Grateful Dead’s Europe ‘72 Tour 50th Anniversary: April 21 – Bremen, West Germany

In April 1972, the Grateful Dead embarked on their now-legendary Europe ’72 Tour. The band performed 22 times between April 7 and May 26, resulting in the landmark triple live LP, Europe ’72 that was released in October of that year. To celebrate the legacy of the band’s historic tour abroad, JamBase presents a retrospective look back at each of the Europe 1972 Grateful Dead performances.

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After three performances in England and another three in Denmark, the Grateful Dead’s Europe ’72 Tour made its way to the third country on the itinerary in order to record an appearance on German television. More specifically, the band taped a performance in Bremen, which at the time was in West Germany, for the music performance TV program Beat Club.

The Beat Club taping took place on Friday, April 21, 1972, following three days off for the band whose lineup at the time consisted of guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh, drummer Bill Kreutzmann, keyboardists Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Keith Godchaux and vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux. The off days saw the members of the Dead and their entourage of crew, family and friends (totaling around 50 people, spread across two buses) make the 280 miles voyage southwest from Denmark to West Germany.

Unlike their previous show in Copenhagen, which was the tour’s only other gig recorded for television and also only three-set performance, the Beat Club taping was the only one set engagement of the entire Europe ‘72 Tour. There was also not a traditional full-size live audience watching the Dead as they played an eight-song set (including two versions of “Playing In The Band”).

In addition to the Grateful Dead, the Beat Club featured dozens of popular acts including Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Frank Zappa, Black Sabbath, Eric Burdon (whose mother attended the Dead’s Newcastle show), War, Cream, Sly & the Family Stone and Creedence Clearwater Revival, among others.

The eighth episode of the seventh season of Beat Club premiered on May 27, 1972, and included just one song from the Dead’s taping, “One More Saturday Night.” Other acts appearing on the same episode included The Kinks, Pacific Gas & Electric, The Rolling Stones, The Doors (post-Jim Morrison) and Chuck Berry.

A description for the trailer posted by the official Beat Club YouTube channel, which hosts many of the above-mentioned performances including “One More Saturday Night,” explains the history of the program, stating:

Beat Club was a German music program that ran from September 1965 to December 1972. It was broadcast from Bremen, West Germany on Erstes Deutsches Fernsehen, the national public TV channel of the ARD, and produced by one of its members, Radio Bremen, later co-produced by WDR following the 38th episode.

Beat Club was co-created by Gerhard Augustin and Mike Leckebusch. The show premiered on 25 September 1965 with Augustin and Uschi Nerke hosting. German TV personality Wilhelm Wieben opened the first show with a short speech. After eight episodes, Augustin stepped down from his hosting role and was replaced by DJ Dave Lee Travis.

The show immediately caused a sensation and achieved cult status throughout Germany among the youth, while the older generation hated it. The show’s earlier episodes featured live performances, and was set in front of a plain brick wall. It underwent a revamp in 1967, when a more professional look was adapted with large cards in the background displaying the names of the performers. Around this time, a troupe of young women billed the “Go-Go-Girls,” were introduced to dance to songs when their performers couldn’t appear.

In early 1969, Travis was replaced by Dave Dee, of Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich. On 31 December 1969, Beat Club switched to color and again featured live performances. Dee departed in 1970, leaving Nerke as the lone host.

In the later years of its run, the series was known for incorporating psychedelic visual effects during many performances, many concentrating on images of the performers in the background. When the show switched to color, the effects became much more vivid.

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The Dead’s performance was in full psychedelic color as not only were their custom Courtenay Pollock tie-dyed equipment covers in full display, but the broadcast also featured kaleidoscopic colors and other imagery projected behind the band, who had recorded in front of a blue screen.

Perhaps because cameras were rolling and due to the absence of a traditional audience, the Beat Club taping saw several false starts, as the band put the brakes on a number of tunes, only to begin them once again.

Video footage of “One More Saturday Night,” along with the rest of the Grateful Dead’s Europe ‘72 Beat Club taping has surfaced in various forms over the years. The full taping was shown in May 2020 as part of the Grateful Dead’s “Shakedown Stream” archival livestream series that launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that, the Dead presented the Beat Club set for the 4th Annual Meet-Up At The Movies event held in theaters around the country in July 2014.

Author of several Grateful Dead books and Jerry Garcia biographer Blair Jackson wrote an essay for the 2014 Meet-Up At The Movies event. Read a portion of his essay below:

Ah, but things were a little different when the Grateful Dead rolled into town with their tie-dyed amps, their entourage of long-haired “family,” and their recording truck parked outside. Maybe the Dead knew that day that “One More Saturday Night” would be the song that would air on the May 27 edition of the Beat Club program, but they sure didn’t act that way. Instead, after a sound check that included “Loser” and “Black-Throated Wind,” they played a remarkable 80-minute set that mixed short songs with big jamming tunes, including two charged versions of “Playing in the Band,” and a spectacular “Truckin’” > “Other One” sequence that is more than 30 minutes long. That the band could play this well in front of a bunch German TV technicians, rather than their usual sea of swaying and flailing hippies, is amazing. That it was all captured in crystal-clear close-up video is truly a gift from the Gods (and if there’s any justice in the universe, the Gods will someday allow that video to be released commercially).

But even studying the aural document is fascinating. For one thing, the sound is recording-studio-clear, with no venue ambience or crowd seeping into the mics. And it’s not just an ordinary show: Garcia only sings two numbers, Pigpen one, and Bob six. After Jerry casually says “we’re rolling,” Bobby shouts into the microphone, “Ladies and gentlemen, the Grrrrrateful Dead!” and the band kicks into “Bertha,” crisp and energetic, but marred by a couple of lyric flaws. Then comes “Playing in the Band,” which the group pulled out at every stop on the Europe tour, and was great every single night. Jerry is all over the wah-wah pedal during the middle jam, making it growl and cry and squeal. “Mr. Charlie” is just about letter-perfect.

That is followed by our first do-over of the day—a luxury afforded by the fact there is no audience and this isn’t a “concert” per se. About a minute into “Sugaree,” Jerry says, “Hold it, hold it. Somebody played the wrong changes in there” (cough-Pigpen-cough), so they start at the top again. A few tunes later, Bobby halts a second version of “Playing” after he blows the first line: “Some folks trust in treason,” he sings. (It’s not clear why they do “Playing” again, as the first version was excellent. But the one that comes after the flub is even better, with a more intense middle section and much mind-bending bass work from Phil. Maybe they were more warmed-up second time ’round.) The final song-stopping calamity comes on “Truckin’,” after Bob completely spaces his entrance to the first verse, leading to the band hilariously attempting a shutdown of the song that’s all discordant crashing and colliding instruments, like some catastrophic orchestra mishap in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Second time is the charm, though, and the group nails it and kicks off the long and exciting journey mentioned above.

“The Other One” that emerges from a short post-“Truckin’” drum solo by Billy is full of drive and fire, like snorting and snarling horses galloping through Germany’s mysterious Black Forest. But it’s the six minutes after the second verse of “The Other One” that I want to highlight. The band doesn’t seem to have any idea about what, if any, song they might play next (surely they were past their allotted taping time and the German sound and TV crew were wondering whether this jamathon was ever going to end), so the Dead just float from one musical notion to the next. Squealing feedback gives way to a brief lilting jam. At one point Billy clicks into a little groove and the others follow and it develops into one of those lovely passages that feels familiar but isn’t quite—are those hints of “Wharf Rat”? Is “Sugar Magnolia” around that bend? Instead they keep drifting about—Jerry gets into a hypnotic finger-picking pattern at one point—until it all just peters out. There’s a pause and then they suddenly build up one of their big, chaotic endings, which is a mess worthy of the laugh that follows it. And with that, the Town Musicians of Bremen were gone.

Watch video footage from the Grateful Dead’s April 21, 1972 Beat Club taping below:

Listen to the “Loser” and “Black-Throated Wind” soundcheck below:

Here are additional statistics and information regarding the seventh performance of the Grateful Dead’s Europe ’72 tour:

Setlist (via JerryBase)

Set: Bertha , Playing In The Band, Mr. Charlie, Sugaree, One More Saturday Night, Playing In The Band, Beat It On Down The Line, Truckin’> Drums > The Other One

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Below, stream the official recording of the Grateful Dead’s April 21, 1972 concert at the Beat Club in Bremen, West Germany or check out other recordings via Archive.org: