This is a flac encoded & tagged version of shnid: 7041
GRATEFUL DEAD
12/31/81
OAKLAND AUDITORIUM ARENA
OAKLAND, CA
ELECTRIC SETS I / II / III
LINEAGE:
Monitor Mixer SBD > 4 TRACK RTR @ 7.5 IPS (Dolby B) > PCM > D > SSSB
(Dolby B decoded)
AUDIO RATING: AR1a
RELEASED ON: 11/22/01
LINEAGE:
Monitor Mix SBD > 4 TRACK RTR @ 7.5 IPS (Dolby B) > PCM > D
> SSSB (Dolby B decoded);
any/all editing, fades, NR, hiss elimination, phase shifting/"time smear"
correction, jitter elimination, EQ, and quantization noise elimination
(when down-converting audio to 16-bit / 44.1kHz for CD-R mastering), were
all performed using 24-bit / 96 kHz digital realm processing at Serafin
Station Studio B [this show was released 11/01]
"This show is dedicated to the memory of Ken Kesey, who passed away while I
was editing Disc 2 at the time... he "guided me" through a very tough section
which contained a large number of master volume changes! I'll shake his hand
again someday, and tell him 'Thanks for the help'... and I know Ken will just
give me that knowing wink of his..."
Jay Serafin, owner/chief engineer, Serafin Station Studio B
Etree note from Charlie Miller
There were no 4 track reels run at this show. I didn't read the complete
info file, but I'm guessing that Jay mentions the EQ'ing and Noise Reduction
that is on this source..cm
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--Electric Set 1--
101-d1t01 - Shakedown Street (extended version)
102-d1t02 - Me & My Uncle ->
103-d1t03 - Mexicali Blues
104-d1t04 - Cold Rain & Snow
105-d1t05 - C. C. Rider
106-d1t06 - It Must Have Been the Roses
107-d1t07 - Beat It on Down the Line (12)
108-d1t08 - Big Boss Man ->
109-d1t09 - New Minglewood Blues
110-d1t10 - Don't Ease Me In
--Elcetric Set 2--
201-d2t01 - Ken Kesey's "Gong Bong" / NYE "Space" Countdown ->
202-d2t02 - Iko Iko
203-d2t03 - Playin' in the Band ->
204-d2t04 - Playin' in the Band Jam ->
205-d2t05 - Terrapin Station ->
206-d2t06 - Playin' in the Band Reprise
207-d3t01 - Drums > Space ->
208-d3t02 - The Other One ->
209-d3t03 - Not Fade Away ->
210-d3t04 - Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad ->
211-d3t05 - Morning Dew
--Elcectrc Set 3--
301-d4t01 - Dark Star ->
302-d4t02 - Bertha ->
303-d4t03 - Good Lovin'
--Encore--
304-d4t04 - It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
--disc 1 total time--1:05:06.112--
--disc 2 total time--0:47:02.745--
--disc 3 total time--0:52:26.636--
--disc 4 total time--0:38:06.58--
NRPS opened;
*=w/Joan Baez; **=w/Matt Kelly; ***=w/John Cippolina;
Bill Graham flies in on a giant joint;
LAST "Dark Star": 01-20-79 [232];
______________________________________________________________________________
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B. Proctor 9-16-10
_____________________________________________________________________________
JAY'S PERSONAL COMMENTS:
This is NOT the version of the show which is in circulation now; that copy is
the "regular SBD" mix, while this version is the Monitor Mix version
(differences in mix and volume for each instrument and vocalist). This
information was verified by my Marin County source, who sent me this version
to work on and release.
It was told to me, by my Marin County source, that Phil wanted each band
member to hear how the slightly different way they played a lot of the
electric songs actually sounded, and then it would be decided whether to
keep playing them in this manner, revert back to the "old ways", or to try
a different approach. You can hear this on the "staggered chorus vocals" on
Shakedown Street, the opening of Me & My Uncle, CR&S, Playin' In The Band (
the opening is distinctly "old school"), as is Dark Star), etc. You'll
notice that the vocals are slightly more prominent in the mix, as well as
they're "dry"... no reverb, delay, etc., and no compression/limiting, so
you'll hear it when Jerry (especially) and Bobby back off from their
microphones a little bit, or go off their "pickup axis"... their voices kind
of trail off slightly. It's more realistic that hearing them at their C&L
form, as you can mentally picture Jerry moving back slightly when he's ending
a line in a sing. The kick drums, and some of the toms, aren't as much in
the mix either, as they could be hear more by the musicians on stage
naturally, and didn't need to be in the mix as much. You can hear, on Disc 1
Track 6, where the sound crew started to put the effects onto Jerry's vocals,
but they got the "wave off", and stopped it. So, you can hear what the
"normal mix" would have been, compared to this monitor mix. You'll also
hear some of the levels of the instruments being raised and lowered, slightly
and slowly, as not to be abrupt and annoying.
The Ken Kesey opening of Electric Set II (Countdown to Midnight) has Ken
really, and literally, freaking out on stage when the band begins to play
BEFORE the stroke of midnight! Ken's trying to tell the "You're starting
too soon", but to no avail. This isn't a "knock" on Ken, but simply an
example of how he was on stage sometimes. And it was the day Ken dies is
when I was working on that part of the show... the master had a LOT of
volume problems (cycling up and down), and I was having a very tough time
getting the parts to match up without having to delete a lot of the Countdown
(only 15 seconds were lost, due to the mixing console getting knocked out of
whack). But when Ken died, it was almost like he was "guiding me", and the
solutions came to me so clearly, it was unreal. Personally, I do think that
Ken had his hand in me getting the Countdown correct. Thanks, my friend!
The BAD NEWS: The Acoustic Set was not being on the masters I received from
my MC source. The good news is that all 3 of the Electric Sets are complete.
The encore is from the regular SBD mix, and as such, has a slightly different
audio difference. I did make every attempt to match the encore's EQ curve to
that of the show itself, with very good results. Only 2 reel changes were
needed in this recording, and they were during lulls or very low-volume
sections of the show. Only one cross-fade, which was between songs, is
evident, as I didn't have a lot of "working room" to do a longer cross-fade.
This is the end of Good Lovin' into the Encore. But, it was better than the
original, and is the best I could do.
The RTR (especially the Encore, which was quite noisy) was a bit on the hissy
side, even with the Dolby B (or because of it, take your pick!). The hiss
has been brought down to "damn near inaudible", and it's only the opening
couple of seconds of Dark Star where you actually can hear the hiss in the
audio. So, this is a VERY CLEAN show, audio-wise, and very energetic to boot.
Ok... on with the "Set by Set" breakdown of the show:
The opener, Shakedown Street, is LONG! Very refreshing to hear an extended
set of solos, and it set the tone for the remainder of the night. Close to
16 minutes, it's rockin' and smokin' from the first chord. I really liked
the "staggered chorus vocals" towards the end of the song. It's hard to
explain in words, but you'll hear it... similar to how a group of people
would sing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat"). This was one of those "new ways"
ideas of Phil's, it was new to me, and I thought it gave the song that
little extra touch... it took the usually "monotonous" way the 3 vocalists
would do the chorus, and made it sound "brand new" again. An "old time"
opening to Me & My Uncle > Mexicali was nice to hear. Reminiscent of the
early '70's "C&W Style" the Boyz did a lot of their songs in. Again, not
disappointing at all.
Cold Rain & Snow, sort of the same "older opening", and again, nice on the
ears. Big Boss Man -> Minglewood was a nicely staged segue. Well done, and
on the unusual side. Don't Ease Me In had NOT segue to it, which was NOT
ordinary.
Onto Set II...
The Ken Kesey opening had quite a lot of SBD problems, as the audio was
constantly fluctuating feeding the RTR deck. That was all edited out,
rather than trying to alter the volume, as there was simply too much to
do (and to make it sound right, as there were audible effects changes going
on). About 30 seconds of this opening track were edited out, and only a
couple of Ken's words wound up "on the cutting room floor". A very
"Space-oriented" early Countdown To Midnight started early, and Ken simply
was in a panic. I could picture him running around the stage trying to keep
everyone from starting the song! The band, by my calculations, started Aiko
about 25 seconds too early... oh well, that's life in a live show. Aiko had
nothing special to offer, in my opinion, just a slight party feel to it.
Playin' In The Band, well it was too short for my personal taste. They went
into the Playin' Jam after just 3 minutes into the song. But it was a GOOD
and HOT Jam, a bit over 11 minutes. The PITB Jam into Terrapin was nice,
with Bobby leading the segue, not Jerry. Jerry was on the mark for his
solos and riffs in Terrapin, and the audience was not left "wanting" at all.
A good and smooth segue back into Playin' (again, 3 minutes!) was just
wonderful. The band started to drift off going into Drums (which starts on
Disc 3), so there was almost silence, so real segue. You can hear the
instruments being unplugged before Mickey and Billy got their groove on.
Drums began with the audience ambience microphones turned on, and there was
a very noticeable jump in the volume. This was a good place to start Disc 3,
since there weren't any other members playing their instruments at the time.
Drums is slightly "overloaded", because of the levels of the up front monitors kept feeding into the percussion mics, and the audience ambience just added to this. So, on the very low-frequency sections of Drums, there's noticeable (albeit slight) distortion. It detracts from the enjoyment a little, but there's nothing I could do about this. The ambience mikes were lowered down once Space began, and by the time Space was over, they were only slightly on. This is the opposite of what was going on before Drums, where I believe the ambience mikes were totally turned off.
In keeping with this "new style" tryout, TOO wasn't set off with the usual
Phil riff, but more of a subtle opening. I wasn't upset with this, but it
did surprise me, especially with it being New Year's Eve. I wanted to hear
a good, resounding Phil riff and a couple of Phil Bombs thrown in for good
measure, but all of us were denied this. Ah, such is life. The remainder
of Electric Set II, which was TOO > NFA > GDTRFB > Morning Dew (great energy,
and very good "dynamics") were not disappointing. These were mostly their
current forms of the songs, so I need not go into details of these songs.
A slight break (I believe it was about 15 minutes) took place, and the Dead
set up for the 3rd electric set. And we would not be denied for good music.
SET III:
I had to keep looking (literally!) at my editing sheets to remind myself
of the year... Dark Star's keyboards were almost identical to the typical
Keith riffs and fills, except that it was Brent on the electric piano.
This 14+ minute song was a dream! You could picture Keith playing, rather
than Brent, and Jerry was just letting it rip. Hard on the vocals, well
done with his solos and fills, he spanned his repertoire of playing. The
verses were short, leaving the audience a lot of music to absorb. This is
a Dark Star which you want to play over and over again, as it was a 1970's
style version. Well received (remember, the audience mikes were still on
slightly!) and very much enjoyed, the audience had to be disappointed to
hear it end.
The DS > Bertha segue was SHORT... and I mean THREE MEASURES SHORT! No,
this wasn't a tape splice, this is how it was. And because of the lack of
compression and limiting, Jerry was really belting out the vocals, and I was
in heaven. Damn, this man could sing when he wanted to, and this Bertha is
one of my all-time favorites!
Upon first (and maybe 2nd or 3rd) listening, you would think that I started
Track 3 (Good Lovin') way too soon. But the GL riffs were in there, buried
in the rest of the music. So, I start the songs where the actual song
becomes apparent, not from any "teaser". Bobby, worn and weary from this
night, mustered up his energy and did a Pigpen-energy Good Lovin'. Weir
was not going to leave the audience disappointed, and he dished up this song
in high-octane-Dead style.
The most unusual thing about the Electric sets: NOT A SINGLE BRENT SONG.
Those of you who are Brent fans are going to be disappointed that all you
get are his backup vocals (which were very good), and his style of playing
that night (which was VERY good). I don't know why it was this way, but
since I haven't heard the Acoustic opening set at all, I don't know how much
Mydland contributed in that set.
Now comes the "downer of the night". Probably the most disappointing
Baby Blue I have ever been graced with listening to. I'm sorry if this
offends anyone, but the combo of Jerry and Joan Baez DOES NOT WORK.
Here's a man who keeps his vocals short and sweet, and a folk singer
who stretches out each word in that (sometimes unbearable) falsetto/vibrato
voice of hers. Picture in your mind the worse Donna/Jerry vocal duet,
multiply it by about 500, and that's the Baby Blue for the closer. It
simply didn't work. My mind kept telling me to leave the song out, and
just lie about it not being in the masters I got, but my Marin County
source would be a little upset (my source doesn't tell me how to write my
comments, I'm just given information I would have not known by listening
to the show) if the entire show wasn't released. My personal feeling: just
end your listening of this great show before the encore starts.
All I can say about this show: very 70's style in many ways, high energy,
Kesey was being Kesey, and the Dead did not disappoint the audience that
night. It's a wonderful NYE show in many ways, and I hope you enjoy it
as much as I did.
PERSONAL RATINGS: (on a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being excellent)
Audio Mix: 10
Audio Quality: 10
Energy Level: 9.8
Show "Completeness": 10 (not counting the missing Acoustic Set)
Song Selection: No Brent songs
Surprises: The openings of many of the songs reverted back to the 1970's
era style of playing... this monitor mix (rare), and the show as a whole
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