MDThomas@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (07/12/85)
From The Washington Post of Monday, July 1, 1985.
"Night of the Dead"
As a T-shirt at the Merriweather Post Pavilion last night put it, "The
Grateful Dead are not the best at what they do--they're the only ones who do
it." No one else in rock 'n' roll even vaguely resembles the Dead's rolling,
tumbling rhythms, slowly accumulating harmonies and gradually unwinding solos.
Depending on the patience of the listener, the effect can be either
hypnotically entrancing or numbingly boring.
The California sextet was not at its best last night as the tempos, solos
and vocals tended to bog down from a lack of energy and direction.
Nonetheless, the band roused itself often enough to cast its one-of-a-kind
aural ambience and even produce a few galvanizing moments.
Those moments included the dramatic ballad "Looks Like Rain," powerfully
sung by Bob Weir; the old eulogy "He's Gone," which built its harmonies slowly
and elegantly; and the up-tempo "Sugar Magnolia," which pitted Weir's rock 'n'
roll vocal and rhythm guitar against Jerry Garcia's psychedelic bluegrass
picking. Low points included a sluggish cover of Steve Winwood's "Gimme Some
Lovin'" and Garcia's mumbling vocal on the drowsy "Stella Blue."
-Geoffrey Himes