December 31, 1968: Winterland Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service/Santana/It's A Beautiful Day

The cover for the video of The Grateful Dead's performance at the last show at Winterland in 1978

The Grateful Dead turned New Year's Eve into a Bay Area institution. If you include Jerry Garcia shows and guest appearances, the Dead played 24 of 26 New Year's Eves in the San Francisco Bay Area, including every year from 1970 to 1991. The Dead were the last of the intact ballroom bands from the psychedelic 60s, and it was an axiom that the Dead carried on the tradition started by Bill Graham of an all-night New Year's Eve show, with rock bands until dawn. New Year's Eve shows at the Fillmore, Winterland or the Avalon in the 60s are always described as "legendary," and they probably were. Yet despite that, we have almost no information about any of those events: no reviews, no eyewitness accounts, no photos, only the most fragmentary of tape evidence and not even any setlists. How do we know the shows were legendary?

Yes, yes, I know, everybody was way gone and no one recalls a thing, and so on. But wasn't that true of every show? Somebody must remember something, right? Therefore, in honor of the title of this blog, I am going to try and assess what little information there is about the Grateful Dead's New Year's Eve show on December 31, 1968. The Grateful Dead played the last show at Winterland exactly ten years later. What do we know about their first New Year's Eve Winterland performance? What can we reasonably assume? Why do we know so little? If we are lucky, I can inspire some long-dormant memories in the Comments, and a vivid flashback or two may eventually give us some real context. I myself think the 1968 New Year's Eve show must have been a remarkable event, and I find it frustrating to have such a high profile show and so little actual information.

What Do We Know About The Grateful Dead's Performance?
We know one very important fact about the Grateful Dead performance on New Year's Eve, 1968, even if it is a frustrating one. We know that the Winterland New Year's Eve show was the first attempt by the Dead's engineers to record the band live on 16-track tape. This was probably the first attempt to record any band live on 16-track tape. The band had been working with Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor at Pacific Recording in San Mateo throughout the fall, recording an album tentatively titled Earthquake Country. They tried working with 8 tracks and then 12 tracks, but did not like the tinny sound that resulted. Ampex was a high tech company located near Pacific Recording, and the band befriended the engineers and persuaded them to deliver one of the first 16-track recorders ever built to Pacific instead of Columbia Studios in Los Angeles.

The band and their engineers even got some of the Ampex engineers to agree to help them sneak the heavy recorder out the door and out to Winterland, which is how the attempt to record at Winterland came about. The Dead, at this point, weren't particularly planning a live album, but just generally experimenting with recording. Since they tried to record most or all shows anyway, it obviously seemed like an interesting experiment to try recording the band in sixteen tracks instead of two, so they snuck the machine out the door and off to Winterland.

Not surprisingly, recording the Grateful Dead in sixteen tracks was a daunting technical exercise that failed. However, the band was enamored enough with the experiment that they chose to try recording at the Avalon Ballroom a month later (January 26, 1969). That time, however, the band got it right, figuring out whatever technical problems had plagued them at Winterland. However, 16-track tape was very expensive and the Dead were famously cash poor, so they simply taped over the Winterland material in order to record at the Avalon. If I have the timeline correct, they also taped over much of the Avalon material, too, when they recorded the subsequent month at Fillmore West, so any traces of the original Winterland show are long gone. We do have Live/Dead to show for it (and the 10-cd Live At Fillmore West), so I'm thankful for that, but any Winterland recordings ceased to exist within a month.

I have to assume also that with their engineering crew working with brand new technology, any efforts to record the band the "regular way" were pushed to the wayside. I have no idea about outputs and inputs, or any of that, but I have to figure that the reputedly huge 16-track Ampex box swallowed up all the available space, and there was neither opportunity nor motive to record a tape using the 2-track recorder they used on the road. It may have been as simple as there being no extra room for the smaller tape deck. I have to assume that any BGP recording equipment was pushed aside also. As a result, though, when the Fillmore West 16-tracks were erased, there appears to have been no other recordings.

Deadbase XI does have a partial setlist for New Year's Eve '68:

Midnight Hour
Dark Star>
  St. Stephen>
  The Eleven>
  Turn On Your Lovelight. 

Assuming "Midnight Hour" was actually played at midnight, and that the list was continuous, that sounds like a pretty cool way to start the New Year. However, we know no such thing. First of all, where does the list come from? If it's a memory, I hope whoever it was is reading this blog. In any case, if it's a memory, it's probably just the highlights of the show. The more intriguing possibility is that this list comes from a tape box. Perhaps while the New Year's Eve tape was erased, the tape box was at least still legible? If true, then we would at least have some confirmation that the named songs were actually performed. However, I do not know Deadbase's source for the partial setlist [update: superb research by a Commenter reveals that one piece of tape endures: a recording of "Midnight Hour." However, it seems to have featured members of most of the bands, and so was probably recorded at an early morning jam, not at midnight, so we don't have a clue what was played at midnight. Of course, they could have played the song twice).

The New Year's Eve Order Of Battle
Until about 1970, Fillmore and Fillmore West concerts had a different structure than modern rock concerts. Generally, all three billed bands ("on the poster," I like to say) performed twice, in round robin fashion. The opening act would perform the 1st and 4th sets of the evening, and the headliner the 3rd and 6th sets. Thus while the Grateful Dead typically played two approximately hour long sets on nights they played the Fillmores, the sets were separated by the other two acts. I have been able to estimate a typical schedule for a regular Fillmore West show (based on some research of my own and an eyewitness account of the Saturday, March 1, 1969 show. For those interested in the details, see Appendix 1 below). If the Grateful Dead headlined a Fillmore or Fillmore West show from 1967 to 1969, the evening usually looked something like this:

• Opening Act:   8:00-8:45pm and 11:45-12:30am
• Second Act:     9:00-10:00pm and 12:45-1:45am
• Grateful Dead: 10:30-11:30 and 2:00-3:00am

"Closing Time" was officially 2:00am in San Francisco, but it could be overlooked if there were no drinks being sold (the Fillmores had no bar), no fights and relationships with the cops were good.
Thus while most Fillmore shows ended before 2:00, late running shows for the likes of the Dead were manageable. For many bands, including the Dead, the first sets would be shorter than the allotted time. Headliners like the Dead were probably allowed to play as long as they wanted to for their final set.

With this framework in mind, I have attempted to speculate on what the New Year's Eve 1968 schedule may have looked like. Keep in mind that we have nothing to go on--I don't even know what order the bands came on, or even when the concert started. But here's my educated guess of the evening's running order [update: an eagle-eyed Commenter has noted that the poster identifies the show as running from 9:00pm to 9:00am, so I have revised the pre-midnight timing somewhat]:

• It's A Beautiful Day 9:00-9:40
• Santana                   9:50-10:30
• Quicksilver             10:40-11:40
• New Year's festivities? 11:40-12:00pm (complete speculation on my part)
• Grateful Dead         12:00-1:00am
• IABD                       1:15-2:00am
• Santana                    2:15-3:00am
• Quicksilver              3:15-4:15am
• Grateful Dead          4:30-5:30am
• Jam session?            5:30-6:15am (it appears there was a big jam)
• Breakfast                  6:00am-9:00am

I have assumed that the Grateful Dead started their first set at midnight, presumably with "Midnight Hour," but I may be pasting later experiences onto the past. Maybe the Dead had started at 11:30, and were roaring through "St. Stephen" at midnight, and they turned on strobe lights and set off fireworks. No one actually knows. But there were four bands, and the Dead in their prime, and it was a long night, so something must have happened. Here's hoping my post sparks a long-dormant flashback [update: another Commenter finds a source who recalls that QMS played at midnight, starting out with "Dino's Song."If this memory stands up, then I would invert QMS and the Dead on the proposed schedule].

Appendix 1: Fillmore West Scheduling
I know that all three bands on Fillmore West posters played twice around, so that means there were 5 set changes. Shows generally started at 8:00pm. I know that headliners were told to do two one-hour sets, as this was a crisis for visiting English bands like The Who and Cream, used to doing much shorter shows. In the earlier days of the Fillmore, opening acts played much shorter sets, like 30 or 45 minutes. However, when there were multiple headliners, every headliner probably got an hour.

Based on the lengths of various surviving live tapes (not just the Dead), a lot of bands played first sets considerably shorter than their allotted time, and often second sets as well. Most bands were used to doing 40 or 50 minutes and did not have two hours of material. By 1969, however, even second acts had a number of albums, and were prepared to play two long sets at Fillmore West, so sets probably ran closer to full length. Bands almost all used the Fillmore West sound system, so the set changes were considerably shorter than they would be today. The Grateful Dead were one of the few exceptions to this rule, as they used their own sound system, so I allotted more time for their first set change in my schedules. Keep in mind also that bands had considerably less spare equipment in the early days, and while the set changes were easy, a busted amplifier or something could cause a time consuming headache.

My outline of a Fillmore West schedule was borne out, and to some extent guided by, a detailed description of someone who attended the Saturday, March 1, 1969 show at Fillmore West, featuring the Grateful Dead, Pentangle and Frumious Bandersnatch. Our correspondent had to be out of the Fillmore West by midnight, so I had to speculate more about the late night sets. On that night, the Dead's first set was 45 minutes and the second set was 67 minutes. Keep in mind that their allotted time would also be taken up with some tuning up and stage business prior to the show, usally not preserved on tape.

Appendix 2: Notes On The Other acts, December 31, 1968

Happy Trails by Quicksilver Messenger Service, released in March, 1969

Quicksilver Messenger Service
December 31, 1968 was the last performance of the classic quartet lineup of Quicksilver Messenger Service. John Cipollina (lead guitar), Gary Duncan (guitar, vocals), David Freiberg (bass, vocals) and Greg Elmore (drums) recorded the debut album (released May 1968) and the legendary Happy Trails, released in March, 1969. Happy Trails, recorded in November of 1968, mostly at Fillmores East and West, was the album that immortalized Quicksilver, but that lineup of the band was already gone by the time of its release. Gary Duncan quit the band after the 1968 New Year's show, and he would not return until the next New Year's Eve (at Winterland with the Jefferson Airplane). However, when Duncan returned, he brought singer Dino Valenti with him, and the musical character of Quicksilver was never the same.

However, while it is easy to sentimentalize the final performance of the Quicksilver quartet, in fact they were a tired, unhappy band who had not written or likely even performed a new song in a year. They had been playing the same main numbers over and over for two years, and while they had it down to a powerful formula, it had nowhere left to go. I'm sure that Quicksilver put on a good show New Year's Eve, and it probably sounded like Happy Trails, but only those who were seeing them for the first time would have been really impressed.

Santana
Santana was some months away from signing with Columbia Records, and their debut album would not be released until August, 1969. However, they were a popular local group who were often second billed at the Fillmore West, and they headlined smaller halls around the Bay Area. Given that they did not have an album, they were hardly unknowns. The late 1968 Santana band did not have the same lineup that would be made iconic in the Woodstock movie. In December 1968, Santana was

• Carlos Santana-guitar
• Gregg Rolie-organ, vocals
• David Brown-bass
• Doc Livingstone-drums
• Marcus Malone-congas

By March 1969, Livingstone and Malone would be replaced by Michael Shrieve, Mike Carabello and Chepito Areas.

We do have a pretty good idea of how Santana sounded at the time--a very good idea, in fact. Santana had played Fillmore West just two weeks earlier, co-headlining with The Grass Roots for four nights from December 19-22. In 1997, Columbia Legacy released  a two-cd set of highlights of Santana's performances that weekend as Live At The Fillmore West '68. While not as incendiary as the version of Santana which would follow, they were already a terrific band, and way ahead of their time, so they must have rocked the house in a big way. While Quicksilver was just repeating themselves, Santana was very much a New Thing, and the crowd must surely have recognized it.

It's A Beautiful Day
It's A Beautiful Day, just like Santana, had not yet released their first album, but they were a popular live attraction already. Just a month earlier (November 28-30), IABD had co-headlined a weekend at Fillmore West with the new British band Deep Purple (who had a hit with "Hush") and San Francisco funksters Cold Blood. It's A Beautiful Day had formed in late 1967, and had been through a variety of players, but the lineup had stabilized by the end of 1968 into a powerful group.

• Patti Santos-vocals
• David LaFlamme-electric violin, vocals
• Hal Wagenet-lead guitar
• Linda LaFlamme-organ
• Mitch Holman-bass
• Val Fuentes-drums

It's A Beautiful Day's first album was released in mid-1969, to huge acclaim, and it got massive FM airplay in San Francisco and elsewhere. Songs like "White Bird" and "Hot Summer's Day" were staples of FM rock radio for many years. However, due to serious management disputes between bandleader David LaFlamme and manager Matthew Katz, a series of lawsuits has made the band's albums, particularly the first one, very difficult to get on cd. As a result, IABD was never really able to capitalize on the resurgence of interest in classic rock bands in the '80s and 90s.

Wolfgang's Vault has several nice recordings of IABD from mid-1968, performing most of the first album. Although subsequent performances were no doubt more nuanced, it is clear from these tapes that IABD had their whole sound completely figured out, which is why their first album was so good. In many ways, It's A Beautiful Day was one of those groups like The Doors or Devo who have their musical identity completely determined by their first album, but were unable to progress much beyond it. IABD was probably pretty impressive to the Winterland crowd, as they were already at their high water mark.

Millard Agency
In 1968, the Grateful Dead were booked by the Millard Agency, the talent agency wing of Bill Graham's music industry empire. Graham had loaned the Dead some money in mid-68, and they had apparently agreed to be booked by Millard in return. Among the other groups booked by Millard at the time were Santana, It's A Beautiful Day, Cold Blood, Elvin Bishop and Aum. It was not a coincidence that those groups regularly appeared with the Dead during the 68-69 period. New Year's Eve 1968 was a big deal, by any standard, and with the Grateful Dead and Quicksilver topping the bill, the show was going to sell out. Graham's bookers had the sense to make sure that their own agency's bands were on the bill that night, to make sure they got heard. To be fair, Santana and It's A Beautiful Day were terrific live acts that must have gone over well with the crowd, but there was a distinct business reason to choose them over other local acts.

Appendix 3: Fillmore West, December 31, 1968-Vanilla Fudge/Richie Havens/Cold Blood
BGP inaugurated another New Year's Eve tradition in 1968, namely having multiple concerts in the Bay Area, rather than just a single event. Besides the high profile Dead/QMS show at Winterland, another concert was held at the Fillmore West. The Fillmore West was about a mile from Winterland, and less than half the size, but it was still a substantial hall for the era. I think the three bands were chosen specifically because they appealed to a somewhat different audience than typical Dead or Quicksilver fans. Vanilla Fudge were the inventors of "Heavy Rock" and had a very East Coast style; Richie Havens was a mostly solo folk artist, and local favorites Cold Blood played horn driven funk. Although both concerts were advertised on the same poster, I think the Fillmore West bands were selected to appeal to people who wanted to attend a New Year's Eve rock concert, but not by San Francisco band. Admittedly, Cold Blood were local, but they weren't an "acid rock" band, and in any case they were booked by Millard, so they were going to be on this high profile bill. 

I'm not particularly interested in the '68 Fillmore West New Year's Eve concert, per se. However, once again we know absolutely nothing about the show. If any information surfaced about the concert, it might be possible to triangulate a little bit about the Winterland show, with respect to set lengths, New Year's celebrations or special add-ons. Once again, all information about any San Francisco New Year's Eve concerts in the 1960s seems to have gone down the rabbit hole, with only the faintest traces left at the surface. New Year's Eve in San Francisco must have been truly legendary, because no one seems to remember a thing. Here's to hoping there's still some flashbacks yet to come.

February 28, 1969 Fillmore West: Grateful Dead/Pentangle/Sir Douglas Quintet/Shades Of Joy (Martin Fierro)

The Grateful Dead's four night stand at The Fillmore West from Thursday February 27 through Sunday March 2, 1969 stands as one of the premier events in Grateful Dead history. For once, The Dead played at their creative best when state-of-the-art recording equipment was hooked up and rolling, and we have been savoring the results ever since. The weekend stand was the heart of the seminal 1969 Live/Dead album, and the entire run was released this century as Fillmore West 1969. The Dead capitalized on the home court advantage and played some shows for the ages.

Fantastic as the Dead's performance was, however, the weekend had even more resonances. One of the opening acts, the English group Pentangle, had a profound effect on Jerry Garcia, which he commented on at various times. In a past blog post, I discussed how in the midst of playing some of the finest music of his career, Garcia found the time to listen to Pentangle's unique configuration and adopt it for his own approach to live acoustic music. Pentangle, their musical talents notwithstanding, had discovered the value of two amplified acoustic instruments supported by a tasteful rhythm section, and Garcia consciously adopted it as the approach to the acoustic Grateful Dead, as well as other ensembles, like the Garcia/Grisman band.

As if stunning live electric music and a transformational acoustic opening band weren't enough, a close look at Ralph Gleason's Chronicle review the Monday afterward reveals yet another amazing fact about the weekend. On one night, The Shades Of Joy, an additional opening act, featured future Legion Of Mary member Martin Fierro on saxophone and vocals, years before he would play with Garcia and Merl Saunders. Garcia very likely didn't even see the set, but it's yet another sign of what a portentous weekend it was that the local act opening the show included a player who would be a big part of Garcia's sound a few years later.

The Shades Of Joy
The Shades Of Joy were a familiar name on bills at rock clubs in the Bay Area from 1969-71, but I don't know much about them otherwise. They did release a self-titled album on Fontana Records in 1969. The band members on the album were

• Millie Foster-vocals
• Martin Fierro-saxophones, flute, vocals
• Jackie King-guitar
• Jymm Young-keyboards
• Edward Adams-bass
• Jose Rodriguez-drums

Fiero was from El Paso, TX, and in early 1969 he would have been relatively newly arrived in San Francisco. Around this time he had been working with the Texas musicians in the group Mother Earth, but I do not know if he was a regular member of that band. Fierro (1942-2008) apparently met Garcia while jamming with conga players in Golden Gate Park (per Blair Jackson's liner notes to the Legion Of Mary cd), but no date was given.

The only other name familiar to me in The Shades Of Joy was Jymm Young, who played keyboards with various Bay Area groups in the early 70s, including Boz Scaggs and Santana. Young was also known as Joachim Young, and his most heard contribution is the B3 organ work on the Steve Miller Band's "Fly Like An Eagle." I don't know where Young came from or how he ended up in San Francisco in 1969 in the Shades Of Joy.

Fillmore West 1969 Configuration
Although the Fillmore West typically advertised three acts in 1969, they often had four acts on Friday and Saturday nights. While the three acts "on the poster" would do three rotating sets (with the headliner playing, essentially, 3rd and 6th), on weekend nights an additional act would play a single opening set. This served to extend the show, encouraging people to come early and buy more popcorn and soda.  Many of the openers were discovered at the Tuesday night Fillmore West "auditions." The mostly forgotten practice of adding a fourth act accounts for the numerous bands who describe opening shows at the Fillmore West whose names never appeared on a poster.

Given that Gleason's review was published on a Monday (March 3), I think he was reviewing the Friday, February 28 show, because there was an additional act. An eyewitness to the March 1 show reported that Frumious Bandersnatch had replaced the Sir Douglas Quintet, so I think the review was more likely of the Friday show than the Thursday one (Feb 27). update: A Commenter makes a good case for Gleason having seen the first set of Thursday, February 27 rather than Friday.

Ralph Gleason, Chronicle March 3, 1969

Gleason's review of every act for the evening is quite enthusiastic. About the Shades Of Joy, he says

Shades Of Joy is a local group (a spin-off of several other local units) which features wild free form modern jazz saxophone playing by Martin Fierro, a roaring R&B rhythm section and two voices, Martin and Millie Foster, who is much better in this role than as a pure jazz singer. It's an exciting and interesting group. 

Sir Douglas is really delightful. He got everybody dancing for for once (just as Pentangle had all the musicians listening) doing his standards "Mendocino" and "She's About A Mover" and merging his regular group with some members of Shades Of Joy.

It is rather a wild experience to see a group featuring a saxophone soloist who looks like the leader of a Third World Student picket line accompanied by a drummer who looks like he just got in from the cattle drive. Is there still hope?

It's interesting to see that Gleason noticed that all the musicians were paying attention to Pentangle. Elsewhere in the review, Gleason says "when [the acoustic guitars] are heard over the loudspeakers, there is no distortion, just a huge guitar sound," articulating what I believe to be the sound that captured Garcia's attention. For the Shades Of Joy, who probably came on at 7:00pm or so, it is Fierro that captured Gleason's attention. Fierro and others appear to have joined Doug Sahm on stage, prefiguring how he would join Sahm's band within a few years, and indeed share the stage with the Grateful Dead on some September 1973 shows when Sahm opened for the Dead.

Those who saw the Friday night show were probably so overwhelmed by the Dead (not to mention Pentangle) that they probably forgot Shades Of Joy earlier in the evening. Some of those people must have seen a Garcia/Saunders show a few years later, when Fierro was a member of the band--I wonder if they remembered then, or if there memories were permanently deleted?

Some Doug Sahm Apocrypha
Doug Sahm was a brilliant musician and a character-and-a-half, but he could be exasperating. Our eyewitness to the Saturday March 1 show reported that Doug Sahm was announced as being "sick" and his place on the bill was taken by Lafayette's finest, the Frumious Bandersnatch. Perhaps. Elsewhere, however, Doug Sahm has claimed that he was once fired by Bill Graham for bringing a 13-piece band onstage without asking. Sahm was a great teller of tales, so there's no telling how much of that story was true, and since Sahm (who died in 1999) is no longer with us, it's hard to know for sure what he may have been referring to.

Nonetheless, I can't help but connect the dots here. It appears that Sahm opened at least one night, and probably two, but was not present on the Saturday night. We also know from Gleason's review that several members of the Shades Of Joy were onstage with him. Perhaps inviting the extra musicians on stage disrupted some protocol, and Graham pushed Sahm off the bill? Its entirely possible. Given the number of amazing things that happened at the Fillmore West this weekend, perhaps this obscure bit of Sahm storytelling was part of the saga as well.

Appendix: Gleason On The Dead
By request, here are Ralph Gleason's comments on the Dead's performance:

December 10-12, 1972, Winterland: Grateful Dead/High Country (10)/Sons Of Champlin (11)/Rowan Brothers (12) (opening acts)

The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers, both pillars of late 60s improvisational music, met in Piedmont Park in Atlanta on July 6, 1969. The bands were booked together at the Fillmore East on February 11 and 13-14, 1970, when the Allmans were still unknown enough not to headline, and they had an epic jam on February 11. Even after the tragic death of Duane Allman in a motorcycle accident, the groups remained close, but it was difficult for working bands to play together. Although the Dead and the Allmans managed to guest at each others shows on July 16 and 17, 1972 (Dickey Betts and Berry Oakley at the Dead's Hartford, CT show on July 16, and Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir with the Allmans in the Bronx on July 17), they had long dreamed of playing together. Finally, Bill Graham announced the double booking for three nights in Winterland on December 10-12, 1972, and Joel Selvin mentioned it as an upcoming show in his Sunday Lively Arts column in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Even at the time, it seemed surprising that the two headline acts would play Winterland together. Both the Dead and the Allmans had headlined Winterland in the past, and both bands were bigger than ever. The Allman Brothers 1971 Live At Fillmore East album was a huge hit, and their current album Eat A Peach was even more popular. The Grateful Dead had released three popular albums in a row (Workingman's Dead, American Beauty and "Skull and Roses"). Their new triple live album Europe '72 was about to be released, and Warner Brothers had high hopes that this too would be a hit. However, the three shows were booked for Sunday through Tuesday, nights when Winterland was usually dark, and when most bands didn't perform, so they were effectively "extra" paydays for both the promoter and the bands. Thus the bands would be free to indulge themselves musically without interfering with any regular activity. The Dead did not have any conflicts on the weekend of December 8-9, but Bill Graham did and the Allman Brothers did as well (see below).

It was not to be. On November 11, 1972, Allman Brothers bassist Berry Oakley died in a motorcycle accident, and all Allman Brothers activities were put on hold again. For obvious business reasons, the Grateful Dead and Bill Graham kept the booking, and the Dead headlined Winterland by themselves. The Dead had headlined Winterland by themselves before, but never for three nights, and three school nights at that. For whatever reasons, Bill Graham chose to have opening acts all three nights. These shows were the last regular, indoor Grateful Dead shows in the Bay Area for many years that had opening acts (New Year's Eve and the occasional benefit excepted). The choices of the opening acts are actually quite interesting, and its plain that the Dead--and probably mainly Jerry Garcia--chose the acts.

Winterland Background
Winterland, at the corner of Post and Steiner, just two blocks from the original Fillmore (at 1805 Geary), had been used by BGP since 1966 for acts that were too big for the Fillmore or Fillmore West. By late 1971, with the Fillmore West closed, Winterland became Bill Graham's main venue. Most Winterland shows had three acts, like the Fillmore West. However, bands that played a particularly long time, like the Dead, often had only one opening act. Part of the economics of Winterland was that BGP sold a lot of popcorn, soda and beer (in the upstairs bar), so the earlier people came and the longer people stayed, the more profitable the evening was.

The Grateful Dead had headlined a show at Winterland on October 9, 1972, a benefit of sorts for their road crew (so they could buy a house, apparently). The New Riders had apparently opened the show. The band had headlined another benefit on March 5, 1972, supported by The Sons Of Champlin. The Dead had also headlined New Year's Eve 1971/72, supported by The New Riders and Yogi Phlegm (as The Sons Of Champlin were known at the time). They had also headlined a weekend in May 1971, supported by The New Riders, James And The Good Brothers and RJ Fox (the Friday May 28 show was canceled since Garcia was ill, and the Dead ended up playing May 29-30).

Although the Grateful Dead were popular in the Bay Area, they had played so regularly that there was little urgency for tickets. When the Dead played a seated venue, like Berkeley Community Theater, there was tremendous pressure to get good seats, but for general admission venues like Winterland, the shows generally took a while to sell out. That's not to say they didn't sell out, as they mostly did, but tickets would typically be available for many days. Thus three shows on a weeknight was untested territory for both BGP and The Dead. While the three opening acts would have added little to ticket sales, they would have encouraged people to arrive early, and there may have been some concern on BGP's part that the Dead could not have sold out all three nights. As it happened, advance copies of Europe '72 was being played on FM radio stations the week before the show, and all three shows seemed to have sold out. Other than New Years Eve, no opening act ever appeared again with the Grateful Dead at Winterland.

Sunday, December 10, 1972: Grateful Dead/High Country
High Country was a bluegrass band formed in Berkeley in Fall 1968. Leader and mandolinist Butch Waller was an old friend of Garcia's. In the early 1960s Waller and banjoist Herb Pedersen had been in a group called The Westport Singers who played the same folk circuit as Garcia. Later, Waller and Pedersen were in a group called The Pine Valley Boys with David Nelson (there's even a picture).

Bay Area bluegrass was a lonely enterprise in the late 60s, and numerous people went in and out of High Country. David Nelson was at least a part-time member in late 1968 and early 1969, and remarkably enough Jerry Garcia filled in on banjo at least once. A tape from a performance at The Matrix survives, usually dated as February 19, 1969. We know for a fact that this date must be wrong, as the Grateful Dead were playing Fillmore West that night, and I believe the date to be February 24, 25 or 26 (I have discussed the dating of Jerry Garcia and High Country at The Matrix at length elsewhere).

High Country continued to perform, however, and by 1972 they had an album on Raccoon, a Warner Brothers imprint controlled by The Youngbloods. High Country was still a traditional bluegrass band, however, and playing acoustic music for a rowdy Winterland crowd must have been daunting indeed. Of the few comments online about this show, no one seems to recall High Country playing. There's no question in my mind, however, that Butch Waller's friendship with Garcia got the band this high profile gig. In any case, it doesn't seemed to have harmed them, as High Country has stayed together over the decades, playing Berkeley's Freight and Salvage almost every New Year's Eve.

December 11, 1972: Grateful Dead/Sons Of Champlin
The Sons Of Champlin had as long a history performing at the Fillmore and The Avalon as The Grateful Dead. The Sons had released three fine albums on Capitol, and they were widely regarded by fellow musicians as one of the most creative and adept bands. However, little success had come their way, and they broke up in 1970. Later in 1970. they had gotten back together under the name Yogi Phlegm, playing an advanced mixture of fusion jazz and soulful rock. By late 1972 the group had bowed to the obvious and begun calling themselves The Sons Of Champlin again.

The Sons were the Dead's Marin neighbors and peers, even though they lacked the Dead's success. When The Sons had opened for the Dead at Winterland on March 5, 1972, a few members (guitarist Terry Haggerty and bassist David Schallock) had gotten stuck in traffic, and Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh had filled in for some opening blues numbers. This unique occurrence was a clear indicator of The Sons' personal and professional status with the Dead (update: I should add that for much of the 70-72 period, Bill Vitt drummed for both Jerry Garcia and The Sons. I think by December 1972 The Sons had replaced Vitt with Jim Preston, but it was another important musical connection between the groups).

December 12, 1972: Grateful Dead/The Rowan Brothers
Chris and Lorin Rowan were singer/songwriters from Massachusetts, the younger brother of Sea Train guitarist Peter Rowan. The pair had been signed to Columbia Records by Clive Davis, and David Grisman ended up producing their debut album. Among The Rowan Brothers very few early performances had been opening for the Grateful Dead at Fillmore West on July 2, 1971. For that show, Jerry Garcia had played pedal steel guitar and David Grisman had played mandolin, in itself a unique pairing (Bill Kreuzmann had played drums and Bill Wolf had played bass that night). However, Garcia did not perform live with them again as a regular band member, although JGMF points out that Garcia played pedal steel for two numbers when the Rowan Brothers had opened for Hot Tuna and The New Riders the previous month (November 3, 1972).

By late 1972, The Rowan Brothers' debut album had finally been released on Columbia. Columbia was (rather unfortunately) pushing the LP with a qoute from Jerry Garcia where he said, essentially "these guys could be the next Beatles." The quote was taken out of context, and it assured that the Rowan Brothers could never live up to their hype. The album was produced by Bill Wolf and "David Diadem," the name Grisman used for the record (Bill Wolf would be the sound engineer for the "Last Five Nights" at Winterland in October 1974). On stage, the two Rowans wore spangly Nudie-type jackets. John Douglas played drums, while Wolf played bass. Grisman played keyboards, strangely enough, but he came out from behind his organ to play an electric mandolin solo. I suspect few people had any idea that this was the guy who had played on American Beauty.

The night of December 12, 1972 was not only my first Grateful Dead concert, but the first rock concert I had ever gone to. I can thus say with certainty that by 8:00 pm on Tuesday, December 12, The Rowan Brothers were the best rock band I had ever seen. When the Dead came on shortly afterwards, with Garcia and Weir wearing spangly Nudie suits, like C&W stars, I just assumed that all bands did that, since the Rowan Brothers had also. What did I know? Maybe all keyboard players took mandolin solos--I had nothing else to go on.

After these shows, it was clear that the Dead could not only sell out Winterland by themselves on a weeknight, but that the shows were long enough that opening acts did not add to the experience. Certainly the Dead in the 1970s were so overwhelming on stage that it was hard to even remember what had happened before they came on, and I can't say I missed having opening acts. Still, it was interesting to see a unique situation where Garcia and the Dead were apparently asked which of their friends they wanted to invite to open their shows, and to see which old friends were put on the bill.

Appendix: December 8-9 conflicts
I presume the Dead/Allmans Winterland extravaganza was scheduled for December 10-12 because of other weekend conflicts. The Allman Brothers had a whole tour scheduled, and they were booked at Crisler Arena in Ann Arbor, MI on Saturday, December 9. In fact, the Allman Brothers played this show, their first without Berry Oakley, replaced by new bassist Lamar Williams. However, it must have simply been too daunting to plan to fly to San Francisco afterwards, so that must be why the Allmans had to back out.

Bill Graham Presents had other shows booked for the weekend at Winterland, as he did almost every weekend. Friday December 8 featured J. Geils Band/Loggins & Messsina/Tranquility, and Saturday December 9 featured Quicksilver. Quicksilver in fact canceled, and I believe Winterland was dark that night--very rare for a Saturday--but I assume it was too late to consider adding another Dead date. Knowing how big the Dead were about to become, it seems obvious that a Saturday night should have been added, but that can hardly have been self-evident at the time.