Grateful Dead

First time I'd seen the Dead. Don't recall Hot Tuna, so it seems we got there late; 1st band up was the Sons. GD blew my mind right of the bat; expecting something rather cosmic. Opened the show w/ Good Lovin', a song my band played in Jr High. Something else distinctive about the night was Stephen Stills sitting in w/ the Dead, as well as Jefferson Airplane. He & Graham Nash did a few numbers ("David's not here tonight, so we'll play some new stuff"). Had the great pleasure of catching the DarkStar/StStephen/Eleven/Lovelight medley on GD Channel XM last year from this very night. This show was halfway between the recorded date for Live Dead & Working Man's. Didn't catch it in '69, but listening to the show last year, caught shades of Cumberland Blues in Lovelight. WOW!

The opening acts were great. Funny to think of the Airplane as an opening act though. I remember that the Airplane had Steven Stills as a special guest who jammed with them on a couple of songs. It was really late by the time the Dead came on stage. There was a 2 AM curfew that would have cut the Dead's performance short. But wait, it was the return to Standard Time so that 2 AM became 1 AM. Bill Graham came out on stage to announce that the show could go on another hour! The music did play on!

I'm glad that other folks remember some of these details. My memory is faulty to begin with and it's been a long time. Of course it didn't help my memory that I was, ahem, chemically altered. It is a bit difficult discerning which of the many '69 and '70 SF shows I attended but I was definitely at this one!

Ha! I just noticed that I had already commented 4 years ago!