Barry
08-27-2012, 04:10 PM
It was 40 years ago today when the Dead played in Veneta,Oregon, deep in prankster territory. Here's a great video of the epic concert that captures the Dead in all their prankster weirdness & beauty, along with an article about it from my favorite Dead scribe, Blair Jackson. Enjoy!
Barry
:syf:
Blair’s Golden Road Blog - Two Field Trips, 10 Years Apart
https://www.dead.net/features/blairs-blog/blair-s-golden-road-blog-two-field-trips-10-years-apart
By Blair Jackson
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2012-08-27_1605.pngForty years ago — August 27, 1972 — on a scorching Sunday afternoon in a large meadow in the heart of Oregon Renaissance Pleasure Faire land 13 miles west of Eugene, the Grateful Dead played one of the most famous shows of their 30-year career: The Field Trip, a hastily put together benefit to raise money for the financially imperiled Springfield Creamery, which was operated by Ken Kesey’s brother, Chuck. The area was Merry Prankster territory—it’s where Kesey and a few of the other Pranksters hailed from, and it’s where Kesey and Ken Babbs took The Bus after the Acid Tests. “Back to the land” was part of the hippie revolution/evolution for many; the Oregon Pranksters embodied that ethos.
The Dead’s first performance—if you can call it that—in Oregon was at an Acid Test in Portland’s Beaver Hall in January ’66. No one seems to remember the exact date or what went on there. I guess that’s how you can tell it was a great success. Almost exactly two years later—in late January and the beginning of February 1968—they played five shows in Oregon during their great Northwest trek with Quicksilver, including their first in Eugene, in the University of Oregon’s student union building. One of my favorite 1969 Dead shows took place on the last day of May at McArthur Court gym on the U of O campus—an electric show from beginning to end, crackling with Prankster energy in the person of chatty host Babbs. They next played Eugene in January ’71 at Lane Community College, a gig for which only a muffled partial recording exists and which reveals nothing particularly extraordinary.
According to an article in the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper in late August ’72, the Creamery benefit, which had very little advance publicity, was only expected to draw about 5,000 to the fairgrounds, but by the time the show started that afternoon with a set by the New Riders of the Purple Sage (with Buddy Cage now in the steel guitar slot Garcia once occupied), there were three times that number, and as the afternoon progressed, the crowd hit somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000. There were traffic snarls on all roads near the concert, the facilities on site were inadequate for the size of the gathering, and, worst of all, the temperature soared as high as 108, an Oregon record.
Yet, if you talk to folks who were actually there, or if you watch the evocative, much-bootlegged film of the event, Sunshine Daydream, you come away believing that, heat and water issues aside, the Field Trip was a little piece of pure Hippie Heaven. After all, it was just a single day of relative discomfort, the vibes were good, security nonexistent (and not necessary), the psychedelics flowed freely, and the Dead rose to the occasion and played magnificently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iShCk1qst84&feature=related(the video is available in HD - use the youtube control to select it)The band had been on a roll all year long, with the Europe tour that spring a particular triumph. But even by those lofty standards, the Field Trip was special. There is a reason why in poll after poll of Dead Heads through the years, 8/27/72 consistently lands at or near the top. Was it the most “important” Dead show of all time, as John Dwork contended in his intense but convincing 7,500-word essay about the show in The Deadhead’s Taping Compendium, Vol. 1? He called it “The quintessential Grateful Dead concert Experience—not just the display of technically and emotionally brilliant musicianship. But also a spiritually transcendent vision quest ritual for audience and band alike.” I can be talked into that.
The set list is typical for ’72, but the playing definitely has that unmistakable acid edge that makes it sound bolder and more adventurous—just on this side of completely unraveling at any moment. The payoffs are huge and exciting. You can feel the band’s determination to hold it together as they fearlessly keep charging forward, exploring the nuances of whatever unfolds before them musically, clinging to one another as they simultaneously push off in different directions.
Each of the three sets seems to soar higher than the one that preceded it. Set One achieves liftoff during a truly spectacular “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider.” If you’ve seen Sunshine Daydream, it’s hard to wipe away the images of bare-breasted young women in the crowd bopping to the music, or the vintage Prankster film footage of Neal Cassady piloting the bus to never-ever land. Before Set Two, Bob announces that the band is changing its name to the Sunstroke Serenaders, but the searing heat doesn’t prevent them from launching into what may be my favorite “Playing in the Band” of all time—18½ minutes of some of the finest structured psychedelic jamming you’ll ever hear. The “Bird Song” later in the set clocks in at a mere 12½ minutes, but also feels as if they’ve taken it as far as it can go.
Set Three, which begins as the relentless sun finally starts to go down behind the crowd, opens with a trippy and transcendent 31-minute “Dark Star” that, for all its inherent looseness, actually is completely logical and coherent in its mystical progression through orderly and chaotic realms. That rolls into “El Paso,” which then drops into a stunning version of “Sing Me Back Home” dripping with existential pathos. Finally, “Sugar Magnolia” brings the crowd back from the brink and has everyone smiling and kicking up dust. The encore is a pair of crowd-pleasing rockers—“Casey Jones” and “One More Saturday Night” (on Sunday, but who cares?).
Tapes of 8/27/72 have circulated for many years—the show was a cornerstone of any decent collection, and definitely among the handful of tapes folks used to explain to a newbie, “This is what the Grateful Dead is all about.” When VHS copies of Sunshine Daydream began turning up in the mid-’80s—my first was reasonably low-gen, but still grainy and missing the “Dark Star” for some reason—we finally had some visuals to accompany the music already burned in our minds. That added immeasurably to subsequent listenings. Someday, both the film and the audio version will come out commercially; it’s just a matter of time. As one of the filmmakers, Phil DeGuere, told me in 1986, “I’ve never seen anything else that captures the squirrely craziness of that period.”
Almost 10 years to the day after the ’72 Field Trip—August 28, 1982—Kesey, Babbs and company brought the Dead back to what was now called the Oregon Country Fairgrounds for what was billed as “The Second Decadenal Field Trip.” Needless to say, the legend that had grown around the original Field Trip perked considerable out-of-state interest in this one (the first had been almost exclusively Oregon locals), and it became a summer weekend destination for thousands. Quite a few of our Northern California Dead Head friends made the trip to the Trip and all raved about what a magical environment it was. Peter Rowan, the Flying Karamozov Brothers juggling troupe and the up-and-coming Northwest bluesman Robert Cray opened for the Dead. And this time, the high temperature was only in the mid-’70s, and the promoters were ready to accommodate a large crowd. About 20,000 attended, and according to the front-page story in the next day’s Register-Guard, “Some shed their clothes and twisted near the stage. Others reminisced [about the ’72 concert] under trees with an ear of corn and a marijuana cigarette. A few merely listened.” Hmm, not sure about that corn-and-pot combo.
Continues about the 82 show here (https://www.dead.net/features/blairs-blog/blair-s-golden-road-blog-two-field-trips-10-years-apart)
Barry
:syf:
Blair’s Golden Road Blog - Two Field Trips, 10 Years Apart
https://www.dead.net/features/blairs-blog/blair-s-golden-road-blog-two-field-trips-10-years-apart
By Blair Jackson
https://www.waccobb.net/forums/waccobb/keep90days/2012-08-27_1605.pngForty years ago — August 27, 1972 — on a scorching Sunday afternoon in a large meadow in the heart of Oregon Renaissance Pleasure Faire land 13 miles west of Eugene, the Grateful Dead played one of the most famous shows of their 30-year career: The Field Trip, a hastily put together benefit to raise money for the financially imperiled Springfield Creamery, which was operated by Ken Kesey’s brother, Chuck. The area was Merry Prankster territory—it’s where Kesey and a few of the other Pranksters hailed from, and it’s where Kesey and Ken Babbs took The Bus after the Acid Tests. “Back to the land” was part of the hippie revolution/evolution for many; the Oregon Pranksters embodied that ethos.
The Dead’s first performance—if you can call it that—in Oregon was at an Acid Test in Portland’s Beaver Hall in January ’66. No one seems to remember the exact date or what went on there. I guess that’s how you can tell it was a great success. Almost exactly two years later—in late January and the beginning of February 1968—they played five shows in Oregon during their great Northwest trek with Quicksilver, including their first in Eugene, in the University of Oregon’s student union building. One of my favorite 1969 Dead shows took place on the last day of May at McArthur Court gym on the U of O campus—an electric show from beginning to end, crackling with Prankster energy in the person of chatty host Babbs. They next played Eugene in January ’71 at Lane Community College, a gig for which only a muffled partial recording exists and which reveals nothing particularly extraordinary.
According to an article in the Eugene Register-Guard newspaper in late August ’72, the Creamery benefit, which had very little advance publicity, was only expected to draw about 5,000 to the fairgrounds, but by the time the show started that afternoon with a set by the New Riders of the Purple Sage (with Buddy Cage now in the steel guitar slot Garcia once occupied), there were three times that number, and as the afternoon progressed, the crowd hit somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000. There were traffic snarls on all roads near the concert, the facilities on site were inadequate for the size of the gathering, and, worst of all, the temperature soared as high as 108, an Oregon record.
Yet, if you talk to folks who were actually there, or if you watch the evocative, much-bootlegged film of the event, Sunshine Daydream, you come away believing that, heat and water issues aside, the Field Trip was a little piece of pure Hippie Heaven. After all, it was just a single day of relative discomfort, the vibes were good, security nonexistent (and not necessary), the psychedelics flowed freely, and the Dead rose to the occasion and played magnificently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iShCk1qst84&feature=related(the video is available in HD - use the youtube control to select it)The band had been on a roll all year long, with the Europe tour that spring a particular triumph. But even by those lofty standards, the Field Trip was special. There is a reason why in poll after poll of Dead Heads through the years, 8/27/72 consistently lands at or near the top. Was it the most “important” Dead show of all time, as John Dwork contended in his intense but convincing 7,500-word essay about the show in The Deadhead’s Taping Compendium, Vol. 1? He called it “The quintessential Grateful Dead concert Experience—not just the display of technically and emotionally brilliant musicianship. But also a spiritually transcendent vision quest ritual for audience and band alike.” I can be talked into that.
The set list is typical for ’72, but the playing definitely has that unmistakable acid edge that makes it sound bolder and more adventurous—just on this side of completely unraveling at any moment. The payoffs are huge and exciting. You can feel the band’s determination to hold it together as they fearlessly keep charging forward, exploring the nuances of whatever unfolds before them musically, clinging to one another as they simultaneously push off in different directions.
Each of the three sets seems to soar higher than the one that preceded it. Set One achieves liftoff during a truly spectacular “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider.” If you’ve seen Sunshine Daydream, it’s hard to wipe away the images of bare-breasted young women in the crowd bopping to the music, or the vintage Prankster film footage of Neal Cassady piloting the bus to never-ever land. Before Set Two, Bob announces that the band is changing its name to the Sunstroke Serenaders, but the searing heat doesn’t prevent them from launching into what may be my favorite “Playing in the Band” of all time—18½ minutes of some of the finest structured psychedelic jamming you’ll ever hear. The “Bird Song” later in the set clocks in at a mere 12½ minutes, but also feels as if they’ve taken it as far as it can go.
Set Three, which begins as the relentless sun finally starts to go down behind the crowd, opens with a trippy and transcendent 31-minute “Dark Star” that, for all its inherent looseness, actually is completely logical and coherent in its mystical progression through orderly and chaotic realms. That rolls into “El Paso,” which then drops into a stunning version of “Sing Me Back Home” dripping with existential pathos. Finally, “Sugar Magnolia” brings the crowd back from the brink and has everyone smiling and kicking up dust. The encore is a pair of crowd-pleasing rockers—“Casey Jones” and “One More Saturday Night” (on Sunday, but who cares?).
Tapes of 8/27/72 have circulated for many years—the show was a cornerstone of any decent collection, and definitely among the handful of tapes folks used to explain to a newbie, “This is what the Grateful Dead is all about.” When VHS copies of Sunshine Daydream began turning up in the mid-’80s—my first was reasonably low-gen, but still grainy and missing the “Dark Star” for some reason—we finally had some visuals to accompany the music already burned in our minds. That added immeasurably to subsequent listenings. Someday, both the film and the audio version will come out commercially; it’s just a matter of time. As one of the filmmakers, Phil DeGuere, told me in 1986, “I’ve never seen anything else that captures the squirrely craziness of that period.”
Almost 10 years to the day after the ’72 Field Trip—August 28, 1982—Kesey, Babbs and company brought the Dead back to what was now called the Oregon Country Fairgrounds for what was billed as “The Second Decadenal Field Trip.” Needless to say, the legend that had grown around the original Field Trip perked considerable out-of-state interest in this one (the first had been almost exclusively Oregon locals), and it became a summer weekend destination for thousands. Quite a few of our Northern California Dead Head friends made the trip to the Trip and all raved about what a magical environment it was. Peter Rowan, the Flying Karamozov Brothers juggling troupe and the up-and-coming Northwest bluesman Robert Cray opened for the Dead. And this time, the high temperature was only in the mid-’70s, and the promoters were ready to accommodate a large crowd. About 20,000 attended, and according to the front-page story in the next day’s Register-Guard, “Some shed their clothes and twisted near the stage. Others reminisced [about the ’72 concert] under trees with an ear of corn and a marijuana cigarette. A few merely listened.” Hmm, not sure about that corn-and-pot combo.
Continues about the 82 show here (https://www.dead.net/features/blairs-blog/blair-s-golden-road-blog-two-field-trips-10-years-apart)