Band Grateful Dead
Venue Fillmore West
Location San Francisco, CA
Date 6/5/1969 - Thursday posters tickets, passes & laminates
One [1:14:53] ; Morning Dew [9:33] ; [0:10] % [0:12] ; Me And My Uncle [3:12] ; [0:22] ; Doin' That Rag [7:07] > He Was A Friend Of Mine [10:26] ; [1:27] ; Hard To Handle [5:00] ; [0:42] ; Cosmic Charlie [6:26] ; [0:11] ; Cryptical Envelopment [2:14] > Drums [1:32] > The Other One [8:36] > Cryptical Envelopment [12:03] ; [0:17]
Two [1:15:12] ; China Cat Sunflower [2:44] > Jam [1:47] > Sittin On Top Of The World [3:29] > Dark Star [21:11] > St. Stephen [5:53] > The Eleven [12:56] > Turn On Your Love Light [26:40]
Comments COMMENTS Total time [2:30:05 +]. There are two SBD masters of this show -- reels and cassettes. One master has 6 minutes cut from the Cryptical reprise ; the other master (or circulating copies) cuts in just after the beginning of The Other One and runs unbroken through to the conclusion of the set. Between them, the two masters contain the complete show. Composites circulate, but also many partial combinations and unpatched fragmentary versions of That's It For The Other One. Collector beware.

The Eleven analyzes: St. Stephen > 1st vocals 1:06 > transition Jam 2:25 > Eleven Jam 3:21 > Eleven vocals 0:42 > Eleven Jam 2:53 > 2nd theme Jam 1:41 > transition 0:48 > Turn On Your Love Light.

SBD of parts of this show have circulated for years, sometimes mislabeled "Family Dog 8/29/69." About an hour of FM excerpts were broadcast in the early 90s. Copies of one of the masters only emerged recently and optimal complete composites are finally beginning to circulate.

Rob Bertrando writes: "The partial reel master of 6/5/69" is plagued by 'scrape flutter.'" Eaton's list reads:

06/05/69 The Fillmore West, San Francisco Ca - complete
4.3, 139min, Sbd, A1D0, Cass M->Cass 1->Dat 0, 48k,
Ampex C-90 Master Cass/no dolby->Tascam 122mkIII Cass 1st Gen->3800 x 0


NOTE ON FILLMORE WEST JUNE '69

Introducing Me & My Uncle on 6/869 Garcia says "We have to split. Jr. Walker's gonna come on, and the Glass Family again, and we'll be back for a second set later on, so everybody hang around, and we're gonna end up with this little short tune." This implies that the sequence of sets on Sunday ran: Glass Family, Dead, Jr. Walker, Glass Family, Dead.

It's impossible to tell for sure from the circulating tapes whether the Dead played 2 sets every night, whether we have any of the Dead's portions of these shows complete on tape besides the 5th, or how much we might be missing.

It does appear that we have the whole, or very nearly, of 6/5/69, in 151 minutes of tape, as two 75 minute sets.

What we have of 6/7 is all one set, likely the complete set, timing 95 minutes. If the structure of the show on the 7th was as on the 5th & 8th, there should have been another Dead set on the 7th, another hour of music plus or minus, and what we have must be the 2nd set. Of this putative 1st set we have no trace on tape, and apparently there is none in the vault. So maybe there was only one Dead set on Saturday.

6/8 is also fairly clear, consisting of the phenomenal 47-minute first set plus a second set during which Jerry and Pigpen sit out the first 45 minutes and then close with a rather lackluster That's It > Cosmic Charlie, a total of just 120 minutes of music, but very plausibly the whole of a laid-back Sunday show at the end of a party-hard weekend.

6/6 is the most puzzling case, with its 80 minutes of circulating tape (Eaton lists 88 minutes). Garcia does not play on any of the material listed in Set 1.

Jeff Cotsman suggests that 6/6 is the show McNally mentions at this venue in '69 where Jerry was too dosed to play. If this is the case then maybe we should also consider whether the Lovelight circulated as "6/6/69" in fact belongs to 6/8/69, and the Lovelight listed as 6/8/69, without Garcia or Pigpen and with Bishop and Ceballos, as well as the two Ceballos tunes, in fact belong to 6/6.
Recordings 120 SB reels 50 FM 139 SB cassette
Master recording source(s): Ampex C-90 Master Cass/no.dolby
Download Sources
Contributors Jim Powell Eric Doherty Nathan Wolfson Dick Latvala Michael Goetz Rob Eaton Rob Bertrando Jeff Cotsman
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