Dave’s Grateful Dead Pick #38: Dave Lemieux’s Myopia

Dave’s Pick #38 (Uniondale, 09/08/73) is a good show, starting with Bertha and Me and My Uncle, has El Paso and China Cat>Rider and moves out with Goin’ Down the Road>Not Fade Away. That said, it’s just more of the same because of Dave Lemieux’s myopia.

Consider Dave’s liner notes: Every moment with Dick Latvia, every interaction, every word he said was memorable. And then: Every song, every solo, every moment was out-of-this-world excellent. Yeah, Lemieux is the guy at the ballpark who yells “Home run” for every pop-out. (And I mean every pop-out.)

More to the point, Lemieux’s maniacal vision of the archives -1968-74 & 76-80 being holy relics and 1987-95 his personal nostalgia – denies everyone else the belly of the beast, the bleeding heart of The Grateful Dead, the music that must be shared.

Lemieux is a nice guy in a dancing bear suit, not the person to manage the archives. It’s time to get someone else in there before this whole thing ends up a Broadway show.