Grateful Dead
Dead Ahead
(Monterey)
First Appeared in The Music Box, November 2005, Volume 12, #11
Written by John Metzger
In 1980, as part of its 15th anniversary celebration, the Grateful Dead embarked upon a five-week tour that consisted of 25 shows — 15 in San Francisco, two in New Orleans, and eight in New York City — each of which featured an acoustic set as well as a pair of electric sets that, in total, lasted for nearly five hours. The following year, the band compiled material from these concerts in order to create the two-LP packages Reckoning and Dead Set. The former lovingly captured all of the magical resplendence of the collective’s unplugged performances, while the latter’s somewhat shaky contents provided an overview of the rest. In 1982, the group once again mined these blockbuster events to create the straight-to-home-video release Dead Ahead, its first concert film since The Grateful Dead Movie. Unfortunately, the end result wasn’t nearly as successful.
Indeed, each night over the course of its career, the Grateful Dead utilized the disparate elements of its catalogue to construct a cohesive statement, and as a result, every one of its performances — good or bad — stood on its own as a unique snapshot of a larger work in progress. Consequently, the group’s concerts have a tendency not to fare terribly well when they are chopped into bits and pieces, and therefore, it’s no surprise that Dead Ahead’s problems were largely those of pacing. In an attempt to distill the ensemble’s essence into a two-hour video, the organic nature of its journey was utterly lost, and the fact that the music was interrupted by the charming, but otherwise goofy, shenanigans of Al Franken and Tom Davis certainly didn’t help to maintain any semblance of momentum.
Nevertheless, buried within Dead Ahead’s hodgepodge of material, all of which was culled from the final two nights of the Grateful Dead’s October 1980 tour, were some truly stellar moments. Little Red Rooster was dark and ominous as Jerry Garcia’s searing slide cut with surgical precision through the quiet intensity of the song’s slowly churning rhythms. Likewise, the ensemble whipped Saint of Circumstance into a frenzy as Garcia’s guitar accompaniments darted and danced around the tune’s hard-driving, turbulent tension, and although both Franklin’s Tower and Fire on the Mountain were delivered with economical precision, each was also a gratifying slice of mellifluous merriment. The highlight, however, was a stunning rendition of To Lay Me Down, which, sung before a bucolic backdrop, exuded an air of tranquil beauty.
Making its debut on DVD, Dead Ahead has been remixed for 5.1 channel
surround sound, and its refurbished dimensionality is strikingly sonorous. The
Rhythm Devils segment is particularly mesmerizing, while Space is
cosmically haunting. As for the bonus material, which augments the original
collection with an additional hour of footage, it is largely a mixed bag, simply
because all five songs are, to some extent, flawed. On the one hand, both Weir
and Garcia took turns in respectively botching the lyrics to He’s Gone
and Truckin’; more egregiously, however, Samson and Delilah verged
on chaotic rampage, while the Grateful Dead initially seemed off-kilter as it
struggled for direction during Shakedown Street. Yet, even here, the band
made lemonade out of its otherwise sour lemons. Just as Shakedown Street
appeared as if it would derail, for example, the group forged a firmer
foundation for itself and successfully rode the tune’s wickedly funky groove
towards an incendiary conclusion; Heaven Help the Fool’s breezy refrains
splendidly showcased Garcia’s shimmering lead as it glided over a gentle gallop
of percussion; and the relaxed ambience of He’s Gone blossomed into an
aching and mournful, gospel-hued gem. Although Dead Ahead is undoubtedly
the weakest of the Grateful Dead’s currently available concert videos, it’s
still a worthwhile addition to any Deadhead’s collection, and newcomers might
find its division into shorter segments to be somewhat more accessible. 
½
Dead Ahead [DVD] is available from Barnes & Noble.
To order, Click Here!
Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2005 The Music Box