By the time sessions for Aoxomoxoa wrapped up, the Dead’s relationship with their label was strained, at best. They were half a million in the hole and really didn’t give a fuck. So the obvious choice was to make a live album. The stage was their natural playground, and they recorded every show anyway, so it could be produced for next to nothing. They could pay back maybe part of what they owed. So they drew from a run at the Fillmore, 2/27-3/2/69, and assembled a set that was as close an approximation to the live experience as you’d get (on any given night), and an album that became a cultural icon.
The only song on this set to appear on a prior album is “St. Stephen”, which is delivered here in its definitive arrangement, leading into the wiry, frantic “The Eleven” (via the “William Tell Bridge”). “Dark Star”, previously a brief single, is presented here in all its glory, stretched out to take up the entire first side of vinyl. For the uninitiated, this is a most audacious introduction. For those who “get it”, it is no less impressive.
Pigpen shines on “Lovelight”, fronting the band and doing what he did best, for all of side three. The Dead back him up and get down and dirty, like a lysergic soul revue, while the last side of vinyl is taken up by the dark and spaced-out “Death Don’t Have No Mercy”, which leads into a cacophony of feedback and an a cappella gospel lullaby to the end the program, with pretty much all of the bases covered.
By the time this came out, the Dead had already moved into the acoustic-based Americana realm, where they would have great success, leaving Live/Dead as an exclamation point to their first three years, and a pristine example of just another night at the Fillmore West.
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