This is the Holy Grail: Sunshine Daydream; 8/27/72, Veneta, Oregon

This is the Holy Grail. Not just for admirers of the Grateful Dead. But for humanity.  Sunshine Daydream, the commercially released audio and video recordings from the 8/27/72 Veneta, Oregon Springfield Creamery Benefit show, captures the Dead doing what they do best: Putting on a party with a family atmosphere. The Springfield Creamery Benefit was billed as a picnic, and when you see the footage from that day, it was in many ways a gigantic picnic--kids running around having fun, adults dancing naked in a total state of bliss, and general good-natured outdoor afternoon fun. 

The show was also a benefit, not just for a struggling creamery, but for humanity (those 15-20,000 people lucky enough to bask in the sunshine of the day at the show and those of us lucky enough to rely on the ingenious recording and re-mastering techniques of the Dead family's magicians who were able to create such a faithful document to the day that we can listen to and enjoy today). Asked about doing benefit shows, Jerry Garcia said, “When we do them, it’s usually for our friends [...]. The benefit for us is to be able to give people music, that’s a benefit, that’s the real benefit that we can provide.” What a deep benefit the Grateful Dead have left us with their 2,300+ shows, many of which are available commercially or for free through taping networks and websites. I can’t count the number of times the Dead have made me feel blissful and remind me of just how beautiful this world is, and Sunshine Daydream just might be the pinnacle of that expression. 

Jerry Garcia with his Sunburst Strat in Veneta, Oregon

In a time of government shutdowns, another Garcia quote worth remembering is from a conversation with a Yale law professor: “I’ve always thought that the Grateful Dead should be sponsored by the government or something. It should be a public service, you know, and they should set us up to play at places that need to get high.” The happiness the band left with attendees, particularly at this show, was extraordinary. And even when we struggle with the budget, one wonders just how much better the world would be with happiness brought to us by a house band--Lord knows we need it.

8/27/1972, otherwise known as the Springfield Creamery Benefit, played at the Renaissance Grounds in Veneta, Oregon, on a improvised stage put together with trees fallen by the Merry Pranksters of Ken Kesey fame, is 3 hours of happiness and rightfully one of the top 5 most requested Dead shows. But listening to this recording made me reflect on just how wonderful 1972 was for the Dead. I’ve already spent considerable digital ink reflecting on just how wonderful 1973 was, but 1972 is just as extraordinary and sets the tone for ’73. 1972 has more of the bluesy Americana sound while ’73 is more about what I’ll call the space jazz. The difference might reside in Jerry switching from his Strat to the custom-made Wolf guitar, which gave his playing and the band’s sound a more jazzy feel. 

Jerry Garcia in 1972 with the 1957 Fender Stratocaster "Alligator" that Graham Nash gave him. He's using his Sunburst Strat in the Sunshine Daydream concert

I originally fell in love with the Dead listening to the original ’72 Europe recordings. I still consider many of the songs on that album to be the definitive versions-- “Jack Straw,” “Cumberland Blues,” and “Sugar Magnolia” stick out, but we could point to many nearly perfect songs from that album. After going through other recordings from 1972, the 9/21/1972 show from the Philly Spectrum, captured on DP 31, really sticks out. As a review from the time indicated: “On a smoggy, soggy evening, in a large, darkened concert hall, the Dead managed to take every member of the capacity audience (17,500 people) to the top of a mountain on a bright sunny day. From a troubled city to wide open country.” The Spectrum has moments that might eclipse those captured on Sunshine Daydream. The 37-minute “Dark Star”--> “Morning Dew” is absolutely extraordinary and might even beat the stellar “Dark Star” from Veneta, but Veneta has many other moments worth remembering. 

Garcia in '74 with the custom-made "Wolf," with a more jazzy sound

Another indispensable recording from 1972 is Hundred Year Hall from a magical night in Frankfurt, Germany. If Beethoven died before composing the 9th, we’d still have one of the greatest composers of all time, but with the 9th he gave us something that is truly out of this world, as if it were written by a non-human entity, some deity from another galaxy. That’s how I feel about the “Other One” from Hundred Year Hall. The album is great and then we get to this 36 minutes of sounds from another universe, a peak into the Dead at a creative pinnacle. Parts of it are almost unlistenable for the uninitiated, but at 19 minutes in, we get a Space Groove Phil laying down a vamp that will propel them far. At 21 minutes out they’re a million light years from Earth. One worries that they’ve lost the song. It then becomes almost totally unlistenable, even for the initiated, but it goes further and further into other dimensions. At 32 minutes, they’re doing this insane polyrhythmic wildness beyond tribal and incorporating it back into the melody of the song which kicks back in again. No sane person would listen to this but that’s why I’m OK with not being sane. And I think most Deadheads that are fans of the Dead’s improvisatory prowess will appreciate this jewel.

The Dead understood timing. A pinnacle moment with "Dark Star" played at sunset

What sticks out from Sunshine Daydream is the visual documentary from the show. Prior to making a film of the Dead, Garcia asked why would anyone want to see a movie of us. “We just stand there.” But there’s something striking about the loose, family atmosphere that the band create on stage. My wife and I were lucky enough to catch the film of the show on the big screen at the annual Deadhead Meet-up. The visuals really capture the mantra oft-repeated: “There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.” Besides images of the blissful Deadheads dancing, what sticks out from the show is Garcia’s picking on “Dark Star.” Technique-wise, Garcia had one of the best right hands that I can think of and his missing finger made his picking styles really unique. He truly was a banjo man playing an electric guitar and that made his sound so unique, so Americana. 

The loose atmosphere created on stage at Veneta, Oregon

There are clips of Garcia in the midst of some deep, profound, introspective and dazzling technical guitar licks that counterposes with a hippie hanging naked from a pole behind the stage, deep in a state of trance, totally mesmerized by the band’s playing, looking almost like Jesus hanging from the cross. This image says a lot about the band, Garcia, and the hippie movement, already in a state of decadence in 1972; yet, here on the Renaissance Fair Grounds in Oregon on this hot day, this was the time’s idealism at its most perfect state, a truly beautiful capturing of what was beautiful about the Deadheads. 

You can see the naked Jesus just above Garcia's left shoulder

I’m much more interested in the Dead’s music than in the scene that developed around the band, which unfortunately unraveled in a number of hypocrisies, but when it was good, it was really good. The Deadheads brought a warm environment, based on communal sharing, and a spirit that was genuinely driven to create a better world. At its worst, Jerry suffered the same fate that Jesus did: Too many of his followers misinterpreted the message and used it for evil rather than good. And evil isn’t really the right word here, but more of a misguided close-mindedness might hit closer. Which is also part of the naive experience that the spirituality of a Dead show or a religious experience can do to people.

The Veneta show could be any show from 1972, good but not any better from the year, until we get to the “China Cat Sunflower--->I Know You Rider,” in particular the bridge between “China Cat” and “Rider.” Phil starts the first song with a really loose and huge slide down his bass that gets the selection off on the right foot, but it’s Bobby’s “rhythm guitar solo,” a lead solo played by and like a rhythm guitarist that triggers Jerry’s virtuosity on a lead guitar solo that streams so smoothly and elegantly that it takes the listener to a far-off better place in only the way that the Grateful Dead can do. As drummer Mickey Hart said, the Dead aren’t in the music business per se, but the transportation business. Their music is the perfect traveling music--nomadic, wandering, deeply western in its looseness and themes of rambling gamblers and old West shoot outs. So far West that it goes East in its spacey mysticism. It moves and it moves the listener. The music transports the listener to other times and places. This “China-Rider” is just as good as it gets. I’ve always thought the 1972 versions of the selection were the best with the 1973 space jazz transition into the funkier, almost comic book-like or cartoonish, decadent “China-Riders” of 1974 were also profoundly amazing. 1972 is the year when it’s clear that Bobby can carry his weight. Fired at one point because he was always late on the chunk of his rhythm guitar playing, Bobby has slipped into his role and he starts leading the band at points. When the Dead as a whole are really on, it’s Bobby’s  playing that adds that extra spark.

The Veneta versions of “Bird Song” and “Playing in the Band” are definitive. “Playing in the Band” has become the soundtrack of the Adventure Buddies, what I call my wife, 2 dogs, and myself, and here the song is in its most adventurous incarnation. It’s almost as if it’s a game for the band to see how far they can take the song out as far as it can go into spooky spaciness and then somehow they bring it back and slowly work the melody back in and bring it back to the head. This really is the holy grail.  

The Veneta version of “Bertha” is lively and colorful. The images of the tie-dye shown during the movie will forever be ingrained in my head when I hear “Bertha;” they’re really done so well.  

In between selections, we get water reports (“save your water, it’s hot!”) and the report of a fire truck coming to spray water on the crowd in 100+ degree heat, which gets a huge rise from the crowd. We also get reports on lost kids and kids missing their parents. What’s special about a Dead show, which is really more an experience or a jubilee, the town dance, a spectacle, is that the Dead experience is all about a family atmosphere. 

The liner notes include the petition that Deadheads signed requesting that this show be released. Though now regarded as a legendary show, what’s truly spectacular is that this was just another show during that year. That similar enthusiasm, similar energy was brought by fans coming to the Renaissance Fair Grounds. But like several other shows from 1972, the 8/27/72 show stands out as one of the best shows the band ever played. It just might be the holy grail.