They haven't been having the annual (at least) Grateful Dead Meet-Up At the Movies for the last couple of years. Wonder why? Oh yeah, the pandemic! But they scheduled one for this year for November 1st and 5th and it was at the same time exciting and a bit of a let down. It's great that they've resumed this and gussied up the film of the Dead's second performance at Copenhagen's Tivoli on 1970-04-17. But on the other hand this film has been available for a while, like since 1972. Oh well, seeing it in a theater on the big screen would be fun.
On November 1st, Sarah and I met Dave at Fajita's and Rita's on West Street near the Common (where we saw some other Dead film aficionados), and then strolled over to the AMC Boston Common where we grabbed some adult beverages and settled in for the film. My Dog, those guys were great in '72 (and many other years)! The film has some of the best available footage of Pigpen performances, and is to be treasured for that alone. But it also has some great footage of Keith, who's somehow usually left out of films of this era. And that Garcia guy is pretty riveting himself.
The film isn't the full concert but has some of the best of it, including the first He's Gone and some gems like fantastic covers of Bobby McGee and El Paso. The theater was just about a third full by the time the film started, which is a bit above average. The endless trailers before the movie were at top volume and I commented to Dave that I hoped they'd play the main attraction at that volume, and they did! For once I had no complaints about the volume (we were kind of in a corner of the cinema), and the film quality was top notch too. Lots of fun!
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