Dead Shows

lets hear some stories of the grateful dead shows, both back when they started (60's, 70's.) and later ones (90's) what was the atmosphere like?

 

I went to about three Dead concerts a year starting in 1973 and ending in 1994, so a total of about 50 I guess. I'm sure there are others here who went to many more, but I will tell some of my stories.

 

dude, read a fucking book.. there are a shit ton about it

edit: I love you, sorry for seeming angry

 

even though revarand wasnt very nice in his approach it was a good tip but also i would say go to an actual concert, thats what i plan on doing soon

 

lol this topic was started for a reason. deadhead and i wanted to hear sunfighters experiences and how the scene changed through the years. sure u can go read a book but we got a dead head right here that watched the scene change.

 

ive been to phil and friends, seen kruetzman trio and gonna see ratdog this summer, and ive even seen dark star(dead cover). DEAD stopped touring when i was 3 sorry i wasnt able to make it to any shows... thanks for havin my back HippfdRCer haha

 

Haha i love the edit revarand.....Since my chest was shitted on royally i would also like to hear some stories

 

That makes 3 of us!

 

Well, I went to my first show on April 2, 1973 in Boston Garden. I went with a couple of my classmates from MIT. There were a huge number of Dead Heads at MIT at that time. We had floor seats toward the back. We brought some herb which we smoked during the show. Even then, you couldn't be too obvious about smoking, but I'd say most of the people there got high somehow, but that was common for all rock concerts at the time. There was always so much smoke in the air at indoor shows, that you could get high without smoking.

The New Riders of the Purple Sage opened up. I don't remember if Garcia sat in with them. I suspect not, because the Dead part of the show was very, very long. They played 35 songs and the Dead music lasted three and a half hours. So, if you counted the New Riders, the music must have lasted over four hours!

Unfortunately, the acoustics in the old Boston Garden really sucked. It sounded quite bad and I remember thinking I would rather be listening back at the dorm. I wasn't a Dead Head yet. My favorite music was the Jefferson Airplane and Starship, Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and Jethro Tull. I remember I owned the LPs of American Beauty, SkullFuck, and Europe 72. I was not to become a Dead Head for another two years.

 

haha april 2nd is my bday! :cheers2:

 

Let me tell you a little about my Dead-related experiences that happened before I went to my second show, in 1976.

I arrived at MIT not long after the famous free concert by the Dead on the Student Center steps. 5/6/70, two days after the Ohio National Guard attacked unarmed students some of whom were protesting the Vietnam War, killing four and wounding nine. Clearly, the American straight establishment had declared war on its young. ("Tin soldiers and Nixon coming, we're finally on our own.") Immediately, 450 universities, colleges, and high schools closed because eight million, yes 8,000,000, young people went on strike. The anti-war movement and the counter-culture, which was strong before this happened, became much stronger and eventually brought an end to the war in 1975.

My generation generally thinks that young people today are way too passive, self-absorbed, and gullible. The military-industrial complex which calls the shots in so many ways hasn't changed much at all since those days, with the notable exception of the end of the draft. For many of the actions of the Bush Administration, young people should have taken to the streets in protest. Where is the outrage?

Anyway, I didn't really mean to get so political, but I keep thinking about how so many young people today take acid just to get "fucked up". In my day, it was so obvious that the straight establishment had taken the wrong path toward war and destruction. This led us to hope that psychoactive drugs might be a path to changing ourselves so we wouldn't grow up to be like them. We honored the truth that acid gave us and we were hoping that it would change the world.

If you trip simply to have fun, you are wasting a great opportunity.

OK, enough sermonizing. My main point was to underline how we all felt we were part of a real counterculture in those days, and the Dead, even though they weren't very political themselves, were a symbol of freedom and idealism.

When I came to MIT, many students had excellent reel-to-reel recordings of the Free Concert, since it had been broadcast live over the MIT student radio station. This concert was pretty good, despite the difficult conditions under which the Dead played that day.

In the early 70's, WBCN Boston was a great radio station. This was before capitalism destroyed radio. Whenever the Dead came to play at the Music Hall, WBCN would broadcast it live. At my dorm, when this happened, someone would move his stereo system out to the lounge and tune in. The sound quality was extremely good. The lights would be turned off and students would settle in. There would be black lights, candles, and incense. Some would take acid, more would smoke dope. Once, there was nitrous. And the concert would go on to the early morning hours. Ahhhh! In those days, I remember I always loved hearing "Playing in the Band."

This had something to do with me becoming a Dead Head.

 

MIT calls the month of January "Independent Activities Period". Students would sometimes devote themselves to the activity of following the Grateful Dead around, from show to show. They would come back with these wonderful reel-to-reel tapes of mostly east-coast concerts.

 

I attended the dead at convocation hall in toronto and passed out from smokin too much...when i woke up there was lots of other people also passed out..I remember they took like ten minutes in between songs...I was around 16....its a memory

 

What year was that?

 

November 1977...my Dad was the concert ticket king in toronto in 70's and 80's...people would bribe me with drugs for the 'hard to get' concert tickets..I feel guilty about all the 'famous' shows I have attended notably both the keith richards ''blind'' concerts...stones 4 times in different bars around t.o....I also feel fortunate that my dad was such a good dad with a way cooler job than my friends dads

 

So, I became a Dead Head in 1975. Strangely, that was the year the Dead did not perform except for a couple of times in San Francisco. As I said before, my favorite group was the Jefferson Airplane/Starship. I saw them live in Boston in 1974 and really enjoyed it. It wasn't long after that Grace Slick's alcoholism caused the band to go downhill, but of course I didn't know that at the time. During 1975 I came into possession of several bootleg cassette tapes of Dead concerts that sounded incredible. I can recall that three of them were St. Louis 10/24/70, Fillmore East 4/28/71, and Boston 12/2/71. This was around the time I finally tried LSD for the first time. During my trip I listened to these tapes and I saw the light. I became a Dead Head and have stayed one all this time. It was weird because at that time no one knew if the Dead would ever perform again. Then, because I had responded to the "Dead Heads Unite!" message in the Skull Fuck album, I got in the mail the announcement of the next tour, starting in June 1976.

 

I went to a darkstar orchestra show on my 18th birthday this past summer and took acid for the first time. 20 bucks got me 3 hits and i can say i easily had the best time of my life. this marked my officially becoming a deadhead. i plan to see the reuniting this summer at their only summer performace at the rothbury festival where they will headline with bobby dee, needless to say it will be excellent.

 

darkstar is gonna play at vibes this summer as well

 

my bad i didnt mean darkstar re-uniting but im glad to hear they will be in force at the vibes. i meant the dead reuniting for their only summer performance at rothbury festival which i believe has the best looking lineup at the moment

 

Yeah Im so psyched, they are probably the best dead cover band I have heard.