Grateful Dead, 6.28.76, Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL

There were a number of fine audience recordings made on the Grateful Dead’s comeback tour of June 1976, but my favorite comes from the June 28, 1976 show at Chicago’s Auditorium Theatre. There’s no soundboard recording in circulation among traders for this show, though one clearly exists, as High Time from the first set was commercially released as filler on Vol. 4 of the Dead’s download series. Until the rest of the soundboard recording surfaces, this interesting show with a unique jam in the second set can be heard thanks to an audience recording made by Bob Wagner with Shure 545s microphones. Download or listen to the music here:

http://www.archive.org/details/gd76-06-28.shure.minches.18388.sbeok.shnf

The first set shows some of the marked changes in the band since their last tour in 1974 (The Dead played four casual shows in 1975, but they were scattered throughout the year). Most obvious is the return of drummer Mickey Hart, who had taken a three and a half year break from touring with the band starting in February of 1971. The reassembled two percussionist format of the Dead provided a heavier bottom end to the music, which propelled jams with greater momentum at the cost of not being able to change direction quite as sharply. Other new developments can be seen and heard in the setlist, with the addition of the Weir/Barlow songs Cassidy, Lazy Lightnin’ > Supplication, and The Music Never Stopped to the band’s rotation. Cassidy was originally recorded in 1972 for Weir’s Ace album, but was played live by the Dead only once before 1976. (John Perry Barlow has written an interesting piece regarding the song’s origins.) Weir had worked up Lazy Lightnin’ > Supplication with Kingfish while the Dead were on hiatus and the pairing would be a staple of the Dead’s first set jamming until Lazy Lightnin’ was dropped in ‘84. The Music Never Stopped carried over from the band’s 1975 work, but would become a regular set closer from 1976 onward. Garcia’s numbers also offered new twists– They Love Each Other has a slowed down arrangement compared to the sprightly 1973 performances; Scarlet Begonias bounces less buts rocks harder (and longer) in the two-drummer band; and High Time returned to the rotation after a six year absence.

The second set features the highlight of the show, starting out from Eyes of the World, which in June of ‘76 had been also been rearrangec, with the minor key jam that previously came after the final chorus transplanted to the song’s introduction. Eyes breaks down into a bass lead for Lesh, which the drummers gradually take into the one-time-only performance of Happiness is Drumming. This jam, which appeared on Hart’s Diga album, is essentially an instrumental version of Fire on the Mountain and provides a fascinating snapshot of the band’s onstage development of their future repertoire. Rehearsal recordings of Fire on the Mountain/Happiness is Drumming date to as far back as 1971, but the song wouldn’t appear in the Dead’s sets until March of 1977, paired with Scarlet Begonias. The rest of the second set continues to showcase new wrinkles in the Dead’s 1976 live act, like the disco arrangement of Dancing in the Streets, which would be used for the rest of the 1970’s. This leads into The Wheel, which closed out Garcia’s first solo album but wasn’t played by the Dead until the June ‘76 tour. A long encore of Not Fade Away, now separated from Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad, also reveals changes to the band’s tempo and approach to that tune.

Thanks to the efforts of the taper Dr. Wagner and the digitization of the reels by David Minches, as well as the generous agreement between the Dead and the LMA, this show can be downloaded in lossless FLAC format, decompressed, and later enjoyed at full volume and dynamics. It’s well worth the listener’s time and effort to check out this unique show.