Twenty-six years ago today the Grateful Dead played “Unbroken Chain” live for the first time at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. The Phil Lesh composition appears on the GD’s 1974 album From The Mars Hotel and the band debuted the number over 20 years after the album’s release.
The show gets underway with “Alabama Getaway.” A rollicking piano solo from keyboardist Vince Welnick helps to ignite the song and Jerry’s singing was more spirited coming out of his solo. Next, Bob Weir leads the way on vocals and slide guitar for “Walking Blues” with Vince adding some synth touches toward the end. Jerry then steps back up to the mic for “So Many Roads” with drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart adding a funky beat to the fairly laid back tune. The band kicks the funkiness up a notch on “Easy Answers” with Jerry utilizing some auto-wah and Vince providing some razor-sharp organ hits and sweeps.
The classic “Don’t Ease Me In” followed, which kicked off with some energetic vocal harmonies and saw Vince shining once again on some honky-tonk piano. The twinking opening strains of “Unbroken Chain” then wash over the audience. The din of the crowd rises as the realization sets in and becomes a roar as Phil begins to sing (the debut came just days after Lesh’s 55th birthday). GD warms up to the Phil Lesh-composed/Bobby Petersen-penned From The Mars Hotel masterpiece and the Dead would continue to play the song throughout 1995 including their final performance at Soldier Field. “Unbroken Chain” exhibits a number of complex time signature changes and Jerry finds some tasty riffs here and there in the instrumental section before Phil nails the high note to bring the song and first frame to a close.
The second set kicked off with Bobby setting the tempo with muted guitar before Mickey and Billy start banging out the beat heralding “Samson And Delilah.” Bobby delivers the verses and the band hits some nice harmonies once again on the chorus. Garcia also comes in with some searing fuzz guitar that gives the song a bite before closing the out thee number. Vince then sang his composition with lyricist Robert Hunter, “Way To Go Home,” which had a groovy, pocket feel to it and Vince delivered some gritty rock vocals stylings on the coda. Next, the intro to “Crazy Fingers” trickled in a little unsteady but once the band got into the tune they delivered some spirited harmonies on the chorus. And if the intro was lacking, the band made up for it on the outro, which took on a minor shade with Jerry soaring before returning to a more major-keyed landing.
A twinkling “Corrina” would kick off the segued portion of the second set, The Weir/Hunter/Hart tune then led into Harry Belafonte’s “Matilda” ahead of “Drums” And “Space.” A rowdy “I Need A Miracle” would bring everyone back down to earth which really saw the band firing on all cylinders before cooling things down for the ballad slot with “Stella Blue,” which featured Jerry delivering an impassioned vocal and guitar performance, perhaps his best of the evening in both regards. GD kicked things back up a notch with the classic second set-closer, “Not Fade Away,” with the audience clapping the band offstage, as they are wont to do, to close out the set. A tight “Brokedown Palace” would serve as the encore and a fitting one seeing as the band seemed to be nailing their vocal harmonies. Jerry also delivered a great solo before the band hit the chorus one last time to close things out.
Stream a soundboard recording of the entire show below:
Setlist
Set One: Alabama Getaway, Walkin’ Blues, So Many Roads, Easy Answers, Don’t Ease Me In, Unbroken Chain*
Set Two: Samson & Delilah, Way To Go Home, Crazy Fingers, Corinna-> Mathilda-> Drums-> Space-> I Need A Miracle-> Stella Blue-> Not Fade Away
Encore: Brokedown Palace
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