It continues to be a long, strange trip indeed
I’ve been drawn back to the movie theaters for anniversary celebrations of movies. A few weeks ago we saw This Is Spinal Tap on the 41st anniversary (!) of the theatrical release. A little additional footage after the credits rolled set us up for the sequel coming this autumn.
It was definitely the IMAX opportunity that brought us back to the theater for the 60th anniversary of The Grateful Dead Movie, a fan-favorite cult classic that uniquely captures the band during their pivotal five-night stand at San Francisco’s Winterland Ballroom in October 1974.
First half of the film is great, once we get past some animation that gets a bit tedious. The songs are energetic. The band seems fresh and the crowd is ecstatic. The filmmakers do a great job of immersing you into the ambiance with plenty of shots of audience members in ecstasy, from the music or otherwise. At this mid-decade juncture, the band was essentially comprised of Jerry Garcia, Bobby Weir, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann and Donna Godchaux.
The close-ups of the band give you an impressive sense of intimacy, despite the relatively large room of the venue. But when the band purposely goes off the rails into their “Dark Star” territory the film lumbers for many folks. Nonetheless, myriad fans seem to revel in the cacophony.
But the film regains a bit of momentum into the home stretch. Oddly, only this release features my favorite sequence, with the exclusive theatrical premiere of “China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider.”
By 1995, the Grateful Dead two decades later had attracted the most concertgoers in the history of the music business, and today remains one of the all-time leaders in concert ticket sales. Eventually, the Dead Head caravan evolved into a community with various artists, craftsmen and entrepreneurs supplying a growing demand for merchandise (legit or otherwise) that connected them to the music with the band’s final tally being 2,318 total concerts.
The Grateful Dead recently celebrated their 65th Top 40 album on the Billboard chart, a feat no other artist has achieved, and was commemorated in the 47th class of the Kennedy Center Honorees. Good thing they were honored before Trump took over the selection process, no doubt.
As to the film, there’s no pretense at continuity; the film was clearly shot across several different nights. The band attire changes and more intriguingly an extra drummer (Mickey Hart) and keyboard player (Keith Godchaux) appear and disappear somewhat at random in the second half.
Of course, seeing it in the IMAX format makes everything better. I wonder if the crowd would’ve been as large had they attempted this reissue as a regular theatrical run. In the otherwise grim business of movie theaters, IMAX is the only bright star.
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