| Identifier | 5625688 |
| Created At | Tue May 23 2023 23:54:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) |
| Reference Number | 0001377815 |
| Status | 1 |
| Media Type | cdr |
| Media Count | 3 |
| Sound Rating | A+ |
| Note |
SET(S): I / II LINEAGE SBD > GD MASTER DIGITAL MULTI-TRACK > MARIN COUNTY DIGITAL MIXDOWN TO DAT > SSSB AUDIO RATING: AR1 MEDIA REQUIRED: DAT: 1x180 min. CD-R / MINI DISC: 3 RELEASED ON: 12/18/01 OFFICIAL SHOW NOTES: Bruce Hornsby on grand piano and vocals the entire show; according to the Marin County source, "Jerry wasn't himself" for this show (vocal problems); Garcia did not have the usual amount and type of effects added to his vocals, and his levels were slightly louder in overall mix; technical problems with Hart's percussion and MIDI interface cut "Drums" short; GD master digital recording was paused for approx. 4 min. while the problem was attempted to be corrected, w/o success, on the master SBD mixer; the venue's audio was not affected as much/as long as the engineers switched some channels and bypassed the main mixer for about 5 minutes; for "Space" > "Miracle", Phil's bass level was low, due to the master mixer's channel reassignments and pre-set levels; any/all editing, fades, NR, hiss elimination, phase shifting/"time smear" correction, jitter elimination, EQ, and quantization noise elimination (when down-converting audio to 16-bit / 44.1 kHz for CD-R mastering), were all performed using 32-bit / 96 kHz digital realm processing at Serafin Station Studio B JAY'S PERSONAL COMMENTS: This show is not really what I expected. Excellent Set I, and a great first half of Set II. Then, things kind of went south, beginning with a technical problem (discussed below). But, I'm not disappointed with the show, as this is a GREAT example of a band's "appreciation for their audience" Bruce Hornsby sat in for this show, playing his heart out on his wonderfully miked, and properly mixed grand piano. This man plays with such a versatile style, and his "classical music chord structures" for some of the songs really made this point stand out. You have to listen for them during the show, but once you hear a couple of them, you'll know what I mean. Set I opens with an fair version of Let The Good Times Roll. A little "uneven" and not a "let's get the audience in the mood" version The show began to get a little more life in it from the next song on. Feel Like A Stranger starts the higher intensity level going for the remainder of the set. Nice feel to the song... sort of laid back, yet it still retained the "good feeling power" it's known for when it's played certain ways. Jerry's voice, which had surprisingly few effects added to it (i.e., not the normal amount of compression & limiting, plus almost NO reverb/delay; it had a nice "dry and natural" sound quality to it, and you can really hear this during Althea. Personally, I think Jerry may have been feeling a bit under the weather (not under the influence), as his powerful voice seemed to be sometimes strained; he sang almost every song with a bit less "volume intensity" (which, technically, accounts for the lack of the usual level of compression and limiting needed this night for his vocal channel). Hey, we've all had sore throats in our lives, and I can understand that if this was the case, I would not have wanted to make my voice any worse off than it already was. It's All Over Now sat well with me. Good version, nothing more, nothing less. Jerry tried to put forth a little more effort for High Time, and you can just hear the start of his voice starting to crack and showing more "little snippets" of being strained. But he made it through, giving me (and the audience, from their reaction, a very enjoyable version. His lack of "raw vocal power" this night was made up for by his subtle little accents, "manually-controlled" softer singing in sections of some songs, and so forth. A Beat It On Down The Line with NO countdown??? I had to double-check this, as I'm not used to hearing the song without the usual intro. Listened closely to the audio for any signs of the audio being "cut"; nope, no edits in the tape, it was simply a "zero beat" intro. That's fine (and good to hear!), as ANYTHING is possible when the Dead play! Nice smooth segue into Big Railroad Blues. Again, you can hear Jerry's voice a little louder in the mix, and it was just slightly more ragged a couple of times during the song. Next came a very long Desolation Row... 12+ minutes in this version. I believe that Bob MAY have added another of Dylan's original verses in this evening's rendition. I am not a big "DR" fan, so I'm not going to officially say whether one "extra verse" was thrown in or not. People more familiar or more happy to hear the song played would be better judges. But this version was quite long, played in it's usual tempo, and there weren't any extra "solo parts" (that I noticed) to cause the song to be a few minutes longer than usual. I had the set list, pre-written out, in front of me on the editing sheets, where I keep a record of anything / everything I would do for / to a show I work on. But I was certain that they were going to segue right from "DR" into New Speedway Boogie. Nope! I got fooled; about a minute of tuning and noodling, and the closer began without any real fanfare. I got a kick out of NSB, as I thought it was an unusual closer... I was secretly hoping for them to segue into Don't Ease Me In, but those hopes were dashed when Bobby gave his obligatory Set I closing words. Maybe Jerry was just pacing himself for Set II, or maybe something was physically and/or mentally amiss with Garcia. I don't have an exact reason... when I spoke to my MC source about this evening's situation with Garcia, all I was told were three words, "Jerry wasn't himself". End of discussion about this aspect of the performance that night! Now for Set II, the more "interesting" part of the show, for several reasons. I was told, by several people who were at the show (one being a very close personal friend) that the intermission was close to 15 minutes longer than what would normal. I, personally, chalk it up to Jerry possibly trying to get his voice back into gear. Maybe a couple of lozenges, a little bit of honey, who knows. Everyone was treated to a really nice China Cat Sunflower. I say "nice" because you can tell Jerry was singing softer than normal at this time. During "Rider", he tried to give his voice more "oomph", and that seemed to have taken it's toll for the remainder of the show, unfortunately. The band took a pause after Rider, and then slowly went into "Man Smart, Woman Smarter". Weir was trying to make up for Jerry's loss of his voice, and he did so by actually ALSO singing softer than normal. This was giving Set II a much more relaxed and laid back feeling. Different to hear, not unpleasant on the ears, and it made for a nice change of pace. The segue from Woman Smarter into Ship Of Fools wasn't that smooth, as it seemed like the rest of the band wanted something a bit more high energy than the Ship was capable of producing. I can't put my finger on what song the rest of the band wanted to go into; Jerry's "insistent" guitar licks won the battle, and he gave the audience a very soulful version, and the audience responded in kind. Somewhat "feeling sorry" for Jerry, yet giving him and the rest of the band their proper respect and admiration. Coming out of Ship... again, not a real smooth segue, but the band members were all on the same page, and a "first verse only" Dark Star came wafting through the venue's speakers. Jerry's voice, and his overall frustration with this situation (this is what it sounded like to me after listening to the show a few times during the final "review" before making the master and safety recordings) about not being able to sing anywhere near to his usual ways, was more than compensated for by his "soaring to the heavens" solos, riffs, and fills! This was one of those songs that if it weren't for the length of his guitar's neck, the notes would have kept going higher and higher past the range of human hearing! Even though he really blows the lyrics, I cannot fault him for it. I still reveled in hearing, and cherished listening, to Jerry's mastery of the 6-string for this 14+ minute version of the Star! PERSONAL NOTE: There is NOTHING like sitting in the "sweet spot" in my post-production audio/video studio, or even at someone's house with a good audio system, and listening to Dark Star flowing through the air, coming through without any "discoloration" or "frequency skewing" of the audio! I concentrate very heavily to the audio when I'm working on shows, looking for any slight errors (the large ones are easy to pick up!), but listening to Jerry giving the audience "their Money's worth" kept pulling my attention away from the song, and I missed two little digital jitter noise clicks! (I did catch them during the last processing phase of the multi-step processes I use for every show). (This is where my Disc 3 begins, just for a point of reference) Drums is where things began to technically go downhill (I told you I'd get to this!). Billy starts off Drums on his own. Mickey's not doing much percussion, just getting everything ready to begin his "travels into the percussion/MIDI realms". K-Man's got a really intense rock-oriented solid beat, and the energy's flowing like lava from a volcano, enveloping and engulfing anyone in it's path. It's "technically" nothing fancy or flashy, but it's not a simple "back beat" by any means. Billy's got the stage, and like the Dragon, he's set the stage on fire. About a minute or so later, Mickey comes in on the lowest toms. You can just mentally picture him, with his "bone" percussion sticks, now almost matching Billy beat for beat, but only on the 2 lowest frequency toms. This is the kind of low frequency sound (right around 80-100 Hz, which is a little lower than most home audio speakers will go without having a subwoofer) that shakes your seat, pounds your ears, the plaster starts to crack and fall off the ceiling from the wonderful low end. But the studio monitors are rattling the nearby picture frames here! The duo then begin a slightly "tribal & primitive" beat, with a smidgen of some free-form jazz in the mix; Billy on the "higher end", Mickey still giving the lower toms, the kick, and 3 smaller metal gongs a real good working over, beating on them like a "red-headed stepchild". Billy's about had his fill, and slowly begins to let Mickey take off on his own. Billy is now almost totally ceased his percussion, but still has a rhythm beat for Mickey to pick up on. Mickey begins to use some of the MIDI trigger percussion, and then... Suddenly, you begin to hear an "unusual random noise", and unfortunately, it's one of the MIDI channel cable's dying a slow death. Rather than causing any speaker damage at the venue, the soundboard engineers turn off almost everything Micky's working with. All you hear is the reverberations of the drums and gongs from the on-stage monitors vibrating the equipment. Mickey's playing, but nothing is coming out of the venue speakers! OOPS! There's one thing I have to say about the sound engineer's the Dead surrounded themselves with (thanks, Phil!): they don't panic, they know how to get things back on track as quickly as possible, and make the necessary repairs on the spot. But tonight, things didn't go quite as planned. While most of the audience actually heard Mickey playing again after a short "interlude" while they switched channels and re-routed some of the MIDI channels directly to the venue's SBD, unfortunately the main soundboard has to be quickly rewired. So, the multi-track digital recorders get put on "pause" while connections are changed, and the levels are (hopefully) near the same as they were originally. But, to find out if all this is working out or them, the Dead are called back from their break early, by about 10 minutes. That did NOT do Jerry's voice a lot of good. Even though he's not singing at all, he's also not getting as much rest as he, or other band members would normally have gotten. Now, there was about 3 minutes of "dead space" on the digital master tapes now, and then it picks up after about 30 seconds into the band members playing their instruments in Space (just to get the best set of ballpark audio levels possible). So, I left in all of the "Mickey's percussion echoes" that was recorded, and then took the spot where the band members were being recorded again, and just performed a "longer than normal" crossfade of the two sections (deleting the blank spot on the tape, of course. Normally, I would do a 5 to 7 second total crossfade using a 9 dB "logarithmic curve", but both of the two sections of the recording would sound too "short" with those fades. So, I "overextended it" and made the total crossfade length TWENTY SECONDS! That may seem, without hearing the x-fade, to be a little on the long side, but it made the transition, especially where the musicians had their levels back up, sound as close to "normal" as it's going to get. So, Space, with the Boyz coming back on early, was still good, free-form until the last minute when Jerry and Bruce got into a very nice duet of instruments, each "sensing" the next not to be played. One thing you'll notice, once Space ends and Jerry goes into a sweet version of Foolish Heart is that the vocals, but not the vocalist's energy, are really lower than normal. The music is a bit more on the subdued side, even the "rocking" songs, such as I Need a Miracle, which followed Foolish Heart, are on the "mild side". Jerry's voice is on the edge of going when he's finished up with a very mellow, yet still powerful, Standing On The Moon. He's become, like the "Maxwell House Coffee" slogan says, good to the last drop. He's giving "of himself" to make sure the audience is having a wonderful time. And rest of the band is very much aware of what's going on, so they're not "pushing" the songs to make them louder, faster, or more energetic. They're just "following Jerry's lead"; when he's able to belt out a few of the verses, or even only a couple of words, the band backs him up... and when ol' Jer has to "back off", the Boyz follow suit. Wonderful working chemistry this night. Some of you may have heard lackluster energy shows from the Boyz... could have been the first night of a long run, after they'd been on hiatus for a few weeks, sometimes during a long Fillmore or Oakland run... one of the shows may have suffered a bit in overall intensity... and other times, a tour had just drained them, and it sounded almost like a "chore" for them to be playing that night. I was actually at a couple of these during the mid-70's. I was still glad to hear them play, and I didn't feel cheated in any way because they weren't "on" for those shows. I came out of the show with a good sense of satisfaction, of having just been there with the crowds, being part of the "energy of the whole", I didn't get the "WOW!" feelings I've gotten from other shows. Sure, this show isn't stellar, compared with many others, but Garcia's voice was really the only thing really "not all there". Jerry's musical playing was first rate and MORE than "made up" for what his voice wasn't able to contribute; Hornsby played what I felt to be one of his best shows (I haven't heard more than 20-25), so there could be quite a few others... I'm just going by the shows I've heard and have in my "Kindness library" and at friends' houses; Phil is still "out there"; Bobby contributed with the long Desolation as well as his playing; Billy and Mickey, I don't think anything needs to be said, really. They're ALWAYS there! And I have to give credit to the engineers and technicians who got the channel problems solved in the best and fastest possible ways... they kept the audience "fed" with the audio; although it may not have been the "best mix" or levels while the repairs and adjustments were going on; they kept the crowd happy! PERSONAL RATINGS: (on a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being excellent) Audio Mix: 9.4 (with Jerry's vocal problems, and Phil's low levels for 2 songs considered) Audio Quality: 9.8 (the pause, and subsequent cross-fade during Space's technical problems included) Energy Level: 9.0 Show "Completeness": 10.0 Song Selection: 9.5 (due to Jerry's vocal problems, but his wanting to actually sing more songs!) Surprises: The number of song Jerry sang, to make sure the audience was given "what they paid for" (and more!) |
| Source Info | SBD > GD Digital Multi-Track Master > Marin County Source Mixdown DAT > SSSB |
| Tech Note | 1 & 2 |
| Trades Allowed | |
| Attendence | 0 |
Performance
| Grateful Dead 1991-09-24 Boston Garden, Boston, MA | |
|---|---|
| Set 1 | Let The Good Times Roll Feel Like A Stranger Althea It's All Over Now High Time Beat It On Down The Line Big Railroad Blues Desolation Row New Speedway Boogie |
| Set 2 | China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider > Man Smart (Woman Smarter) Ship Of Fools > Dark Star > Drums > Space > Foolish Heart > I Need A Miracle > Standing On The Moon > Around & Around The Weight |
| Set 3 | |
| Comment | Jerry Garcia - Guitar Bob Weir - Guitar Vince Welnick - Keyboards Bruce Hornsby - Piano, Accordion Phil Lesh - Bass Bill Kreutzmann - Drums Mickey Hart - Drums |