By May 1973, the Grateful Dead were operating in a kind of sustained creative delirium. Keith Godchaux had been in the band for over a year and a half, and his piano had already transformed the ensemble sound — bringing a jazz-inflected harmonic richness that pushed the band's jams into deeper, stranger territory. Pigpen had passed away just two months earlier, on March 8th, a loss that cast a long shadow over the spring but also seemed to sharpen the band's collective focus, as if they were playing in his memory and pushing forward at the same time. Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, and the Godchauxs were firing on all cylinders, and the 1973 touring year is widely regarded as one of the most musically fertile in the band's history — a bridge between the loose, exploratory energy of the early '70s and the refined power they'd bring to the Wall of Sound era the following year. Kezar Stadium sits in the western end of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and in 1973 it was still a football and track facility — a big open-air concrete bowl that had hosted the San Francisco 49ers until they moved to Candlestick. Playing Kezar meant the Dead were playing a hometown show in the most literal sense, deep in the park that had been central to the psychedelic cultural moment that gave birth to their whole world.
There's something profoundly circular about seeing them here, in the shadow of Haight-Ashbury, still pushing forward eight years into their run. The one song we have confirmed from this show is Bertha, and it's a fine lens through which to understand where the band was at. Introduced on Grateful Dead (the "Skull and Roses" album) in 1971, Bertha was by 1973 a well-honed setlist workhorse — a brisk, confident opener that let Garcia announce himself immediately, his guitar cutting clean over Kreutzmann's steady backbeat. A great Bertha doesn't coast; it crackles, and in the early-to-mid '73 period, the band rarely let even a tight rocker go by without some subtle expansion in the jam. Details on recording quality for this show are limited, but any documentation of a Golden Gate Park-area stadium show from this era is worth seeking out for the sheer historical and atmospheric value. Press play and let San Francisco in 1973 come through the speakers.