Velocity is what Grateful Dead lacked in the late 1970s. Their style and sound had adapted well to the times, and stayed thankfully defiant in others. But what the band lacked was consistency. The constant hiatuses, the sudden revivals and retirements of one or another member, mean the foundation is half finished. Shakedown Street suffers from that most of all, an album which seemed ready until the last minute. Grateful Dead suffer from tunnel vision in their goal of playing a huge show in front of the Sphinx in Egypt, they lose sight of what the album needed to be. Cutting corners is not the way to make music, but the state of madness Jerry Garcia and the band found themselves in during Shakedown Street had, in the past, proved successful. Not this time. Unfortunate it may be, Shakedown Street is all over the place.
From the blur of covers and original material to the ever-looming disco sense, Shakedown Street never feels like it has an identity of its own beyond “scraps of The Dead”. Tales of dancers and street-going adventures on France are so close to incredible, though they lack the depths of sound Grateful Dead were providing so easily on previous releases. An instrumental rush is missing. There is a lackadaisical feeling present on Shakedown Street, and while that is fine for many of the songs, it does feel like the listener is being shaken down, rather than any of the characters flopping around on these eleven songs. Grateful Dead brings on a frustrating pop-rock turn with this one, never quite evolving the sound to a satisfying moment, always off the mark with what could be monumental works. Light grooves are all the band can offer. Foot-tapping quality, though not strong enough to make the body move, loosens the phlegm and wine from your chest.
Shakedown Street wants your money, your time, not your love or commitment. Serengetti offers a glazed-over experience, a song which technically exists but has never penetrated the mind of any person with working ears. Skip on to Fire on the Mountain, a flat-sounding experience which would be bettered by the chaos this album was clearly made in. It sounds like one of the few songs not affected by the fires of the time, the desire from the band to complete what would have been an extraordinary touring period. Contractual obligations and delays would mean a complete collapse of what Shakedown Street could have been. At its best, there is a bluesy rock tone to it, as is the case for I Need a Miracle. A shot of brilliance, truly, out of the blue. A little more of that and Shakedown Street would have been saved. No such luck, though. We are where we are, and where we are is an uninviting street with burnt-out musicians.
Has The Dead found their groove again at the end? No. Unobservant listeners will be tricked by Spotify and only notice From the Mars Hotel has started playing if they suddenly click back into reality. Shakedown Street is an interesting beast. The lacklustre feeling, the letdown in the studio, it is completely understandable. Grateful Dead often felt like they were on the verge of breaking down or busting up, so to hear them push on regardless is, as always, a borderline miracle. It does not excuse the dud collection of songs towards the end of the album, though. Such a sudden and sad waste towards its end. And at the start, too. A bit of the middle, also. Shakedown Street is not a nasty bit of work, but it is often a dull work which sounds as though the minds of the musicians are elsewhere. That does, history has shown, seem to be the case.
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