Blogs > Picks and Pans (videos)

The Capitol Theatre Through the Years (An Audio Gallery)

Grateful Dead – “Attics of My Life” (6/24/70)

The Dead are playing what will easily go down as one of the very greatest nights of music in their career. Tucked inside a Dark Star that peels away the entire physical reality of the theater itself, comes a hallowed passage of music. It’s one of the earliest performances of “Attics of My Life,” still about half a year away from being released on the American Beauty LP.

The recording elevates silence to the level of an active participant in the concert experience. Vast empty space is filled with the hymn-like “Attics.” There is a palpable intimacy here that you can taste with your ears.

When, at the lyrics, “When I had no wings to fly…” an audience member screams, utterly overcome by the moment, we truly feel the combined experience – the play between band, audience and venue, with indistinguishable boundaries lost between all in attendance – even those of us listening decades later.

This delicate power allows the Capitol Theater to forever live on as a mythical and magical spot on the map across all Grateful Dead time. Noah Weiner, Dead Listening Guide

NEXT