A long circulating and important glimpse of the formative Grateful Dead will receive a widespread official release on its 60-year anniversary date. Grateful Dead, Fillmore Auditorium 1966, was first included in the huge 2015 career spanning box set 30 Trips Around the Sun.

Now, as the recipient of a proper liberation, the two disc/ three LP set performance captures the band finding their feet and discovering their destiny after their first full year together at impresario Bill Graham’s “Independence Ball.” The Owsley “Bear” Stanley recording properly documents one of the earliest available recordings of the band. On this evening the group played two full sets bookending a performance by Arthur Lee’s Love.

The recording captures the group creating their future career in real time. Their transition from dance band to improvisational sonic messengers would happen fast and seamlessly. The audio quality is as to be expected, excellent, a hallmark of Bear’s audio acumen.

This early performance finds the group leaning on Pigpen as the band leader, while also learning how to play together and sharpening their improvisational claws. In time everything would slow down for the band, tacit agreements would be formalized and lifelong connections confirmed. These tentative steps become stomping feet, as within a year the group would play at the Monterey Pop Festival and sound like a completely different group.

As a primal Grateful Dead snapshot this concert is transitionary. Musical elements that would be mined, refined, and applied over the next few years are planted and in due time will shoot to the sky in psychedelic blossoms.

Everything the band plays snaps and crackles with a danceable and swinging energy. The band’s later liquid sway is yet to fully coagulate. It’s hard to call what the Dead are doing, “pop,” because their approach is already so eccentric and unable to be compartmentalized.

Throughout the course of the July 3, 1966 show the group plays a plethora of new originals that would disappear from their sets almost as soon as they arrived. The majority of these songs would slowly fall away as the band’s ability to compose increased and lyricist Robert Hunter joined the fray in 1967.

Yet, cover songs like, “Minglewood Blues,” “Cold Rain and Snow,” “Beat It On Down the Line, and  “I Know You Rider,” would remain foundational corner stones that the group would revisit over the course of the next 30 years.

The recording (not the set) begins with a partial version of “Nobody’s Fault But Mine,” and a rickety invitation of “Dancing In the Streets,” that quickly hits a disorienting Garcia and Lesh connection. This early reading only hints at the majesty of the band’s mature 1970 renditions. “I Know You Rider,” is almost unrecognizable in its early guise and bounces kinetically while riding shotgun leaving its folk roots in the spun-up dust of Garcia’s riffing. 

“Viola Lee Blues,” is already a centerpiece even at this formative juncture, a funky jug inspired electric groove. Garcia’s playing is more banjo that guitar and has yet to cultivate the touch he would become recognized for. He trills and thrills as Bill and Phil explore the tempo in the outro jam. The notes pour from Garcia like a vessel of electric kool-aid, sweet, vibrant and in a shapeless flow. The band taps on the accelerator while increasing the intensity. Just when it appears they have reached the detonation point they return to the verses. It’s obvious that they have not mastered the smooth landing back into the song proper yet. 

At the break, Garcia mentions that Love will be playing a set and that they will be returning for more music after. The second set begins with young Bobby Weir humorously shredding his throat with a driving  “Minglewood Blues.” In contrast, Garcia’s vocals are shaky and tripped out while Pigpen at this juncture is the most confident vocalist of the bunch.

Pig’s har vmonica, voice, and Contentenial organ acts as the hallmark of their developing sound. HIs blues are tight and authentic and provide a hard center to the band’s quivering surf-psych vibe. In “Beat It On Down the Line,” his organ is the lead instrument providing a carousel of riffs and this theme continues for the unreleased “Cardboard Cowboy.”

Jerry Garcia’s original “Cream Puff War” gets a frothy reading, making it easy to hear why it earned a spot on the band’s debut album. This performance teeters on the edge of chaos, straining to escape the song’s spongy structure. Garcia’s playing is prickly, his distinctive tone drawn from his red hollow-body Guild guitar and locking into surreal interplay with Phil Lesh’s shifty bass lines.

The culmination of set two is a snapshot of rare and later discarded songs from the bands fast developing repertoire, “Don’t Mess Up a Good Thing,” “Gangster of Love,” and “You Don’t Have to Ask,” are all unique to this era, illustrating a band tracing their vision with the aid of an accepting audience, a freeform venue, and their own inspired experimentation.

The Dead close the show with an extended Pigpen spotlight piece, “In the Midnight Hour.” A perfect example to trace their growth, because by late 1967 this song would surpass thirty minutes. Here, it hits an excitable groove, and expresses all of the musical tricks that the band would tend to and harvest over the next few years.

Pig gets his rap on, the ultimate showman, speaking directly to the crowd (which was small) and making them a part of the show through his unabashed matchmaking. While the band vamps under Pig, Garcia quotes the “Midnight Hour,” lick and then departs into variations on the theme. He and Pig initiate a call and response of voice and guitar getting the band to up the ante. The 15 plus minute performance concludes in a flurry of mid-1960’s Dead-centric excitement. BAT its conclusion Bill Graham takes to the stage and says, “That’s what’s known as talent,” already aware of the alchemy he would enjoy for the next 25 years.

With a vault bursting at the seams with live performances, the Grateful Dead’s early days are sorely underrepresented. Thankfully “Bear,” had the foresight to capture the group intermittently during these heady days when the San Francisco scene was maturing and the band’s followed suit. This early recording jitters with an adolescent enthusiasm and a vital understanding that the band was aware that what they had was worthy of deeper inspection.

When listened to in hindsight and placed in the context of their 30-year career, the Grateful Dead are separating themselves from the norm. They are probing for the things that will bring them to the top of the San Francisco pack. Soon, these disparate elements conjoin and become five fingers on the same hand playing the same sweet song for three decades. This recoding allows us to listen in as our favorite band searches for the sound that would be their clarion call and send their music around the globe.