The first show I saw with the Wall of Sound just blew my mind. I wandered around, from right in front of the stage, to way in the back of the stadium. And the sound didn't change. It was as crystal clear way in the back as it was in the front row. Just amazing. This was in 1974.
I’m in the Grateful Dead Movie during Playing in the Band reprise. The year before was my first time to Winterland . Got to see Muddy Waters open for Hot Tuna at Winterland in May 1973. It was one of those moments of good timing. Never had I seen a musician personify so much stage presence as Muddy. Seeing Pigpen with the Grateful Dead came close but Jorma, Pig and others cut their baby teeth listening to early blues, both Delta Blues (acoustic) and Chicago Blues (electric). The Grateful Dead changed in no small way when Pigpen became too ill to perform. In fact May 25 will mark 50 years since Pig last sang with the Dead (London) and June 17 will mark his final performance with the Dead almost 50 years ago but he did not sing. I last saw Pigpen with the Dead on March 28, 1972 at the Academy of Music, the only time I ever had a front row center ticket at a Dead show. Golden memories more valuable than material wealth.
Wall of Sound was tremendous. 5/19/74 is my favorite show from that year. I was/am a taper. I have a modest collection of 2500-3000 tapes/wav files. I gotta give a shout out to the Maxell Corp. The Maxell XLIIs and XLIIS tapes play today like in the 80s. These tapea lasted way beyond any spec they ever forecasted. We are talking 35-40 year old cassettes.
Deadhead for decades, I've been doing projects for years now where I listen to at least one show per day, and I still never get sick of the Dead. One thing I can recommend is listening to all 22 shows of the 1972 Europe tour. Not a single bad note in all 70 plus hours.
I love watching how you relate to and become blessed by listening to the Grateful Dead. They did that for me in the early 80s (even though my first Dead show was in 77). When I returned to university, in 2009, I constantly used GD in my writings. They used many parts of who we are, in their music. I turned on quite a few to their music, because they have many different styles. Their music has been a part of many different artists, over the years. Groove on.
Thank you for your song 🎶 reactions to all songs from all bands. I love all music 🎶. Don’t need t v just music inc concerts and goin to concerts. With the G Dead in concert if you went to 3/5 concerts in a row no song was played twice. Also fun to go to their shows the people , the vibe , the music. The Music 🎼 Never Stops
🔸My brother I absolutely love listening to & watching your progression into being a ""DeadHead" & just wanted to tell you my good sir thank you for a real good time & also that if anyone is ever questioning if the town you live in has heart or not...well ill be the first to tell whoever that is to just take a look at my friend Jamel! His heart be pumping that Love so much I can feel the vibes from here! 💟 Glad to have you in the fam my friend!!🔸 (~);} 🔥💯
My parents used to go to Grateful Dead shows around New Jersey area that's where I'm from in the early to mid 70s we will go to Grateful Dead shows of the family I was a kid Roosevelt Stadium Stanley Theater and of course Englishtown 77 I was 8 years what a different time it was back then!!!! Nothing like seeing the Grateful Dead live I was very lucky to have seen it!!!!
During the Fall 1990 Grateful Dead European tour I met Owlesly. We rode in the same train compartment from Copenhagen to Amersfoort,Holland.This guy had some great stories.
My first Dead show was in '73 and I had no idea what the hell was going on. Wasn't familiar with most of the music, but loved the people. 70+ shows later, loved the music and the people. So glad I got to experience this scene.
I came from a country and jazz background so that dynamic of being able to play coherent songs with great lyrics and then move into heady jams really worked for me. I liked the idea of them playing without a setlist. The rest of the fan lifestyle was fine, parts appealed to me while other parts did not..but the way they assembled each show professionally had me in awe.
I saw a couple of shows with the Wall of Sound. It was the most amazing sound I ever heard at a live performance. It totally and completely lives up to its hype. I was always up front near the stage and it was never too loud but absolutely crystal clear. I understood why they had to retire it but have always lamented its demise.
First show for me Hendrix was the headliner (Temple Stadium, May 1970). He did a decent "Red House." The Dead? Packed New Speedway Boogie, Turn On Your Lovelight and Casey Jones into less than an hour. They were to die for, or to be gratefully dead for. Headed to the Fillmore East 2 months later for a midnight till dawn extravaganza and life changed forever--what a treat to be alive while that band cooked!
I saw them with the wall of sound about 7-8 times or so. It was truly amazing. Not only could hear them with unparalleled clarity, you could feel them in the same way. I've never experienced anything like. But even without it, the Dead were still the best live show ever...
My first show was at Chet Helms' Family Dog hall in 1970, the last year the Dead could play a small venue...maybe 500 or so heads. I might have seen the WOS in Salk Lake City, where I had moved in '72. The show was probably '74 and was in the Salt Palace which had notoriously bad acoustics. Those Family Dog '70 shows can be seen on RU-vid, I have wondered if one of those was my show. I remember curling up in one of the big boxes stacked close to the stage, feeling the vibrations of the sound through my body as well as hearing them, and being transported as they wove incredible tapestries of music;)
Jamal, I can't tell you in words how great it is that you dedicated a video to the creation that this system was. They began experimenting and using a smaller version of the system in early 1973. I saw 4 wall of sound shows and missed one because my boss made me work that weekend. My friends and I were influenced by the setup, which defied words on how impressive it was to see and hear in person. We spent large amounts of money to buy Altec Lansing stereo systems and multiple speakers to set up in our homes in 1974. We all wanted to buy Macintosh amplifiers but they were out of reach financially. We would buy the vinyl recordings of studio and concert recordings and record the first plays of those vinyls on some big reel to reel hi fi tape decks to preserve the first play quality. The idea was to "bring the wall of sound" into our living rooms and it was really fun. With a good supply of marijuana and our huge living room sound systems inspired by the Wall, we seemed to attract a good following of party animals to our houses, all of whom were imresssed by wall of sound recordings played out on our miniature walls in our living rooms. The real Wall in the shows were beyond words. The band looked different also, with most of the Wall shows played by a clean shaven and slim and trim Jerry and bearded Bobby and Phil. Phil's bass was really amazing with each of the 4 strings going to different locations on the Wall. The only great video of the system was in the Grateful Dead movie, and the seems to be no video or movies of all the other shows. So happy that yoiu devoted some well deserved attention to this amazing time in history, and just another of the many things that "The Bear" left imprinted on the history of music and the world.
I saw them with the Wall of Sound twice, once in '73 and once in '74. Amazing sound but they had amazing sound after they cannibalized the Wall of Sound into smaller pieces. I'm an old geezer now but I'm still on the bus.
The Wall of Sound was dismantled a few years before I was born so I couldn't get to experience it. I did know that getting a low gen bootleg from that era was especially nice to hear.
first time I saw it " don't do the brown acid " to late didn't know how Billy could sit under that. But hearing it was better than the visual and having something to study and be in awe of made for a very interesting trip
I never got to see the Grateful Dead. I just started going to concerts in summer of '73, saw a lot of great bands right away. Don't remember the Dead playing near us, probably would have gone if they had. Going to google old tour schedules, see what I might have missed. Did get to see Emerson, Lake and Palmer on the quadraphonic Brain Salad Surgery tour, with 4 mountains of speakers, one in each corner of the auditorium. Screaming synthesizers sweeping around the room, ping ponging back and forth, and side to side. As if the sound was chasing itself and being very evasive. This was said to be the heaviest (quad sound, big light show) show on the road at the time.
Tommy Bolin: "Wild Dogs". My Personal favorite. Tommy Bolin: "Dreamer". If you Love Great Dynamics, listen to Tommy Bolin ""Dreamer". Everyone gets to show off a bit on "Post Toastee". And from his short stint with The James Gang Check out Tommy Bolin "Alexis". Try it, you'll like it!!
Still waiting for more Jerry Garcia Band from Shoreline Amphitheater. 😢 Don’t Let Go , Dear Prudence, or My Sisters and Brothers!!! Better yet, how about the whole thing in chunks over a few Grateful Sundays? Love you Jamel . Thanks 🙏
I remember reading about the Wall of Sound, though it wasn't yet called that, in Rolling Stone at the time, and being dumbstruck! Bear/Owsley was also further immortalized in Steely Dan's 'Kid Charlemagne.'
Others will correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe there were actually two complete Walls of Sound. Due to how long it takes to unload, set up, tear down, load, they had to have two sets of equipment and two crews leapfrogging each other to play night after night. That’s what made it impractical to continue.
I never saw a Wall Of Sound show, my first Grateful Dead concert was 9/6/80, but I have heard many great tapes of those shows, but it's still not the same as being there, feeling the raw energy of the band, the crowd and the Wall all working together to a common purpose, musical enjoyment and excellence. At most shows I attended, I would always try to get next to the Sound Board, when Mr. Healy was working, I figured that's where the sound would be best, and it was. I even got to meet Dan and Lighting Director Candace Brightman at shows. This video has much detail, but he failed to mention that they got the amplifiers directly from the McIntosh Audio factory in Binghamton, N.Y., just before their Watkins Glen show with The Allman Brothers and The Band. Only 600,000 showed up for that one. 26,00 Watts of McIntosh power. That'll do.
You should watch A Long Strange Tip on Amazon Prime! Also amazing live full concerts of Sunshine Daydream in 1972 and the Grateful Dead movie from their 1974 final shows before their hiatus!
The “Wall of Sound System” Debuted late March 1973 at the Cow Palace in Daly City,Ca and was last used in Oct 1974 at their closing Winterland Shows which the Band then took a break from Touring so it was not around as some Fans think as it was very costly and time consuming setting up and breaking down every night when they Band was still doing mostly 1 night Shows and going from Town to Town and just wasn’t economically feasible as the Band was basically going Broke at this time So they took a break, focused on their Solo Projects, with Jerry spending a lot of time with the Post Production, Editing and tweaking of the Grateful Dead Movie
@@direwolf6234 yes that should have been when they were using the Wall of Sound System From March 1973 to October of 1974 was the time period that used this
Love your reactions. Let's try to get past the lyrics and talk about the grove, the time signature, the meter, the texture and the chord progressions. Best!
You should watch Long strange trip. Its a 6 part documentary on the dead on amazon prime. In one episode Phil goes into a fair bit of detail about the wall of sound.
the remaster might be copywrited due to being released for sale? Dead "bootlegs" are free, but you can't use them for profit. BTW: The wall could reach so far, but it wasn't loud, per se. Apparently, it was amazing
The throwing down the stairs thing wasn't litteral, he was talking musically, he threw Phil down a musical flight of stairs because he didn't like the direction phil was leading the song.
Most live performances for a band Top Ten The Beach Boys: 7045 B.B. King: 6128 Ray Charles: 4586 Blue Öyster Cult: 4402 Johnny Cash: 4315 Jerry Lee Lewis: 4033 Frank Sinatra: 4027 Elton John: 3984 Santana: 3950 Cheap Trick: 3849
Jamal if you could please do Bob Dylan an the grateful Dead slow train coming but do the lyric version as it's hard to understand it when Dylan' sings it but it's a great song one of my all-time favorites I still listen to it today I saw them in '96 but when I did see them live I heard the words and oh my God what a testament
@@donHooligan I don't doubt it when I saw Dylan and the dead in concert by the end of the concert Dylan was so drunk he could hardly stand up he started singing Knocking on heaven's door and couldn't even sing the dead had to take over and sing it for him
One thing I will say is that the audio selections from this video are not really accurate as far as the Wall goes. Polyphonic used soundboard recordings, which are ripped from the soundboard, whereas audience recordings would show what it actually sounded like through the Wall. Nevertheless, this is a very good video.
I'VE NEVER THOUGHT I WOULD HAVE TO DROP SOME GOOD OLD 7O'S DRUGS TO ENJOY SOME MUSIC SO DO I NEED SOME L.S.D. OR ACID OR SOME GOOD NATURAL SHROOMS ?? SHOOT I LISTEN TO SO MUCH MUSIC AND PEOPLE THINK CAUSE I LO💚E REGGAE 💚💛❤ I SMOKE 🌱WEED MOTA🌿 AND I NEVER DONE OR TAKING ANY DRUGS TO ENJOY MY FAVORITE MUSIC THANKS JAMEL_AKA_JAMAL ✌🏼& LO💚E MY BROTHER
Nope. No drugs needed - just like w/ reggae. That Wall was for clean music, not drugs. We chased them for their music. We taped them for their music. Deaf people held balloons to feel the music. It's not about drugs, it's about music.
The WOS was a colossal failure. Period. It’s greatness was in its role as a catalyst for the old Bell Labs/Western Electric line array tech to manifest as the way to get it done in large scale touring audio, breaking out in the late 1990s with the French company L’Acoustics V-DOSC getting the nod from The Powers in Touring Land. The industry never looked back. Point source officially died in 1999. The statements made saying that “the sound never changed when moving throughout the venue” are impossible. The individual instrument arrays all employed paper cone drivers, woofers, whatever you choose. By design those type of drivers narrow substantially in dispersion as the frequencies get higher, resulting in “beaming”, the effect being that anyone sitting off axis of the woofer cones would hear less upper mid and HF, and that effect would increase as the amount of the off axis angle increased. The system also needed a substantial amount of distance to “come together” even when seated on axis. If seated too close to the stage, the array closest to your seating position would dominate your perception of the mix, as the other arrays would suffer from the above mention high mid/HF off axis loss. Add to this, those absolutely horrid mics, with those tiny diaphragms, screaming for their lives, never designed to be used in close mic applications as they were. The vocals on the WOS tapes sound distorted to me, and I have no doubt as to why. In practice, the WOS was awful. As a catalyst and an amazing “almost” …it was The Best. Love The Dead, JGB, but, the WOS? Not if I had to listen to it:)
Here is a WOS tape. The vocals sound thin and distant, among a bunch of other gripes. People who saw the dead after the WOS really shouldn’t feel like they missed an amazing audio experience. They missed a part of audio history, but that wouldn’t prove itself for 2 decades + …compare this to anything off of Without A Net🤷♂️ The only advantage of the WOS tapes is the lack of smearing from the same signal coming from multiple time paths. Otherwise it is of it’s period at best. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Yhk4Ea0JnEs.html
Cool story bro. The mics do sound off because of how they had to do the canceling, so any of the voice that went into the second mic got canceled, this making the sound thin. But distorted? Naw. Not on any tapes I heard. Just thin due to the cancelation that was going on. If you are too close to any stage, the sound is gonna be poor. almost every smaller venue where I go see bands has poor sound, especially since I have to wear earplugs now due to tinnitus from overly loud systems. That's how they do it now, make it loud, loud, loud, rather than clear. The point of the wall was that it had far better sound than anything before it. You can't go comparing it to systems today, that's hardly a fair comparison. It is hideously disingenuous. In 1973, you would have been thankful for the WoS I reckon, based upon reports of how other sound systems were. Nobody else was using Macintoshes to power their PAs, and what sort of cones do you think they should have been using? Paper or coated paper still provides the best transient attack. What precisely was widely available in 1973? Paper cones. I don't know what you think would have been some magic improvement on it.
This has nothing to do with music i just wanted to tell you and all your subscribers to put back as much food and water as possible asap for food shortages coming Soon!! God Bless us all!!
