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Grateful Dead
The Closing of Winterland
(Monterey/Grateful Dead)
The Music Box's #1 specialty package for 2003
First Appeared at The Music Box,
January 2004, Volume 11, #1
Written by John Metzger
The Grateful Dead performed at San Francisco’s Winterland
Arena more often than any other band — an astounding 59 times during the venue’s
11 ½ years of operation — and therefore, it was only fitting that the group was
hired to invoke its magic at the concert hall’s final hurrah — an elaborate
evening of music held on New Year’s Eve in 1978. After what was undoubtedly a
herculean effort, the ensemble’s original 24-track analog master tapes from this
event have been mastered digitally and synched with the original video footage
shot for a public television broadcast in order to form the basis for The
Closing of Winterland. Of course, none of this material was ever intended
for release — and there are moments when visually it certainly appears that
way — but overall, the result is a truly magnificent double-DVD package, which
boasts glorious mixes in both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 surround sound.
In creating The Closing of Winterland, David Lemieux and Jeffrey
Norman, the film’s producers, added a plethora of bonus materials, and these
include a retrospective on the Grateful Dead’s relationship to the venue as well
as to concert promoter Bill Graham; performances by The Blues Brothers and New Riders of the Purple Sage; interviews with
Graham as well as Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, and Ken Kesey; and a discussion on how this historic document was
assembled. All of it — and there is more than initially meets the eye — is
entertaining fare that serves its purpose quite well, adding both background and
perspective on the overall affair. However, it’s the music combined with the
visual imagery that will repeatedly draw fans back to this wonderful collection.
The reasons for this are plentiful, not the least of which is the fact that very
little archival footage exists prior to the late 1980s when the Grateful Dead
began projecting video onto giant screens at its concerts. In fact, according to
Norman, this is the only multi-track video project that exists from the ’70s,
making a release such as The Closing of Winterland an extremely rare
commodity.
Even so, scarcity alone isn’t enough to warrant such an extravagant package
or make it one that is guaranteed to hold interest. Without question, the
Grateful Dead was at its best in a live setting, and its excursions during the
’70s, generally speaking, eclipsed those of the ’80s and ’90s. One thing that
remained consistent, however, was the group’s tendency to fall flat when
expectations were highest, but in this instance, it actually succeeded in
delivering a rather remarkable performance. Surely it helped that following its
trip to Egypt in September, the band had experienced a surge in both its energy
and its inspiration, and although both Keith and Donna Godchaux would soon
depart, one might not have expected it based upon the collaboration that took
place at this event.
For the record, none of the songs featured during the show on December 31,
1978 can be considered among the best renditions that the Grateful Dead ever
performed, but they are all solidly transcendent in their own unique way. Such
was the nature of the band’s cosmic high wire act, and The Closing of
Winterland highlights one of those events where the entirety of the affair
was better than the sum of its individual components. The set list itself was
intriguing, to say the least, from the unusual opening salvo of Sugar
Magnolia, Scarlet Begonias, and Fire on the Mountain to the
third set’s stratospheric cruise through such notable fan favorites as Dark
Star, The Other One, Wharf Rat, St. Stephen, and
Good Lovin’. Indeed, the band playfully wound its way through many of its
oft-cherished tunes — such as its operatic suite Terrapin Station, its
psychedelic workhorse Playing in the Band, its lilting country ballad
Friend of the Devil, and its slow-blues mutation of Not Fade Away —
turning them into a loose-knit song cycle that served as both a means for
psychic transportation as well as the perfect party soundtrack for bidding a
fond farewell to the place that had become its home. In other words, taken in
its entirety, The Closing of Winterland is a sterling encapsulation of
one of the greatest performing ensembles in rock history, doing what it did best
— delivering music that carries one away from the trials and tribulations of
every day life into a world where anything could happen and frequently did.
The Closing of Winterland (DVD) is available
from Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
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The Closing of Winterland (CD) is available
from Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
Click Here!
For UK orders, please
Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2003
The Music Box
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