Grateful Dead’s Europe ’72 Tour 50th Anniversary: April 11 – Newcastle, England

In April 1972, the Grateful Dead embarked on their now-legendary Europe ’72 Tour. The band performed 22 times between April 7 and May 26, resulting in the landmark triple live LP, Europe ’72 that was released in October of that year. To celebrate the legacy of the band’s historic tour abroad, JamBase presents a retrospective look back at each of the Europe 1972 Grateful Dead performances.

Following the tour-opening two-night stand in Wembley, England, the Grateful Dead took two days off ahead of their next show. Staying in the same country, the band and their entourage of crew, friends and family traveled on two buses (the Bozos and the Bolos) north to Newcastle for a performance at Newcastle City Hall on Tuesday, April 11.

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Guitarist Jerry Garcia was interviewed at City Hall before the band took the stage. Later appearing in the alternative newspaper Muther Grumble, the guitarist was asked about his thoughts on England, resulting in the exchange below:

Garcia: I like England.

MG: English audiences?

Garcia: English audiences so far have been fantastic. It’s just like home really. It’s a Grateful Dead audience rather than an English audience. And that’s where we’re most comfortable. It was surprising, because we heard so much about English audiences being incredibly reserved and not at all demonstrative and so forth … all these things but you know as soon as we played, as soon as things started warming up it was just like home.

MG: I guess you’ll get that tonight. The whole place’ll shake.

Garcia: Ah … too much.

MG: How do you keep going for so long man, playing guitar, I mean. I know it’s good and everything?

Garcia: That’s it … I’m a music junkie.

The night began with guitarist Bob Weir and vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux leading an energetic “Greatest Story Ever Told.” Garcia then took a turn singing lead on “Deal.” Keyboardist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan was then given his first chance at fronting the band, delivering “Mr. Charlie,” just as he would for each performance of the tour.

After a first set rendering of “Black-Throated Wind,” Garcia played a riff from “Tennessee Jed” that elicited a reaction from Weir, who told the City Hall audience:

“Back home that’s what’s known as ‘telegraphing the next song’ – by playing a characteristic lick out of it, then the audience all knows what we’re going to play next. But seeing as you’ve never heard it before, there’s no problem.”

“Beat It On Down The Line” at City Hall had a 14-count false start. A subsequent seven-beat count off properly started the song. The tour’s first “Jack Straw,” with Weir handling all of the vocals, saw him alter the opening lyric to “I just jumped the toll gate, paid him 50 cents, took his rings, he left his chain, now ain’t that heaven sent?” changing it from the typically sung “I just jumped the watchman, right outside the fence, took his rings, four bucks in change, ain’t that heaven sent?”

Like the previous show at Empire Pool, the first set “Looks Like Rain” once again saw Garcia playing pedal steel guitar, which he would do once more that tour. After packing in 18 songs into the first set, the band — incluing keyboardist Keith Godchaux, drummer Bill Kreutzmann and bassist Phil Lesh — dug into their improvisational side during the second set.

Pigpen steered a 15-minute “Good Lovin’” to start the second half. After “Ramble On Rose,” the band started into a seamless 48-minute workup of “Truckin” and “The Other One,” with Kreutzmann’s drum solo linking the two songs. Garcia’s “Comes A Time” then made its first of what would be just four Europe ‘72 appearances, with Weir revving up a “Sugar Magnolia” set closer.

The encore began with the tour’s first “Brokedown Palace,” which went on to make just one additional Europe ‘72 setlist. The night ended with Bobby screaming through “One More Saturday Night.” The original Europe ‘72 live album did not include any tracks from this show.

Rosie McGee, who traveled with the band during Europe ‘72, wrote about an experience she had at the concert in Newcastle, which was the hometown of the British rock band The Animals. In her book, Dancing With The Dead that was excerpted for the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, McGee wrote about an unexpected encounter at the show, writing:

The concert hall there was relatively small, but it was packed during the show. I decided to go out into the audience and sit in the balcony. When I got to the hallway door, I saw a guard talking with an older lady, obviously a local. The guard stopped me and said, “Hey, this lady wants to come backstage. Will you talk to her?”

I pulled the lady aside into the vestibule and asked how I could help. “My son is Eric Burdon of The Animals. Do you know him?”

Much to her delight, I did, having spent a couple of days with him and his band when they were renting a place in Laurel Canyon. I asked her why she wanted to go backstage. Was she looking for someone in particular?

“Oh no. I just thought someone back there would know my son and I was right.”

She was a very nice lady. And since I was headed out to the balcony, I invited her to come with me rather than go backstage, where there was nothing going on. We found perfect seats, a few rows back from the railing. And we sat together through the rest of the set. At one point, she reached over and took my hand and I looked over at her knowing she couldn’t be heard above the music. She mouthed the words, “They’re very good, you know?” and then smiled and patted my hand.

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Here are additional statistics and information regarding the third show of the Grateful Dead’s Europe ’72 tour:

Below, stream the official recording of the Grateful Dead’s April 11, 1972 concert at Newcastle City Hall in Newcastle, England or check out audience recordings via Archive.org:

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Source: JamBase.com