<- About Deadweb: Setlist Conventions And Standards ->
Preface
Deadheads have been keeping track of the band's setlists for decades now. Over time, several standards and conventions have been created by the Deadhead community to document the various musical landscapes that have been traversed by the band. It is my goal to adhere to these standards and conventions as much as possible and logical, and I have created this page to explain how I plan to interpret all of those standards and conventions. The dates referenced in this document are from memory and may be corrected once I reach those years in my setlist input phase of building Deadweb.
Drums
Anytime there is a drum break featuring either just Bill or Bill and Mickey playing percussive instruments, the drum break will be documented as Drums. If there are any other instruments being played during the drum break, it will be documented as a Jam. On other setlist sources, you may see entries such as "Brent with drummers" or "Drums w/ Jerry." These segments will be documented as just a Jam on Deadweb, but I may include a note stating that said Jam featured the drummers and specific band members. The exception to this convention is chanting. There was a least one occasion where the Gyoto Monks chanted during Drums. Chanting during a drum break will not prevent the drum break from being documented as Drums.
Space
Modern Space segments did not begin to manifest themselves until approximately 1978 and were not played at every show. The modern Space segment was played sporadically from approximately 1978-1985 until it was eventually played at almost every show until the end. Any space-like jams that occurred prior to 1978 will be listed as Jams on Deadweb.
Jams
What makes a musical passage Space, and what makes a musical passage a Jam? Since modern Space segments did not begin to manifest themselves until approximately 1978, it wouldn't make sense to go back to every show before 1978 and list all the Jams as Space segments, just as it wouldn't make sense to change all the Jams from 1978 onwards to Space. So what's the difference? Based on the way that other setlists have been written and then contrasted with my own listening, it seems that the consensus believes that the primary difference is structure. Space tends to be more freeform and without a beat. Jams tend to have structure and/or a beat. A Jam does not riff on a particular song, but it generally has some forward momentum. Space tends to be filled with flourishes and periods of listlessness. Also, the presence of drummers does not necessarily indicate that the musical segment is a Jam, as there are often transitional periods when the band is coming back on stage for Space and the drummers continue to play. Additionally, the drummers may occasionally continue to play their instruments throughout an entire Space segment. From 1978 onwards, I will be going with whatever the existing setlist has listed for each Jam/Space passage, except in cases where I know otherwise from personal listening experience. All Jam-like and Space-like musical passages prior to 1978 will be listed as a Jam, regardless of how structured the musical passage is. Space is generally considered a post-1977 phenomenon, and most setlists prior to 1978 do not document musical passages as Space. The exception to this rule is Feedback.
Feedback
Although the band may have produced feedback and feedback-like sounds after 1971, it is generally considered that 1971 featured the last of the traditional Feedback segments that were prominent in the band's shows from 1968-1970. As such, no musical passage after 1971 will be documented as Feedback. Determining whether a musical passage is Feedback or a Jam will be based on similar criteria than those used to determine if a musical passage is Space or a Jam in post-1977 performances.
Song Jams
Song jams occur when an instrumental
version of a song that usually includes vocals is played. A good example of this
would be Nobody's Fault But Mine. Nobody's Fault But Mine was sporadically
played with vocals from 1966 onwards, and was often played as jam following
Truckin' from about 1973 onwards. If Nobody's Fault But Mine is played with
vocals, it will be listed as Nobody's Fault But Mine; if it is played without
vocals, it will be listed as Nobody's Fault But Mine Jam. Both Jam and non-Jam
versions of songs will be counted towards each song's Live Performances count on
their respective Deadweb song pages. Song Jams can also occur when an
instrumental version of a song is played during the same show that a vocal
version of the song is played.
Playing In The Band is the best example, although this certainly applies to some
Dark Star and The Other One passages. The band might play a segment similar to
this:
Playing In The Band->
Drums->
Space->
Playing In The Band Jam->
China Doll->
Playing In The Band
In this case, the first Playing In The Band contains the main vocal verses, the
Playing In The Band Jam is a brief instrumental interlude on the Playing In The
Band theme, and the final Playing In The Band contains the reprise. I have long
argued that the Playing In The Band Jam was part of one big performance of
Playing In The Band and should be documented without the jam label. I have since
changed my opinion for two reasons:
1. As I created the setlist pages, I had been putting a note
each time there was a labeled Playing In The Band that was only a jam. Labeling
these entries as Playing In The Band Jam will remove the need for these notes
and makes it easier to visually identity when instrumental Playing In The Band
segments were played.
2. As I worked through the 1969 setlists, I noted that there
was more than one occasion when an And We Bid You Goodnight Jam and the a
cappella And We Bid You Goodnight were performed in the same show. It wouldn't
make sense to document the instrumental And We Bid You Goodnight Jam without the
jam label because it's not a split performance of one And We Bid You Goodnight
in the way that Playing In The Band is split above, even though both passages
are sourced from the same song. As such, And We Bid You Goodnight's song page
will list two performance of the song for any show that featured both an And We
Bid You Goodnight Jam and an a cappella And We Bid You Goodnight.
Named Jams
The band often played instrumental songs that were given names by Deadheads or that were based on another artist's song that originally contained vocals. For example: Feelin' Groovy Jam. This jam is based on Simon and Garfunkel's 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy). The band never played it with vocals, and it is known in the Deadhead community as the Feelin' Groovy Jam. Examples of other named jams that were never played with vocals include Mind Left Body Jam, Spanish Jam, and Tighten Up Jam. As I work through the setlists, every attempt will be made to accurately document these named jams whenever possible. Most 1973-1974 setlists fail to list the Feelin' Groovy Jam that was played in between most China Cat Sunflower-> I Know You Rider performances in that period, and I intend to rectify this oversight on Deadweb. The exception to the Named Jams rule is Tunings. Short tuning songs such as The Addams Family and Funiculi Funicula do have lyrics, but will not be listed as Jams.
Tunings
Short tuning songs such as Funiculi Funicula, The Addams Family, and Beer Barrel Polka will be documented as much as possible. One exception to this is when a tuning song is played underneath the Take A Step Back announcement. Those instances will be documented under the Take A Step Back song entry.
Jams Within A Song
From 1969-1974, the band would often
start a song, take it out to deep space and beyond (while completely losing any
structure or indication that they are in fact still playing said song), and then
return to conclude the song. Playing In The Bands from 1972-1974 are the perfect
example of this. Most of them could easily be documented as:
Playing In The Band->
Jam->
Playing In The Band
However, the standard convention is to just list this as Playing In The Band. I
will be adhering to this convention by documenting such instances in the
traditional fashion. An exception to this rule would be a named Jam being played
in the middle of a song. This would be documented as such:
Playing In The Band->
Mind Left Body Jam->
Playing In The Band
Dark Stars from the 1972-1974 period are different from the Playing In The Bands
of the same period. Often times, a Dark Star sequence would look like this in
detail:
Dark Star Theme->
Dark Star Theme-Based Jam->
Dark Star Verse->
Jam/Space-> (This passage would not contain any actual Dark
Star themes.)
Mind Left Body Jam->
Morning Dew
In these instances, I would document the sequence as such:
Dark Star->
Jam->
Mind Left Body Jam->
Morning Dew
This deviates from the standard convention slightly in that most setlists would
not list the Jam here. To maintain consistency with how most other Jams are
documented, I will be documenting the Jam as in the above example. Another
detailed Dark Star example might be:
Dark Star Theme->
Dark Star Theme-Based Jam->
Dark Star Verse->
Jam/Space->
Dark Star Verse->
Morning Dew
In this instance, the Dark Star is resolved, and there is no named jam, so I
would document the sequence as such:
Dark Star->
Morning Dew
Album-Created Jams
Starting with the titling of Epilogue and Prelude on Europe '72, the band has released several albums wherein a musical passage that would otherwise be labeled as a Jam is given an actual name. Other examples would include Boston Clam Jam from Dick's Picks Volume Seventeen, And from Terrapin Station (1997), and Wood Green Jam from Dick's Picks Volume Seven. Despite the senselessness of naming these jams, I intend to preserve these named jams on Deadweb's setlists and album pages for nostalgia's sake. Named jams that are incorrectly named (such as Mud Love Buddy Jam on Dick's Picks Volume Twelve) will be listed with their correct name.
And We Bid You Goodnight Jams Within Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad
With a few exceptions, every Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad performance technically contains an And We Bid You Goodnight Jam at the conclusion of the song. Instead of listing this for every Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad performance, I have documented Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad as a suite of two parts: (1) Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad, (2) And We Bid You Goodnight Jam.
Alligator
I plan to listen to all of the circulating Alligators before making some final decisions, but Alligator seems to be a difficult song to document for several reasons: drum breaks, drum breaks with Jerry still playing, a combination of the previous two, And We Bid You Goodnight Jams (these seem to occur in most performances, typically in the later jam portions of the song), Mountain Jams, Alligator vocal refrains, lack of Alligator vocal refrains. I need to study Alligator more, but I thought there was also a distinct instrumental passage that acts as sort of an official end to Alligator proper. I'll probably have to decide whether to document the And We Bid You Goodnight Jams separately or to consider Alligator a suite since the band seems to play them as if they are a part of Alligator, as they would later do with Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad. The other jams, drum segments, and named jams that are interwoven with Alligator will be documented as much as possible.
Terrapin Station Part One
I'm going against convention on this
one. On the Terrapin Station album itself, the song that most people know as
just Terrapin Station is listed as Terrapin Station Part One. Robert Hunter
wrote a second part to Terrapin that the band never set music to. Presumably
that's why it is listed as Part One on the album. Terrapin Station Part One is a
suite of seven parts:
Lady With A Fan
Terrapin Station
Terrapin
Terrapin Transit
At A Siding
Terrapin Flyer
Refrain
The band played only Lady With A Fan and Terrapin Station in concert, with only
three variations that I know of: 3/18/77 in which every part of the suite except
Refrain was at least attempted, 5/22/77 in which Terrapin Station was played
without a preceding Lady With A Fan, and 4/13/86 in which only Lady With A Fan
was played. I've always thought it made the most sense
to document Terrapin Station as:
Lady With A Fan->
Terrapin Station
I'm of the opinion that it should only be documented as one song if the entire suite is played (which it never was live), and if it had been, it would be documented as Terrapin Station Part One, as it is called on the album.
Terrapin Station Part One Breakdown
There are two ideas as to when each part of the Terrapin Station suite begins and ends. Per http://www.whitegum.com/~acsa/toddcore.htm, Todd Corey discovered an index on the Terrapin Station CD itself that splits the song up into these parts:
Lady With A Fan
0:00-4:10
Terrapin Station 4:10-6:35
Terrapin
6:35-8:43
Terrapin Transit 8:43-9:20
At a Siding
9:20-11:05
Terrapin Flyer 11:05-13:59
Refrain
13:59-16:18
http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Terrapin_Station also states that initial releases of Terrapin Station did not break down Terrapin Station Part One with time lengths of its sections, and anecdotal evidence was that listeners were often confused about where one section ended and another began. However, CD releases from the 1980s settled this by breaking the song down into individual tracks with the time lengths as shown above.
These timings would indicate that the band actually performed three parts of the suite when it was performed live:
Lady With A Fan->
Terrapin Station->
Terrapin
I have done a side-by-side comparison with these timings, and they mostly seem to make sense. However, these timings indicate that Lady With A Fan ends before the "Since the end is never told" verse, which is contrary to popular belief and contrary to Robert Hunter's Box Of Rain book which includes said verse as part of Lady With A Fan. These timings are also contrary to the one occasion when the band did not play Lady With A Fan: 5/22/77. Only Terrapin Station was played on that night, and it did not begin with the "Since the end is never told" verse.
The other idea (http://www.whitegum.com/aaroness.htm) documented by Aaron Donovan solves both problems:
Lady With A Fan
0:00-4:38
Terrapin Station 4:38-8:50
Terrapin
8:50-9:20
Terrapin Transit 9:20-10:09
At A Siding
10:09-11:03
Terrapin Flyer 11:03-13:57
Refrain
13:57-16:16
I have done a side-by-side comparison with these timings as well, and they also make sense in addition to solving the problems of the CD index timings. These timings indicate that the standard live performance only contained the first two parts, correlate with Robert Hunter's Box Of Rain, and line up with the 5/22/77 performance of the Terrapin Station part. This is the idea I have sided with in the making of Deadweb.
That's It For The Other One vs. Cryptical Envelopment/The Other One
There has long been confusion over the titles of this suite and its parts. The first track on Anthem Of The Sun is titled That's It For The Other One and has four parts:
Cryptical Envelopment
Quadlibet For Tender Feet
The Faster We Go The Rounder We Get
We Leave The Castle
As discussed at http://www.whitegum.com/~acsa/songfile/THATSITF.HTM, there is really no way to line the music up with those four parts. The suite is often documented in this fashion instead:
Cryptical Envelopment-> (contains Jerry's "the other day they waited..." section)
The Other One-> (Bob's section: "Spanish lady come to me...")
Cryptical Envelopment (return to Jerry's "and when the day had ended...")
I will be documenting all performances of Cryptical Envelopment and The Other One as above, with no references to That's It For The Other One or the other parts of the suite. If there happened to be a Drums segment after the first Cryptical Envelopment, it would just be documented as:
Cryptical Envelopment->
Drums->
The Other One->
Cryptical Envelopment
King Solomon's Marbles
On Blues For Allah, this track is listed as a suite of two parts:
Stronger Than Dirt [1:55]
Milkin' The Turkey [3:25]
As discussed on http://www.whitegum.com/~acsa/songfile/KINGSOLO.HTM, the timings for the individual parts given on the remastered Blues For Allah seem incorrect. I believe that they are incorrect, but close, with the 1:55 timing of Stronger Than Dirt being inaccurate by only plus or minus ten seconds or so. The discussion also mentions that the two parts of King Solomon's Marbles played on 3/23/75 are only loose jams on the main theme. Upon listening myself, I disagree with this sentiment and believe that the first segment is a loose, extended version of Stronger Than Dirt, with the second segment being a loose, extended version of Milkin' The Turkey:
Stronger Than Dirt->
Drums->
Milkin' The Turkey
Blues For Allah
On Blues For Allah, the title track is listed as a distinct song followed by two different songs:
Blues For Allah [3:21] (main vocals)
Sand Castles And Glass Camels [5:26] (spacey segment)
Unusual Occurrences In The Desert [3:48] ("Under eternity blue" vocals)
These three songs are thought to make up the Blues For Allah suite as they are contained within one track on CD releases of Blues For Allah in addition to being musically linked. As such, the suite will be documented as Blues For Allah when played in its continuous entirety. On 3/23/75, the entire suite was played, but not continuously (and without vocals). That performance will be documented in this fashion (similar to how the individual Terrapin Station parts are documented):
Blues For Allah Jam->
Sand Castles And Glass Camels->
Stronger Than Dirt->
Drums->
Milkin' The Turkey->
Unusual Occurrences In The Desert
Unusual Occurrences In The Desert featured "Do-Do-Dos" sung in place of the usual "Under eternity blue" lyrics, so I have chosen to exempt it from being a jam.
Weather Report Suite
On Wake Of The Flood, this suite is listed with three (easily-identifiable) parts:
Prelude (Instrumental section)
Part One (slow, with "Winter rain" vocal sections)
Part Two: Let It Grow (fast, starting with "Morning comes" verse)
This suite was only played in its entirety from 1973-1974 and will be documented as just Weather Report Suite for those performances. Prelude was played sporadically on its own from about 1972-1973; these performances will be documented as Weather Report Suite Prelude. Part Two: Let It Grow was played on its own from 1976 onwards, and will be documented as just Let It Grow (as per convention).
New Minglewood Blues
The song that most Deadheads know as New Minglewood Blues actually had two distinct arrangements during the band's tenure. New, New Minglewood Blues was performed from about 1966-1971, and All New Minglewood Blues was performed from 1976-1995. Both Minglewoods will be documented with their unique titles as two distinct songs. Wave That Flag and U.S. Blues will also be documented in this fashion.
Segues
I hope that Deadweb will have the most accurate setlists possible with regards to segues, and I intend to use whichever is the most accurate source for documenting the correct segues. Many of the segues can still be improved upon by listening to the shows and noting corrections. Please let me know of any segue corrections!
Song Names
I intend for the names of songs to be exact and uniform across this enter website. For songs that are listed in different ways on either official albums or setlists, I will be using the name of each song as it first appeared on a Grateful Dead album.
Reprises
Reprises of songs will not be listed as such on Deadweb, but there will be a note on each setlist when only a song's reprise was played. Playing In The Band is a song whose reprises are frequently listed on setlists.
Venue Names
Venue names pose a significant
challenge. As I worked my way down from 1995 adding setlists to Deadweb, I made
it to 1988 before I realized how big of a problem that inconsistent venue naming
was. Venue names are inconsistent on Deadlists, ticket stubs, backstage passes,
posters, everywhere. Even the venue name on the ticket stub and backstage pass
for the same show sometimes differs! Wikipedia and general Google searches often
aren't able to shed light on what certain venues were actually named when The
Grateful Dead played them.
My thought on this is that I should name the venues as they were known at the
time, usually based on the ticket stub. For example, the Oakland-Alameda County
Coliseum Arena was never known as that. It seems to be listed as the Oakland
Coliseum Arena on almost all of the ticket stubs, backstage passes, and other
concert art I've looked at. Wikipedia data, official live recordings, and Google
searches will also be used to determine the venue names as they were known at
the time, especially in cases when the ticket stub clearly has an inaccurate
venue name. If a venue has a traditional name as its known in the Deadhead
community, that will be factored in to how a venue is named as well.
The Sam Boyd Silver Bowl is an interesting case and makes a good example of how
confusing this all is. It appears that it was officially known as the Sam Boyd
Silver Bowl from 1984-1993 and Sam Boyd Stadium from 1994-present, but it is
called the UNLV Silver Bowl on all of the GDTS ticket stubs from shows played
there. It appears that most Grateful Dead-related websites refer to the venue as
the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl for all years. This is also what I've always thought
the venue was called, so I have chosen to use Sam Boyd Silver Bowl as the venue
name for all of the shows played there. There will be numerous other cases where
judgement calls like this need to be made, so I will do my best to name the
venues as consistently and accurately as possible.