Grateful Dead Monthly: Europe ’72, Part 2 (The May Shows)

On May 3, 1972, the Grateful Dead continued its two-month sojourn across Western Europe with a concert at the Olympia Theater in Paris, France.

That show is not our focus today. All twelve of the shows from May ’72 are.

Welcome to part two of the Liner Notes celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the greatest tour by the greatest American band in rock history.

Since the beginning of 2022, ECM and I have been discussing how to commemorate Europe ’72. We settled on something low-key. Two posts: one for the April shows and one for the May shows. Each with a short travel log, pics of the venues and the band at the corresponding concerts, a couple of playlists, and links to the official release of every night.

The whole tour came out as a box set in 2011. The sound quality is nothing short of spectacular, thanks to the original efforts of Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor, who recorded every second for a planned live album, and the subsequent efforts David Lemieux and Jeffrey Norman, who refreshed what Bob and Betty captured nearly 40 years later.

[LN CEO ECM and LN contributor BW, shortly after the former received the entire E’72 box set via snail mail. Thumbs up, fellas! (What’s in that XL mojo bag, btw, B?)]

Nicholas G. Meriwether recently wrote a piece for SFGate that provides a nice overview of the people and the places involved. And, last month, the Good Ol’ Grateful Deadcast, the band’s official podcast (available at all the usual outlets), started “going on the whole tour.” I enthusiastically recommend the ‘cast in general, and the gang there has been giving this epic continental trek the attention that it deserves. Also, Jambase is recapping the tour with a series of columns – one for every show, plus a few fun bonuses – called Remembering Europe ’72. Check those out, too. Really great stuff. It’s what we could’ve/would’ve done with more motivated staff, haha.

With that mostly recycled preface from April (and still that same goal), here’s more of our humble contribution to the existing and ever-growing oeuvre about Europe ’72…

(Note: The links on the dates below will send you to the individual shows in their entireties on Spotify. The band photos are from the correct dates, as far as I know. Big-ups to Ed for tracking them down. I have not added credits for them. If any of the image originators would like me to do that, please let me know and I’ll try to do so.)

Where’d we leave off? Oh, yeah. Hamburg on 4/29. From there, the band and their entourage made their collective way to the City of Light.

On 5/3/72 and 5/4/72, they camped out at the Olympia Theater in Paris.

[ECM couldn’t find any pics from those two shows. This one appeared in a Google image search for me. It may not be from either.]

Three days later, on 5/7/72, it was back across the channel for the Bickershaw Festival in Wigan, England.

[Saints James & Elizabeth Parish Church, Bickershaw. The Dead didn’t play there, obv. They played in front of a big field. The J. Geils Band was on the bill. Freeze-frame that sh!t.]

Another three days later (presumably, they took time to wash off the mud), it was again back across the channel for a pair of shows in the Netherlands. 5/10/71 at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

And 5/11/72, the very next night, at the Civic Hall in Rotterdam. Damn.

[Not sure if this if from 5/11, but it appeared in a Google image search.]

The band returned to France two days later for a show at the Lille Fairgrounds on 5/13/72.

We’re not doing a deep dive into every show, but I ran across an incredible post about that show on the bozosandbolos blog that describes a miracle request in Paris that went radical, some sabotaged gear, a cancelled show, and its make-up. (The full story is in McNally’s book.)

Back north three days after that for an appearance on Radio Luxembourg on 5/16/72. (They didn’t play in Belgium, so no BENELUX love.)

A jump to the southwest for a night at the Deutsches Museum Halle in Munich, West Germany on 5/18/72.

And the tour ended with a four night stand – 5/23/72, 5/24/72, 5/25/72, and 5/26/72 – at the Strand Lyceum in London.

That’s the travel log. And here’s a map. The May shows are connected by the yellow arrows, duh.

Time for a playlist. Ed and I coaxed and cajoled (Sloan reference) our dear friend FenmanNC out of semi-retirement to curate it. if the GDC were the A-Team, Fen would be Hannibal. (I’d be Face, fwiw.) We’re lucky to have his May highlights here. He and a friend do the tour every year, and their common sense and good taste will provide an invaluable guide for your listening. Oh, and thanks to Brian Levine for another playlist image of this European Vacation!

Fen was a bit nervous that this one is too long. It’s not too long. It’s appropriately long, dude. (Fwiw, that’s coming from the guy who thinks folks want a 100+ track new-music playlist every month. You do, right? Wait, don’t answer that.)

Speaking of lonnnggg, if you want the whole tour in one convenient, eighty-seven (and nearly a half) hour playlist, Spotify user John Emery has you covered.

There you go.

The Dead would take the momentum from Europe and kick some serious ass in the summer and fall of ’72. ’73 and ’74 have a shit-ton of greatness, but the band wouldn’t approach that same level, where every night was edge-of-your-seat wow, until May of 1977. IMO. YMMV.

Thanks for all the attention on Ig. Ed and I appreciate that, and we try to respond there. His social media presence is the main reason that he’s LN CEO. (Jk, he’s sitting in that chair b/c he deserves it. The OG, for realize. Love you lots, brother.) Follows and likes are cool. This music is way cooler. The point, as always, is to direct your attention to important moments in GD history. Hope we did across these two posts.

More soon.

JF