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Jefferson Airplane - Fillmore West October 4, 1970 (1970)

Track listing:
  1. Have You Seen the Saucers 6:54
  2. Crown of Creation 4:09
  3. Somebody to Love 7:03
  4. Mexico 2:37
  5. Up or Down 7:30
  6. Whatever the Old Man Wants 7:20
  7. Emergency 5:25
  8. Wooden Ships 7:04
  9. Bludgeon of a Bluecoat 5:35
  10. Greasy Heart 4:46
  11. You Wear Your Dresses Too Short 6:53
  12. We Can Be Together 5:38
  13. Volunteers 5:49

Notes

KSAN FM broadcast

Sound Rating: A-

Paul Kantner (vocals, guitars), Marty Balin (vocals), Jack Casady (Bass), Jorma Kaukonen (guitars, vocals), Joey Covington (percussion), Grace Slick (vocals).

This is one of Jefferson Airplane's most visible live performances. On Sunday night, October 4, 1970, the Airplane played the first of two headlining evenings at Fillmore West, sharing the bill with The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The New Riders of the Purple Sage (with ex-Airplane drummer Spencer Dryden), and of course, Hot Tuna. The concert was simulcast on KSAN-FM in stereo, and also televised on public television station KQED, with a quadrophonic signal broadcast on KQED-FM. It was to be an historic evening.

It had been an historic day. Janis Joplin had died the night before, in Hollywood, California, of a heroin overdose. Marty Balin, deep in mourning for her, wanted to cancel the Fillmore performance but was a minority vote. Taking the stage with a full beard that made him look even more melancholy, Balin sounded distinctly out of place throughout the show. He steers a resplendent "Have You Seen The Saucers" toward a quiet place, but is abruptly overruled by the band, who proceed to turn it into a lacerating Grace Slick rave-up that seems to be fighting the spectre of Death itself off the stage. It only follows with musicians of this caliber that the concert packs some incredibly hot moments -- bassist Jack Casady powerfully upping the ante in the homestretch of "Somebody to Love", and a rare live performance of drummer Joey Covington's "Bludgeon of the Bluecoats" (an outcry against police brutality that the band later recorded in the studio with Little Richard, and never released) that is played with such superhuman speed and dexterity by lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen that Covington actually begs him to slow down -- but this is definitely music born under a bad sign. The poignancy of "Wooden Ships" seems to weigh on Balin particularly, and even the good-natured sexual braggadoccio of his white soul number "Emergency" rings hollow. As an extended, chugging "Volunteers" threatens to keep him onstage longer than he can bear, Balin interrupts the jam with "Look what's happenin' out in the streets," forcing the wind-up. As the song careens to its sloppy, aggravated end, Balin sings what would be his last line as an active member of Jefferson Airplane until 1989: "Gotta revolution -- oh yeah, and I need a new band!"

Marty Balin would not sing again as an active member of Jefferson Airplane until their short-lived reunion album and tour of 1989. (He was coaxed onstage at the Airplane's final concert at Winterland in 1972 for an encore of "Baby You Wear Your Dresses Too Short.")

The next night, Jefferson Airplane returned to Fillmore West without Balin. Joining them was a new member, electric jazz violinist Papa John Creach, recruited by drummer Covington. Black, bald, in his mid-fifties but comporting himself like a much older man, Creach was easy to mistake at first sight for the latest Airplane prank, but when he plugged in and sweetly sawed his way up the neck of his fiddle, it was impossible not to be astounded by his musicality and charmed by his stage presence.

No tapes have surfaced over the years of the band's first show with Creach, nor from the two week tour of the Midwest that immediately followed.