Ben Wiser

“You gotta remember that you and I are talking about two different “Dark Stars.” You’re talking about the “Dark Star” which you have heard formalized on a record, and I’m talking about the “Dark Star” which I have heard in each performance as a completely improvised piece over a long period of time. So I have a long continuum of “Dark Star” which range in character from each other to real different extremes. “Dark Star” has meant, while I’m playing it, almost as many things as I can sit here and imagine, so all I can do is talk about “Dark Star” as a playing experience. “ – Jerry Garcia

Welcome back to Dark Star stories. I’m excited about this month’s installment since it is one of my all-time favorites – February 18, 1971.

• CLICK HERE TO STREAM 2/18/1971

The February 1971 run at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York is significant on many levels, first of all, the first night of the run, February 18th, was Mickey’s final performance with the band until the last of the retirement shows in October, 1974. Secondly, these were the first “Betty Boards” – recorded on 7” reels by Betty Cantor for possible inclusion on the 1971 Skull and Roses (aka Skullfuck) live album. Third, these shows featured the debuts of Bertha, Greatest Story Ever Told, Playing in the Band, Loser, Deal, Bird Song and Wharf Rat, the debut of which we’re talking about today. What an impressive break out of material! All of these songs were among the band’s best and brightest and stayed in the repertoire up until the end.

But there’s one other significant footnote to these shows. Dr. Stanley Krippner recruited the band and audiences’ help in what would become the largest ESP (that’s Extra-Sensory-Phenomenon folks) experiment of the age. While the band performed, a series of slides appeared on a screen over the stage. Deadheads would focus on the image and try to “beam” it to the test subject – a guy sleeping in a Brooklyn hospital. When the test subject awoke, he would report on his dreams and see if there was any sort of correlation between the images seen at the concert.

The results of the experiment were “inconclusive”, but you can read all about it here and here. READ ON for more of this month’s Dark Star Stories…

Each month, HT Contributor Ben Wiser will take a closer look at notable performances of Dark Star. If you have any favorite Stars you would like him to cover, send the date over to darkstarstories@yahoo.com

Last month I touched on the great Halloween night Dark Star from the Oakland Coliseum Arena back in 1991. That was the night Ken Kesey showed up and delivered his eulogy to Bill Graham. He recited some e.e. cummings and gave us the great line – “In any given situation there are always going to be more dumb people than smart people – we aint’ many.”

In honor of that and in honor everyone’s favorite holiday – here is a trick or treat bag of seminal October Dark Stars –

10/9/89 “Formerly the Warlocks!”

It’s been twenty years since Virginia heads got a treat when the boys played two hastily-planned nights at Hampton billed as “Formerly the Warlocks”. The first night featured the return of Help on the Way > Slipknot!, but the second night, whew.

READ ON for the rest of this month’s Dark Star Stories…

Originally I was going to write about the reeling and rockin’ Dark Star that went down at Betty Nelson’s Organic Raspberry Farm on September 2nd, 1968, but there’s not much to tell. The whole show smokes and it’s easily one of my favorites of the year. 1968 is the year of primal Grateful Dead – the juggernaut of a band finding its footing. Those early Stars, replete with Pig’s keys and lots of shaker and guiro, are fantastic and fun. I have to write about Stars that are perhaps off the radar and ones that take chances.

But I decided, at the last minute, since there aren’t many days of September left, to cover this gem of a show from 1991.

Thursday, September 26th was the final night of a spirited run at the Boston Garden, their first trip to the Gah-den in over ten years. The previous night was released as Dick’s Picks #17. It’s a fine show, but 9/26/91 really outshines it in my opinion.

One of the reasons why I love this show so much is because it was the first tape I ever collected. A friend of mine was there as it happened and she wrote me a long letter, where she described it to me – song by song, note by note. I fired off blanks and postage to a friendly trader in the back of Dupree’s Diamond News and in two weeks, I got a crispy AUD of the second set. READ ON for the rest of this month’s Dark Star Stories…