Grateful Dead’s Europe ‘72 Tour 50th Anniversary: May 4 – Paris, 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 played their second of two shows at The Olympia in Paris on Thursday, May 4, 1972. The band stayed overnight at the Grand Hotel, a few blocks from the venue that opened in 1883 (read more about the venue as part of the May 3 deep dive).

The Paris police, armed with machine guns, were out in full force for both Grateful Dead shows at The Olympia. Just before the band arrived to play the music hall, a post-Jim Morrison configuration of The Doors performed at The Olympia and distraught fans purportedly rioted. The disruption put the local police on high alert when the Dead came to town.

Rolling Stone reporter Jerry Hopkins met with the Dead in Paris. His article recounting the events of May 3 and May 4 was published under the title, “The Beautiful Dead Hit Europe,” in reference to an almost lost-in-translation exchange he had with a receptionist at the Grand Hotel. Here’s how Hopkins described the scene around The Olympia for night two (via Dead Sources):

“The second night at The Olympia was better than the first. There were only 30 or so cops on hand — down from 180 the night before — a unique sort of ‘review’ of the Dead’s music and audience, when you think about it. Again, all 2,200 seats were filled. Again the audience crawled forward in a friendly inquisitive Gallic swell, applauding, cheering and chanting ‘one more one more one more’ at the end of another four-hour-long set.”

Hopkins went on to quote Jerry Garcia’s modest assessment of the May 4 performance, with the guitarist telling him “We played peachy.”

Having opened the two previous second sets of the tour, “Greatest Story Ever Told” opened the first set on May 4 for a fourth and final time while the band was in Europe. After the Bob Weir-led opener, bassist Phil Lesh asked the audience to refrain from using flash photography and mentioned a translation of what he said was forthcoming (as there had been the night prior). After Garcia’s “Deal” and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan’s “Mr. Charlie,” a French-speaking woman who sounds like the same person from the night before, reiterated Phil’s request.

The first set also saw the continued evolution of Garcia and lyricist Robert Hunter’s “He’s Gone” — the only new song debuted on the tour – and one of the 17 times “Casey Jones” closed a first set on the tour. After “Casey Jones,” Weir told the Parisian audience that the band was taking a 20-minute intermission and implored they, “Don’t go nowhere.”

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“Good Lovin’” was selected to kick start set two, marking the fourth and final time the cover was called upon to initiate a second set in Europe. Like the other Europe ‘72 presentations of “Good Lovin’,” the May 4 offering was a defacto showcase of Pigpen’s prowess as a captivating frontman, spurred by his impassioned off-the-cuff rap. Pigpen relied upon a few familiar themes during his monologue, “jump in your saddle and ride,” “mama turn on over,” “four-day creep” and “raise it on up, just a little bit higher,” among others.

Near the nine-minute threshold, Garcia played a riff based on “Good Lovin’” that came eerily close to sounding like Dizzy Gillespie’s “Manteca.” Around the 20-minute mark, Pigpen changed course, moving away from his musical rap to a more straight-forward, talking approach:

“I had a falling out a few times, you understand,” Pigpen said. “But, I’ll tell you what I did about it: there wasn’t much else I could think to do. I was walking into walls, running into things. Walking and talking all in my sleep. She wouldn’t get up off none. I was getting kinda crazy. I didn’t know what to do! I didn’t know what to do! I’ll tell you what the hell I did. The last thing I was thinking of doing, before I went crazy. The last thing I was thinking of before I went crazy. Yes it was, yes it was, yes it was.”

The band then roared back into the final “Good Lovin’” refrain, steering the 22-minute excursion to an exciting conclusion. Just as they were about to dive into another Pigpen-led song, “Next Time You See Me,” Weir said, “Thank you! Wait a minute, wait a minute the microphone is …” before being cut off by Garcia’s opening guitar lick. As Pigpen sang the song’s opening lyrics, Bobby shouted into the microphone “this is off too!” leading to the band stopping the song.

Lesh chimed in with, “Hey something’s wrong!” And Garcia said, “We’re missing our electrician. The electricity went off!”

Weir then said something to the effect of, “Electricity en lieu faux pas, you know how it is,” followed by what sounded like Lesh (or possibly a crew member) saying, “Not quite breaking our own shit, Pigpen.”

Weir then said “Hold on. Hi!” Followed by Garcia calling for “One more time” and the band then playing an uninterrupted performance of “Next Time You See Me.”

With a fresh batch of Owsley “Bear” Stanley’s powerful LSD having just arrived in Paris (see May 3 entry and Instagram embed below), the band turned to their psychedelic tendencies, delivering a mighty “Dark Star” to the City Of Lights. Bridged by drummer Bill Kreutzmann’s mesmerizing drum solo, all told the two-part “Dark Star” and drum excursion spanned nearly 40 minutes, marking one of the longest known versions of “Dark Star.”

At about the 31-minute mark of “Dark Star,” Lesh laid down the initial idea that led the band into a “Feelin’ Groovy” jam that was fairly common during this era. Also notable is that Garcia delivered the second verse of “Dark Star” for the only time on the Europe ’72 Tour. The memorable improvisation’s final passage further exemplified the musical ideas keyboardist Keith Godchaux, who joined the band in October 1971, brought to the group’s exploratory interplay.

The “Dark Star” into “Drums” into “Dark Star” sequence was released as a 40th-anniversary, limited edition vinyl record on Record Store Day 2012. Like most versions of “Dark Star” performed on the Europe ‘72 Tour, “Sugar Magnolia” emerged as a segue from its spacey predecessor, anchoring the band around the solid rocker.

This version of “Sugar Magnolia” was chosen for the original Europe ‘72 live album, with the last measures of “Dark Star” included as a lead-in. The vocals on “Sugar Magnolia” were later overdubbed (along with most of the tracks on Europe ‘72). Both the Europe ‘72 version and the Europe ‘72: The Complete Recordings box set version “Sugar Magnolia” appear to be the overdubbed version, as vocalist Donna Jean Godchaux can be heard singing on the tracks, which she did not contribute when “Sugar Magnolia” was played elsewhere in Europe.

The rest of the second set was constructed out of Merle Haggard’s “Sing Me Back Home,” featuring Jerry supported by Donna, which made its tour debut the night before, as well as the tour’s second appearances of “Mexicali Blues” and “Uncle John’s Band.” Between those two songs was a rare second set placement of “Big Boss Man,” which infused Pigpen’s harmonica and was the seventh song fronted by Pigpen on May 4, bringing the total number of songs he sang lead on in Paris to 12.

The relatively concise presentation of the aforementioned “Uncle John’s Band” set up the somewhat unusual set-closing pairing of “Going Down The Road Feeling Bad” with “Not Fade Away,” which broke typical form by not having “NFA” also come ahead of “GDTRFB.” The Thursday night in Paris concluded with the tour’s most frequently called upon encore, “One More Saturday Night.”

Here are additional statistics and information regarding the 12th performance of the Grateful Dead’s Europe ’72 tour:

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Setlist (via JerryBase)

Set One: Greatest Story Ever Told, Deal [1], Mr. Charlie, Beat It On Down The Line, Brown Eyed Women, Chinatown Shuffle, Playing In The Band, You Win Again, Hurts Me Too, He’s Gone, El Paso, Big Railroad Blues, Two Souls In Communion, Casey Jones

Set Two: Good Lovin’, Next Time You See Me [1], Ramble On Rose, Jack Straw, Dark Star [2] > Drums [2] > Dark Star [2][3] > Sugar Magnolia [4][5], Sing Me Back Home, Mexicali Blues, Big Boss Man, Uncle John’s Band, Goin’ Down The Road Feelin’ Bad > Not Fade Away

Encore: One More Saturday Night

Notes:

• [1] released on Europe ’72 Volume 2
• [2] released on Dark Star
• [3] Includes Feelin’ Groovy Jam.
• [4] released on Europe ’72
• [5] released on The Golden Road (1965 – 1973)

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Below, stream the official recording of the Grateful Dead’s May 4, 1972 concert at The Olympia in Paris, France or check out other recordings via Archive.org: