19910810 JGB French's Camp Piercy CA (Fifth Annual Electric on the Eel)

Jerry Garcia Band played the Fifth Annual Electric on the Eel event  put on by Bill Graham Presents and the Hogfarm at French's Camp near Piercy, CA on Saturday, August 10, 1991. I don't get into the 90s as much, needless to say, but since this just came up elsewhere I thought I'd just lay out a few things. I'd love to get some attendees' recollections if possible!

Just a few things: First, the reschedule of the show from July 13, 1991. Second, the show itself. Maybe close with a few thoughts.

1. This show was rescheduled from July 13, 1991. Here are some Wolfgang's Vault images. (I assume that since they allow you to copy the picture locations so easily, it's copacetic to use these. Anyone know differently?)

I am about 98% convinced that the rescheduling had to do with Garcia being in rehab. Here's McNally (LST, p. 588):

The [GD] summer tour ended in Denver [0n 6/28/91] where the band sat down with Garcia in a major intervention, and he responded positively. He spent August driving himself to a methadone clinic every morning, standing in line with everyone else to receive his allocation, seemingly committed to getting healthy.

I have never particularly noticed that there is a long gap from 6/28/91 through 8/10/91, with this canceled date in the midst of it -- and a few others, besides. Besides the comas in '86 and '92, this might be the longest non-playing spell I have documented at any time during which information is reasonably reliable.

2. The show holds some interest. First is the song-selection.  This is the fourth and final version of "Twilight," which JGB had started playing in the spring. A gorgeous cover of the Robbie Robertson for old Jerry. Not sure why they stopped playing it. Jerry never once got the words right, but it was a wistful, soulful, painful, beautiful song. Perhaps it was insufficiently oblique, I dunno. The third and final version of "See What Love Can Do", which never moved me that much. [update: all these years later, I like it much more!] Second version of "Lazy Bones," which is generally way too slow for my taste (though I seem to recall once or twice having been able to appreciate the craftsmanship of it). Plus the stuff that had entered the repertoire in 1990-1991, including "You Never Can Tell," "Lay Down Sally", "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love", etc.

Second interesting thing about the show is a little taper trivia. Marcus Buick, Tom Hughes, Rick Katzeff, and probably others taped this show with two widely-spaced (can't remember how far apart) omnidirectional Schoeps CMC32s from a really nice spot. It's a great tape, shnid 30813. If you like some of the spaced omni Grateful Dead tapes from 1990 (e.g., 5/5/90 at Dominguez Hills, one of the June '90 Cal Expo shows), you'll like this, too. It really is one of the nicer audience pulls you'll ever hear. We don't do much taper talk on these various blogs, but of course they have contributed in unfathomable ways to the whole thing. Thank you, tapers!

Third thing to note, even smaller, is what I consider the overrating of this show among fans. I suspect this results from the unusual song selection, the great circulating tapes, and what I presume to be massively favorable bias among those in attendance. I wasn't there, but I have a hunch the scenery was beautiful (Piercy is certainly off the beaten path!) and the day was pretty wonderful. But the show has always struck me as relatively lackluster.

3. Last thought. It wasn't until today that I realized that this was in the midst of yet-another attempt by Jerry to get clean. Bearing in mind the Fall 1991 Rolling Stone article, and Hornsby's recollections of how exasperated he was with Jerry's drug use in September of 1991, and his rapid deterioration through to the next medical meltdown in August of 1992, it's not that surprising that I find this show to lack good energy and think much, much less of the shows to come (even the exalted Fall 1991 JGB tour, which is usually exalted relative to same-era GD) than most others do.

Update: see also my writeup of the very nice 6/10/89 Eel River show, and note that all three Eels --8/29/87, 6/10/89, and this show-- are now scheduled for official release.