Old Renaissance Faire Grounds Veneta OR
(Benefit for Springfield Creamery)
8-27-1972
Concert film by John Norris,Sam Field, and Phil DeGuere
Loosely shot, this 100-minute film captures an incredibly youthful Grateful Dead playing outdoors at a creamery benefit in Veneta, Oregon.
The Grateful Dead
Bill Kreutzmann, Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh.
"In sitting down to watch 'Sunshine Daydream,'
one gets a sense of revisiting history.
Because this was an era of unprecedented
accessibility, the Canis Major crew were able to
station their cameras squarely on the wings of
the stage, mere feet from the band.
The resulting footage allows the viewer to stand
almost shoulder-to-shoulder with a
very young Bob Weir, age 25, strumming a
cherry-red hollow-body guitar; a bushy-haired
Phil Lesh, dressed more like a surfer than a
bassist, and belting unexpected harmony
vocals; a fuzzily bearded Garcia, age 30,
smiling, not a gray hair in sight; and,
a tough-looking Bill Kreutzman, sitting
squatly on his drum stool, chewing gum and
wearing a railroad conductor's cap. Where most
Dead fans only witnessed these musicians
20 years later, and from the remote mezzanine
deck of a Checkerdome-Enormodome-Superstadium,
here suddenly is Garcia's boot tapping on a rusty
foot pedal, Phil Lesh leaping in front of
Kreutzman during a jazzy drums and bass solo,
and Bob Weir stepping timidly to the microphone after a long, haunting jam."
