| Tech Note | Grateful Dead 8-27-1972
Old Renaissance Faire Grounds Veneta OR
(Benefit for Springfield Creamery)
DVD 1
Creamery Skit (not included on previous version)
Prankster clips - Acid tests
Setting up - Playin in the Band (background music)
Water and the Heat
Promised Land
Crisis
China Cat Sunflower >>
I Know You Rider
...what ever happened to the truck that was going to spray the crowd
Jack Straw
DVD 2
Oregon Insanity (Please help us Jerry and Bob)
Dark Star >>
El Paso
...and no one was hurt
Endings - Greatest Story in the background
Different angle of China Cat Sunflower >> I Know You Rider (not included on previous version)
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Concert film by John Norris,
Sam Field, and Phil DeGuere
Loosely shot, this 100-minute film captures
an incredibly youthful Grateful Dead playing
outdoors at a creamery benefit in Veneta, Oregon.
The following text is from
http://www.sfherald.com/columnists/...apozzola08.html
"In sitting down to watch 'Sunshine Daydream,'
one gets a sense of revisiting history.
Because this was an era of unprecedented
accessibility, the Canis Major crew were able to
station their cameras squarely on the wings of
the stage, mere feet from the band.
The resulting footage allows the viewer to stand
almost shoulder-to-shoulder with a
very young Bob Weir, age 25, strumming a
cherry-red hollow-body guitar; a bushy-haired
Phil Lesh, dressed more like a surfer than a
bassist, and belting unexpected harmony
vocals; a fuzzily bearded Garcia, age 30,
smiling, not a gray hair in sight; and,
a tough-looking Bill Kreutzman, sitting
squatly on his drum stool, chewing gum and
wearing a railroad conductor's cap. Where most
Dead fans only witnessed these musicians
20 years later, and from the remote mezzanine
deck of a Checkerdome-Enormodome-Superstadium,
here suddenly is Garcia's boot tapping on a rusty
foot pedal, Phil Lesh leaping in front of
Kreutzman during a jazzy drums and bass solo,
and Bob Weir stepping timidly to the
microphone after a long, haunting jam.
One can only speculate on just how psychedelically
engaged Norris, Field, and DeGuere
(along with third cameraman Lou Melson, and soundman
Charlie Barreca) were as they
recordeded the day's proceedings. The concert
itself was organized by Ken Kesey and the
Merry Pranksters, which helped to ensure a
day of genuine acid craziness. But shot with
synchronized, handheld cameras, the Canis Major
team succeeded in capturing both the blissful
playing of the musicians and the general ecstasy
of the audience. The camera eye becomes almost
a running commentary of the respective filmmakers'
interior monologues. A close-up of Garcia's
leather boot stepping on a wah-wah pedal jumps
suddenly to a Christ-like figure perched
precariously on a wooden pole above the stage.
The camera tracks the fellow as he dances
rabidly above the music, then cuts to two women
walking a child behind the stage. A dog
runs past them. Suddenly the music changes
gears and the camera swings back to the stage,
to blonde-haired Phil Lesh at the precise moment
he strums a booming chord on his bass.
And then the other camera takes over, offering
Bob Weir baring his teeth and straining
to sing a high note as he chops harsh chords
on his guitar. Weir falls backward as Garcia
begins to solo and the camera suddenly jumps
again to a topless girl dancing nearby in the
tall grass.
Such chaotic filming succeeds precisely because
of its extemporaneous nature. Almost
accidentally, it captures the day's events in
whirlwind fashion, fortuitously recording
all the peripheral "noise" of the festival. In
editing the film, DeGuere, Norris, and
Field wisely provided some breathing room, interspersing
performance clips with vintage
moments of Kesey and the Pranksters. Additional
background footage delivers candid shots
of the festival's organizers as they try to cope
with a water shortage amidst the day's
100-degree heat. The camera pans to crowds of men
and women sharing plastic jugs of water.
Overdubbed walkie-talkie chatter reveals the stage
crew trying to bring in a fire truck
to hose down the crowd.
In true Deadhead spirit, the film preserves an
event that seem awfully remote in today's
world of cable TV, Internet ticketing, and heavily
policed gatherings. Early in the movie,
an eager crew can be seen building a simple wooden
stage. No cops, no security force
trolling the grounds. No bags being searched,
no one ejected for cigarette smoking.
What one witnesses as the movie gets underway
is 30,000 folks raving about in a big,
sunny meadow while the local band plays on a
hastily erected platform. Two flinty piles
of amplifiers broadcast loud rock 'n roll out
to the countryside. Amidst such casual
planning, it seems forgivable that the festival's
organizers forgot to incorporate
stage lights. Providentially, this lack of concert
lighting works to stunning effect
later in the film. As the sun sets, and a cool
breeze settles on the day's revelry,
Garcia can be faintly seen crooning the
plaintive "Sing Me Back Home," a mere
silhouette of dark hair and beard against
the gathering dusk.
Such a pastoral scene, of dogs and babies and
children eating ice cream, hearkens back
to a bygone era. 'Sunshine Daydream' never
lectures, though, never complains that such
days have passed. But in its quick cuts to
footage of the Merry Pranksters, and their
1964 bus slogan "A vote for Barry [Goldwater]
is a vote for fun," one sees the timeless
political viability of street theater. And
cutting back to the Dead in blazing performance,
one is reminded that the most essential
American liberty is freedom of expression."
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Video
Unknown Standalone source > DVD Decrypter > Sony Vega 7.0 (original bitrate was 9600 with AC3 audio) rendered to 8400 bitrate to allow for audio upgrade.
Per Awolfeoutwest about the re-encoding "And, I have to say, even though I am a stickler when it comes to re-encoding MPEG2, that the Bertha audio in your version makes it the better version in my opinion. The added softness in the re-encoded video is not at all apparent, but the sound upgrade is striking and crucial. In a blind "taste" test, I would choose your resync in a heartbeat. Very nice!"
My own views are that the original AC3 audio was a bit over-recorded - when comparing side by side - the Bertha is much fuller, better stereo seperation and just sounds better at higher volumes.
Audio:
Bertha Remaster of the Braverman/Dank 16 track source. (shnid 21619)
SBD>>MR>>DAT>>SS>>CDA>>EAC>>SHN>>DAW(Bertha)>>CDA/SHN - Sound A
(Between songs from the two-track master reels)
Digitally remastered using a custom built, Dual-DAW, nicknamed Bertha, by jashley@deadacated.com on January 4, 2004.
Thanks to Peter Braverman for his fine work.
From the Braverman text file and prior to Bertha Remastering:
Source:
SBD>16 Track Master Reels>DAT@44.1K>DAT>DAT>WAV>SHN
DAT>WAV via Sony SDT-9000 DDS drive using VDAT 0.6f
WAV was edited in Soundforge 4.0 (crossfading of reel cuts between
songs, no music was disturbed except for Sugar Magnolia)
WAV>SHN via CDWAV 1.53>MKW 0.97b
Notes
-Video assets courtesy of Lone Star Dead.
-SBD audio courtesy of the Wheel
-Audio synchronization by Kevin Tobin using Adobe Audition to
compress/expand the audio in multitrack mode to match the original audio.
-Multiplexing via TMPGEnc MPEG Editor by Kevin Tobin.
-DVD authoring via DVD Architect 3 by Kevin Tobin.
-MD5 checksums files are now being placed in the disk folders to support multiplatform use. Please remove before burning VOB files to dvd disk.
- I did not add any extra footage like I did on my first update (namely the last 2 minutes of Playin' In The Band) - the original video is all I used.
Audio\Video Flaws:
1) For first 4 minutes 50.839 seconds of video used the video soundtrack as no matching soundtrack is available.
2) All vocals\talking during the Playin in the Band segment were mixed in from the video soundtrack.
3) Between Playin and Promised Land, video soundtrack was used as no matching audio from soundboard.
4) Between Promised Land and China Cat Sunflower, video soundtrack was used as no matching audio from soundboard.
5) Between I Know You Rider and Jack Straw, video soundtrack was used as no matching audio from soundboard.
6) Between Jack Straw and Dark Star, video soundtrack was used as no matching audio from soundboard.
7) Between El Paso and Greatest Story, video soundtrack was used as no matching audio from soundboard.
Video Attribute :
Video compression mode : MPEG-2
TV system : 525/60 (NTSC)
Aspect Ratio : 4:3
Display Mode : reserved
Source picture resolution : 720x480 (525/60)
Frame Rate : 29.97
Source picture letterboxed : Not letterboxed
Bitrate : Disk 1 8.400 Mbps
Disk 2 8.400 Mbps
Menu : Yes (song list on separate menu)
Audio Attribute :
Number of Audio channels : 2
Number of Audio streams : 1
Audio Coding mode: Linear PCM audio
Sampling Rate : 48kHz 1536Kbps
Brokedown House Productions
Do NOT Buy or Sell this video |
