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Grateful Dead: Dave’s Picks, Vol. 3: Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, IL, 10/22/71

Rhino

On the surface, the Grateful Dead’s performance at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago on Oct. 22, 1971—released as the third edition in the new Dave’s Picks series—isn’t too out there by either the standards of the then six-year-old band or even with four-decade hindsight. They only play one extended jam, albeit a monstrously good one, in the form of a 16-minute “The Other One,” filled with erupting and collapsing architectures like time-lapsed cloud-shapes turning themselves inside out. But that doesn’t mean the music on DP 3’s three discs isn’t wildly experimental. It is the band’s third show with new pianist Keith Godchaux, likewise the third without longtime show-stopping frontman Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. Guitarists Bob Weir and Jerry Garcia alternate picking songs, more than half of which are new to their repertoire within the past 12 months. There’s also a brightly dancing “Dark Star” on a bonus disc, their first with Godchaux. Dave’s Picks 3 is—in a sense—the sound of a classic band finding its sound. Never mind that the Dead had found their sound themselves a half-dozen times previously; this one stuck. At least until Godchaux traded in for an electric piano the following September.