HI GD

Giving a Dead show a listen has become more routine with me lately. But not really routine... I despise routine. I called my last hike routine even though there was nothing really regular about it except for the trail but that's changed with the weather and each time out there the music's different and I've always gotta be aware for wildlife. So it's not truly routine.

Anyway, I guess what I could've said after backspacing all this away, is that listening to some live Dead has become more... frequent lately. Yeah, frequent, that's it. What's definitely most certainly not routine is what I listen to exactly. Man, could be anything. Absolutely any show under the tie-dyed sky, that's for sure.

This show I actually chose a few days ago and have already given it a listen. And now as I type this, the first few songs are playing on another go around...



Grateful Dead -- 1/23/70
Civic Auditorium, Honolulu, Hawai'i

China Cat Sunflower -»
I Know You Rider -» Black Peter,
Yellow Dog Story, Hard To Handle,
Mama Tried, Dire Wolf,
Good Lovin' -» Drums -» Good Lovin' -»
Cryptical Envelopment -» Drums -»
The Other One -» Cryptical Envelopment -»
Dark Star -» St. Stephen -» Lovelight


Holy moly, Moses! I have been to the promised land and back again. Mahalo and Amen!

China->Rider got this Hawaiian Hoedown rockin' picture perfectly. There may have been a show the night before this but since no recording is known to exist, this could very well be the first show ever in Hawai'i and it was off to a beautiful start. After a decent Black Peter, Bobby didn't get many laughs with his shot at telling his Yellow Dog joke... but it made me laugh at how funny these guys are when they banter on stage. Hardy hardy har, I'm a chucklin' now just a thinkin' about it. Silly Bobby and Pigpen.

The only really weak moment in this show was Weir's attempt at Mama Tried. Seemed like he had no clue what the words were at the beginning. He got through it and they snuck in that quick cowboy number amidst the rest of this tremendous two hour set of tunes.

Perhaps I don't listen to this old stuff often enough 'cause I've never heard Dire Wolf begin like it did here. It started like the song Searchin', which the Dead only played twice, and not for the first time until much later this year. The sound was just nearly exactly the same which made Jerry yell something about this being 1970 and not 1956. In the background Pigpen's heard starting the line, "Gonna find her. Gonna find her." And then they quickly alter the key they're in and Dire Wolf starts. Interesting.

Good Lovin' moves along and everything's just groovy by now. Billy & Mickey set Phil up as usual to thunder into The Other One. O. That's all I need to type about that. Figure it out. O. Cigarette? Yes, please. What follows is just bliss on a stick. Turn off the lights, lounge in your favorite chair right in front of the speakers or with earphones in, and be taken away. This is a band so in tune with each other and over the next 40 minutes. Let Jerry, yet again, masterfully lead the way through dimensions not normally traveled. If I tried for a hundred million years I couldn't do this music justice with words on a screen. Dark Star reaches so far down, nearly dropping away to nothing, before pulsing forward, gliding forward, forcing forward and back up to life again. Monstrously gorgeous.

Stephen is then just a mere blip on the radar before about a 32-minute Lovelight. Yeah, over a half hour. Here it's Pigpen's turn to take the master control while Jerry flies co-pilot.

There's about 25 minutes left and I'm out of words. So if you'll excuse me, I'm just gonna get up and dance now! Mahalo and Amen is right!!

Sound Quality -- Just about Perfect.
Tiny amount of hiss during quieter times but
seriously, there's really nothing to complain about.
Lovelight cuts off, sadly, but not until close to the very end...
and then there's a mysterious 4 minutes or so of
some lesser quality Dark Star to the end. Weird.

1/23/70 is @ Archive.org for Listening only
--or--
Dload the Soundboard Right Here!

1/23/70 - part one part two - 1/23/70