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The twisted tales that adopted the Grateful Lifeless on their 1972 European tour have lengthy since been canonised into the band’s legend. Properly-known are the tales of conflict between the Bolo and Bozo busses or the four-hour look on the Bickershaw Competition in England, attended by none apart from a younger Elvis Costello. However one story specifically exemplifies the impromptu, and virtually unintentional, magic that the Lifeless might conjure out of skinny air.
That got here on the ultimate night time of the two-month trek when the Lifeless settled into the pleasant confines of the Lyceum Theatre in London for the fourth night time in a row. The band had began their tour in London a number of weeks earlier, and their consolation throughout the Lyceum helped produce various tracks that will ultimately make the ultimate minimize of Europe ’72. A type of tracks wasn’t even initially supposed to be included within the band’s deliberate setlists.
Not like the freewheeling dwell exhibits that the band would turn into well-known for, the Europe ’72 exhibits had a number of packing containers that required checking. The Lifeless knew that their British audiences have been enthralled with Stay/Lifeless, so the band dutifully labored in ‘Darkish Star’ on a much more frequent foundation than they’d in later years. The Lifeless have been additionally selling a brand new single in Europe, ‘One Extra Saturday Evening’, which was performed at practically each efficiency on the tour.
One tune that wasn’t initially earmarked for inclusion was ‘Morning Dew’, Bonnie Dobson’s apocalyptic folks tune that the band first performed in January of 1967 and later acquired recorded for his or her self-titled debut album. Again then, ‘Morning Dew’ had a much more pronounced storage rock really feel, however after half a decade of occasional performances, the tune had reworked right into a slow-burning and euphoric epic, punctuated by a few of Jerry Garcia’s most emotional soloing.
It took a full month of touring for ‘Morning Dew’ to make its first look in a setlist throughout the Europe ’72 trek. 14 exhibits glided by earlier than the band first performed the tune within the Netherlands on Could eleventh. After that, solely three extra performances of the tune occurred over the ultimate seven exhibits of the tour: as soon as in Germany on Could 18th and twice on the Lyceum, one for the primary night time of the four-night stand on Could twenty third and as soon as on the ultimate night time of Could twenty sixth.
Throughout the remaining live performance of the tour, tape operator and engineer Dennis ‘Wiz’ Leonard realised that he hadn’t truly seen any of the performances – he was caught within the recording truck altering tape, checking ranges, and monitoring the Lifeless from a small display. Wiz was planning on maintaining it that method till he observed {that a} microphone was dropping on the stage. When he radioed for crew member Steve Parrish to repair it, Parrish rattled off a number of expletives and instructed Wiz to repair it himself.
And so, with a good quantity of warning, Wiz locked the now-empty recording truck to repair the microphone whereas the Lifeless have been tumbling by ‘The Different One’. Simply as accomplished his mission and started to trek again to the truck, the band fell into a very poignant model of ‘Morning Dew’. In that second, Wiz determined he was going to remain proper the place he was, absorbing the bittersweet tones of the tune as an alternative of experiencing it second hand within the recording truck.
“I mentioned ‘ what? Fuck this. That is the place I’m.’ And I made the choice there that I needed to be proper there,” Leonard recalled within the documentary collection Lengthy Unusual Journey. “Garcia simply checked out me and shook his head, and in that immediate, I knew that I used to be busted as a result of nobody was within the truck. The raised eyebrow over the eyeglasses, it was saying ‘I do know who you might be, I do know what you’re doing, and it’s OK.’ As a result of it doesn’t matter what, they actually needed everyone to be there with them.”
After the Lifeless segued again into ‘The Different One’, Wiz crept again to the recording truck and cautiously opened the door. To his aid, no one had damaged in and the tapes have been nonetheless working, unaffected by Wiz’s transient detour inside. Wiz had gotten to see the Lifeless play for the one and solely time on the European tour, and his absence didn’t have an effect on the recording course of that the band have been utilizing to assemble their dwell album.
When the complete crew returned to California a number of days later, the method of going by the tapes and selecting out one of the best performances started. Sooner or later, Wiz noticed Garcia giddily exit the management room and gave him some information. “He checked out me and mentioned, ‘Wiz, ‘Morning Dew’ from the Lyceum is 100 per cent on the album.’ And he checked out me and he mentioned, ‘And nobody was within the truck.’”
Take a look at the model of ‘Morning Dew’ that seems on Europe ’72 down under.
