Grateful Dead’s Europe ‘72 Tour 50th Anniversary: May 13 – Lille, France

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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The Grateful Dead’s Europe ‘72 Tour included an off day on Friday, May 12 following back-to-back shows in the Netherlands in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Dead had unfinished business in Lille, France, where they were originally scheduled to perform on May 5.

Instead of taking two days off to get from the Netherlands to Luxembourg, the band – guitarists Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh, keyboardists Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Keith Godchaux, drummer Bill Kreutzmann and vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux – tapped into their anti-establishment roots and made a detour 229 kilometers southwest to Lille to stealthly throw a free outdoor gig.

There are many, mostly consistent, accounts of what led to the May 13 free concert in Lille, including a Grateful Dead Comix depiction of the events (check out the comic via the terrifically informative Bozos and Bolos website).

The May 7, 1972 Bickershaw Festival retrospective presented band manager Rock Scully’s take on what led to the cancellation of the May 5 concert in Lille. Back in 2015 during his series at Terrapin Crossroads celebrating 50 years in the history of the Dead, Phil Lesh gave his recollection of what went down in Lille.

The March 2015 interview with photographer Jay Blakesberg saw Lesh describe the circumstances that resulted in the band playing a free show in Lille on May 13:

Jay Blakesberg: Shortly after the Hamburg show you guys ended up in Paris and you were checked into your hotel and, and there was a man, an angry man in purple. And he was yelling at you guys because you guys weren’t like being free to the people. Everything wasn’t being given away …

Phil Lesh: No no, this guy was a French leftist … think Albert Camus.

Jay Blakesberg: Wasn’t he yelling at the hotel and the windows. You guys were looking at him down from the windows … tell that story.

Phil Lesh: No no, he was at the show and he was berating everybody – the crew and everybody – mostly the crew because they were the only ones he could talk to. I mean, or get next to – he couldn’t talk to us. And and he was just be berating them about, “why isn’t this music free for the people?” That’s a very good question. Certainly, it costs us a lot to get here .. and we at least want to break even. But it just went on and on for two nights at the Olympia, if I’m not mistaken.

And then when the show was over and they loaded out, he followed us back to the hotel, which was the Grand Hotel. I mean [laughs] this ridiculous George Sank, Maurice Level – totally ridiculous – he was standing out there in the street haranguing the hotel. A couple of our roadies happened to have a room right overlooking where he was. And there was this nice dish of melted chocolate ice cream, and these guys had good aim. It got him. They dropped it right on his head and all [over] his nice purple velvet jacket …

And as a result, we tried to get to our next show the next morning, which is it was in Lille near the Belgium border. And we [the band] got there fine, on our bus, but the equipment truck had had dirt or rock or some foreign substance introduced into the fuel tank.

Jay Blakesberg: Angry purple leftist.

Phil Lesh: Yeah he was so angry he was purple. So we couldn’t play the gig in Lille that night. And of course, it was at the university, which is – guess what? A hotbed of French leftist, which is poetic in the extreme, if you don’t mind my saying so. So here we are faced with an audience and a production group of angry French leftists. So we tried to go out there and explain in English why we can’t play the show – leaving out some important details as well, of course. Too much truth is never a good thing.

Jay Blakesberg: Didn’t Garcia hide out and kind of send you and Bobby and some other people?

Phil Lesh: Yeah. Garcia refused to go.

Jay Bakesberg: Even though it was his idea to go and confront everybody and explain …

Phil Lesh:[Imitating Garcia] “You know, man, we should, we should go over there and explain.

OK, let’s go Jer …

Oh, no, you guys do it.

Jay Blakesberg: So then the crowd started getting pretty angry and coming towards the stage and then what’d you guys do?

Phil Lesh: [laughs] Bobby I think said, “Hey, hang on a minute. We’ll be right back.” And we bolt to the dressing room and slam the door and lock it.

Jay Blakesberg: And they’re banging on the door …

Phil Lesh: They’re literally banging on the door.

And there’s this one small window and it’s on the second story. And luckily enough within reach of the window, there is a drainpipe. So one at a time, we all go out the window, down the drainpipe. And Bob is the last one out and his parting greeting is, “We’ll be back and we’ll play for free.”

Jay Blakesberg: And they never believed a word you were saying, and the door comes in and they get in the truck and they run off. And then sure enough a couple of days later …

Phil Lesh: We went back there and played for free. In the park, outside, which is our favorite thing to do anyway. And it was a truly magical experience for everybody. I mean, workers coming up from the subways and moms and their kids in the strollers and just everybody eating lunch and listening to music.

Bill Kreutzmann shared his own version of the events in Paris and Lille in his memoir Searching for the Sound My Life With the Grateful Dead. Picking up with the malfunctioning equipment truck, Billy wrote:

[W]e weren’t able to get our gear up to Lille on time, so we weren’t able to play the gig. I stayed back at the hotel with Jerry, Pigpen, Keith, and Donna. Meanwhile, Phil and Bobby were our ambassadors. Florence [later known as Rosie McGee], Phil’s girl, was fluid in French and went with them as our translator. They headed over to the venue to inform the promoter and break it to the crowd (with the sworn promise that we’d be back and make it up to them).

If only it were that simple. The crowd didn’t like that announcement one bit and they turned on Bobby, Phil, and Florence, who retreated back-stage and then were forced to make a dramatic escape through the window of the second-story dressing room, climbing down a drainage pipe and jumping onto an escape vehicle in the nick of time. Meanwhile, I’m sure I was relaxed and enjoying the casual downtime back at the hotel.

We did make up that Lille date and it turned out to be a free show, so that little rebel fuck-face got his wish after all. Although I doubt he got a chance to enjoy it. Like most of our free shows, it was all done in stealth mode. Nobody knew about it until it was already happening. This was before social media, so … catch us if you can. It was a cold and overcast day and the stage wasn’t sheltered. There was a little bit of rain but it was certainly psychedelic. That make-up gig in Lille is something I call an endurance gig because, fun as it was, I had something else on my mind the entire time.

As a hobby, Phil and I had been casually getting into car races. Since we were already in France, we decided to spend some free time catching the big Formula One race in Monaco the famed Monaco Grand Prix.

Our friend Sam Cutler, who, if you remember, we snatched from the Rolling Stones after Altamont, was our tour manager for Europe ‘72. Cutler had a rental car, which Phil and I commandeered as soon as we finished the afternoon show at Lille. Phil, Florence, [Kreutzmann’s wife at the time] Susila, and I all jumped in the car. My seat came with a steering wheel. So I drove like hell through Paris, at breakneck speeds, so that we could make our flight.

The free concert in Lille, often attributed to the Lille Fairgrounds, was held at L’Esplanade du Champs de Mars de Lille near the Citadelle de Lille campus. As evidenced by Pigpen’s heavy overcoat, baseball cap and sunglasses, as well as his bandmates’ similarly warm attire, the performance in Lille took place on a chilly afternoon.

Before initiating the first set, the members of the band spoke to the audience that had assembled for the free make-up show. While tuning up, Lesh told a story with a somewhat sarcastic tone, though looking back from the current COVID-19 pandemic-impacted world of drive-in concerts – it now seems oddly prescient.

“One time we were gonna be in a movie,” Lesh told the crowd. “This guy asked us to be in a movie, and the scene was we were gonna play in a drive-in movie [theater] to an audience of cars. Now I can appreciate the humor in that.

“Instead of clapping they wagged their windshield wipers,” Weir joked.

“And blinked their lights and honked their horns,” Lesh added.

Lille was the third of three Europe ‘72 shows to open its first set with “Bertha,” close its first set with “Casey Jones,” open the second set with “Truckin’” and close the second with “Not Fade Away,” just as they had done on April 14 and again on May 10.

The aforementioned bundled up Pigpen, who was inching closer and closer to his final performance with the Dead upon their return from the Europe ‘72 Tour, sang lead on only four songs in Lille. Three of Pigpen’s showcases came in the first set, “Chinatown Shuffle,” “Mr. Charlie” and “Next Time You See Me,” with “Hurts Me Too” coming in set two.

The first set “China Cat Sunflower” transition into “I Know You Rider” had Garcia layering slight hints of Donovan’s “First There Is A Mountain” (or the Allmans’ “Mountain Jam”). After “Rider,” Jerry picked a pretty melody before the rest of the band came in on “Me And My Uncle.”

Weir’s common introduction of Donna preceded the first set’s “Playing In The Band.” Donna responded (with the Alabama native leaning into her southern drawl) by telling the French audience, “this here’s called ‘Playing In The Band,’” ahead of the spirited 12-minute version that followed.

“You don’t have to sit down everybody because this next number is a polka,” Weir said before “Mexicali Blues.”

“And it’s ladies’ choice to boot,” Garcia added.

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Along with “PITB” in the first set, the bulk of the improvisation in Lille came at the onset of the second set. The previously mentioned “Truckin’” opener, followed by Kreuztmann’s pummeling drum solo and transition into a shape-shifting “The Other One” clocked in at 42 minutes. As was often the case on the tour, “The Other One” established a pathway into deep improvisation that echoed their early, psychedelically free-form approach.

The still-in-development “He’s Gone” drew the band out of “The Other One.” After playing the song that had been debuted earlier on the tour, Garcia again played a pretty tune while tuning up, picking through a bit of “Teddy Bear’s Picnic” ahead of Pigpen taking lead on “Hurts Me Too.”

A rousing “Sugar Magnolia” set up the second set closing standard trifecta of “Not Fade Away” into “Going Down The Road Feeling Bad” back to “Not Fade Away.” The free show on a Saturday in Lille came to an end with a “One More Saturday Night” encore. The original Europe ’72 live album did not include any tracks recorded in Lille.

Here are additional statistics and information regarding the 16th performance of the Grateful Dead’s Europe ’72 tour:

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Setlist (via JerryBase)

Set One: Bertha [1], Black Throated Wind, Chinatown Shuffle, Loser, Beat It On Down The Line, Mr. Charlie, China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider, Me And My Uncle, Big Railroad Blues, Next Time You See Me, Playing In The Band, Sugaree, Mexicali Blues, Casey Jones

Set Two: Truckin’ > Drums > The Other One > He’s Gone, Hurts Me Too, Sugar Magnolia > Not Fade Away > Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad > Not Fade Away

Encore: One More Saturday Night

Notes:

• [1] Includes a tuning rap before.

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Below, stream the official recording of the Grateful Dead’s May 13, 1972 concert at the Lille Fairgrounds in Lille, France or check out other recordings via Archive.org: