The drummers weren’t quite together yet, and the sound is cluttered, but it’s HUGE and it just doesn’t sound like any other year. Garcia sounds like it’s ’72, laying down long, ropey lines and just soloing throughout pretty much every song, expecting the other 97 musicians on stage to carry the actual song. Due to the ad hoc nature of most of the Hiatus show, having a grand piano on stage was impossible (said the road crew before pantsing Keith, forcing Donna Jean to shoo them away. “You have to stand up for yourself, baby. Can’t let the bigger boys bully you. Look at me, Keith: it gets better.”) so Keith was confined to the Fender Rhodes

Did they ever really retire? Were they ever serious about it? The fake-out retirement is a classic show-biz move: Sinatra retired at least 17 times, the Stones have done five straight farewell tours, Tupac became a hologram for some reason. They certainly needed a break from playing Atlas with the Wall of Sound, there was way too much coke and the Persian was creeping into the scene.

So, they took ’75 off, playing only 4 shows, all of them backyard gigs in the Bay Area. The most well-known (justly) is 8/13, the One from the Vault release from the Great American Music Hall. The S.N.A.C.K. benefit was certainly the weirdest: the human brain hadn’t evolved for a pre-noon Blues for Allah. The Winterland show in June is the most overlooked.

But the Secret Hero show is 9/28/75–Lindley Meadows in Golden Gate Park. Check out the Franklin’s, where Mickey and Billy chase each other around with their cymbals and Garcia lets loose a roaring solo right after “…if you get confused, listen to the music play.” AND THEN THE END OF FRANKLIN’S HOLY SHIT which is like the end of He’s Gone with the long a capella call-and-response and it’s just remarkable.

Aaaaaaand then the intro to Big River, which is a mess.

P.S. Thank you to the tapers, to the archivists, to the digital cleanup artists, to the uploaders. Thank you to the scribes and the safekeepers. After all, if Bobby forgets he words to Truckin’ and it is not preserved, then did he really forget the words? (Most likely, yes. Bobby forgot the words to Truckin’ so much it was on his to-do list: hair, squats, tickle-time with Garcia, slide guitar lesson (cancelled), forget words to Truckin’.)

P.P.S.  As I was writing about my gratitude for the archivists and digital Jawas that keep everything running, Archive.org went down.

That got away from me. I apologize.

My point is: remember how the Dead (and we) would winkingly refer to the first set as the warm-up? Most people prefer the band they have paid good money to see warm up prior to the audience arriving. What I’m getting at is that the Dead did a lot of weird, almost deliberately off-putting stuff that we, as Enthusiasts might love (or at least tolerate), but people who like U2 might not. These are the things that will never, ever convert anyone into ONE OF US, ONE OF US.

• Blues for Allah, the song, is just too much. It is the Dead at its Deadiest. This song is the sound of seven people Grateful Deading as hard as they fucking could. How Grateful Dead is it? Mickey spent a hundred grand playing the crickets. (To their credit, though: can you imagine an American band writing a 20-minute opus about fucking Allah nowadays? Megyn Kelly’s head would explode, live on camera.
• Don’t start people off with Seastones. Don’t ever play people Seastones. In fact, it’s better to not mention Ned Lagin at all.
• Brent’s songs. Sorry, but true.
• Any show that contains more than one stretch of tuning that last longer than the song preceding it. And don’t tell me about “banter.” If it’s actually banter, then it will be labeled as such. Do you think you’re dealing with children here?
• Dark Star. Yes, I know: a controversial and attention-gathering choice. I imagine you’re perturbed, but under no circumstances riot. No circumstances at all. (So, yeah, Dark Star is a bad intro because, c’mon: it’s barely a song. Dark Star was more of a magic trick: when we play these chords and sing these words, they act as an invocation to the muse and we just jam for 20 minutes and are AWESOME. Dark Star was like SHAZAM: say the word and save the world.)
• Any Sugaree over 16 minutes. A sixteen minute Sugaree? You’re gonna throw that at an unprepared guy? That is so much Sugaree. Now, you and I  know that there is no amount of Sugaree that is too much Sugaree, but the average human is unaware of this fact. They have, in my experience, even become violently opposed to (and I am quoting), “ONE MORE SECOND OF THE DOODLY-DOODLY, AND I’LL PLOW INTO A FUCKING TREE.” Philistines.

Besides, we all know the perfect intro to the Dead is Eyes off of One from the Vault. Case closed.

In addendum: While writing this post, I was obviously listening to One from the Vault, but hadn’t gotten to Blues for Allah yet.

I just got to Blues for Allah.

Are you fucking kidding me? None of us are ever allowed to make fun of Yes again. This is goofier than a sackful of your cousins. It’s just Orientalist noise; Edward Said would have loathed this thing.