Dark Star
July 31, 1971
Yale Bowl, Yale University
Dark Star as living tissue. You can sense at about 5:30 that they have no idea what's coming down the pike, almost clueless - but that cluelessness leads to a conversation among people patiently working out a puzzle. Garcia kickin' it with the LP-JR. Much of it is 4-piece - a rock band line-up. Instead of limiting its color palette, the skeleton crew sounds freed up in very new ways. I love the Spring/Summer '71 Grateful Dead.