S. Blues
I'll drink your health, share your wealth
Run your life, steal your wife

[chorus]

Back to back, chicken shack
Son of a gun, better change your act
We're all confused, what's to lose
You can call this song the United States Blues
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...
44 comments
Read more

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...
70 comments
Read more

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...
31 comments
Read more