Grateful Dead

Went to Buckeye '94. It was my birthday and I made the mistake of eating dinner before, so by the time we drove from Columbus to Buckeye, the traffic off the interstate was crawling for miles through the cornfields toward the venue. No bathrooms but for the ones in the cornrows. The party favors starting coming on while in the car, and walking by the car in the rain seemed a reasonable idea. Some people parked their cars on the side of the road only to come out of the show and find their cars towed. Car-less in God's country miles from Columbus is not a place I wanted to be. Thankfully we did not do that and we parked in a nice man's yard for $10, which I thought was a king's ransom but I really just wanted to park and get to the show asap. We followed the general flow of people through the parking lots and filed through the cow chutes into the venue. The closing notes of Deal greeted us. Drat! We meandered around and at one point my significant other almost couldn't figure out how to exit the port-o-potty because of the fascinating moving patterns in the plastic seen therein. It was a fun second set. We left the show through the trees strung with lights with medieval barkers and showmen lining the path. Somehow we found the car, thankful again that we didn't park on the side of the road because in the time before cell phones I have no idea what we would have done if our car was towed. We negotiated the flashing blue-lit back road back to I-70 and drove downhill on a perfectly flat road back to Columbus. I didn't realize until we got to the hotel that my feet were caked with mud so I stood, sandals and all, in the bathtub to try to remedy the situation. It was a long night and, upon reflection, a life-changing ride back home.

got me a copy of GOIN' DOWN THE ROAD (a grateful dead traveling companion) today looks like a very awesome book

All the nights I didn't get in. I lost my car more than a few times, and I recall some rain-soaked nights driving across the Bay Bridge after a show with my wheels slipping on oily roads. My one trip to L.A.demonstrated more totaled cars on the road than I'd ever seen in one place. I had a friend who decided to make his way to L.A.for that run, and I had to pick him up from jail. Kinda sucked. My best story probably won't make sense to a lot of people, but on Mardi Gras '94, I was going around the parking lot attempting to share the teachings of Buddhism by telling people about Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and praising the Buddha nature inherent in reach person, and simultaneously purchasing respectable gifts and wares on shakedown street. When my money was almost gone, a security guard sold me a ticket for my last $20 bucks. I went in elated during a rolling Samson and Delilah, and then, after a pause, Jerry gifted me with the most lyrical and impassioned Uncle Johns Band I would ever witness. Over 17 minutes of brilliance, and Supplication jams thrown in for good measure. Further, the intro to Cosmic Charlie later in the night was awesome, a hell of a gift, and just short of a break out. Last great Wharf Rat and Love Light I would see.

Where DO I start -Show 1-3 Greek '83 mail order totally FUBARed but still get tics for all shows Show 4-5 Ventura '83 Close Encounter of the Fuzz Kind in Santa Barbara before the shows and the VW van breaks down at midnight in the middle of nowhere on the way home, 12 hours hitchin' but made it Show 6-7 Stanford '83 - Free tickets in the parking lot for both shows but hitchin home was weird Show 8 - Watsonville - Local Show insainty. Show 9-12 SFCivic NYE run Hotel Reservation lost, room invaded by misplaced heads, rain. 1984 First shows at Marin Civic hitch to first show with sugar cubes and no money, plenty of tics for sale but no miracle and no way to get rid of the cubes, so parking lot scene, but lot gets cleared by local PD and on the way out the three guy I'm with are stopped and asked "What'cha doin', can't stay here need to leave!, Hey you, (guy next to me) what's in that rolled up magazine - shooms, your comin with us son and the others up against the car and the pat down - and we walk away, me with 15,000mics and 1/4 of kind the other two guys minds were blown before the lighter was lit. And that was just the first year.... The Sky Was Yellow And The Sun Was Blue People Stopping Strangers Just To Shake Their Hand.

You've just opened a serious floodgate with this topic. I'll be back with some doozies.

You've just opened a serious floodgate with this topic. I'll be back with some doozies.

You've just opened a serious floodgate with this topic. I'll be back with some doozies.

Glitch of some type...

9/25/81, Stabler Arena, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, PAThis show is what I call my "bedroom" show, because it's in my hometown. This seemed too simple. But getting there was a disaster of sorts. Long before we got to the arena, my tour family got a little *buzzed* to say the least before we drove to the show. While driving to the show, the car broke down in the middle of a major traffic artery making a left hand turn crossing traffic, it was dead, no power, no nothing, but more than enough gas in the tank. We had a traffic light about to turn green, quick as wink we got out of the car and pushed it to safety across 3 lanes of traffic. The car would not start, we checked every thing, but to no avail. We were bummed and furious, to say the least, so we waited about an hour (or so it seemed) until we tried again. In the meantime several folks going to the show asked if we wanted a ride, and we turned their offers down, as it meant that our party of 4 had to abandon the car, in a not too safe of an area. About 15 minutes before the show was about to begin, BINGO! the car started and we were ecstatic and just about raced to the Stabler parking lot and parked the car. We got into the arena after missing the Minglwood opener and most of FOTD. But I like this show. After the show, the car worked fine, and getting from the parking lot thru the back roads to PA Route 378 was not too bad considering the traffic congestion. But on 378, we were bumped in the back of the car with some damage to one of the real lights by a speeder in a pick-up truck who was under the influence of alcohol and could care less about the traffic coming out of the GD concert. Well, we exchanged info, and went on our way. About 10 minutes later we were stopped by a city policeman who told us about our tail light damamge, and proceded to give Jim, the car owner & driver a ticket. Sour grapes for this event, but that was probably the only major problem I ever had attending Dead shows. Just good karma, I guess. It was 30 years ago, and my memory is a bit hazy. But I still love this show for the music. A future Road Trips release, I hope.

When my buddies and I pulled into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn on that fine June day we noticed a semi in the parking lot with the initials G.D. on the door. Hmm now who could that be? We had reserved the presidential suite a month in advance, but when we checked in we were told that we could'nt have that room as it was reserved for "the band". Bummer. After settling into our reassigned room I along with one of mys buds hopped on the elevator to check out the scene at the hotel. When the doors opened I heard someone say to my friend "in or out man" and the next thing I know Jerry walks into the elevator along with Brent and a hot babe. Jerry was not in a good mood at all and grumbled something at my buddy who was kind of in shock at this point. Jerry then stood right next to me and back up the elevator we went. He grumbled once again at my buddy at which point I quipped "Jerry what the @#%*". Dead silence for the remainder of the ride back up. We exited the elevator and just looked at each other in disbelief. Not a good start to say the least. I decided to use the rear elevator for my next trip down only to find Billy Kreutzman on that one poking at the ceiling tiles. I said hello and so did he. Not bad. When it came time to go to the show I used the rear elevator once again and when I exited the hotel, there was Bobby putting his shiny metal guitar case in the trunk of a cadillac limo. I proceeded to walk around to the front of the hotel and there was this mini-van parked out front with a bunch of curious deadheads swarming around it. The van remained there while the rest of the band got in their limos out back. Had a good time at the show and when they started the encore we decided to get a jump on the traffic and headed to the car. It took us about ten minutes to get out of our parking spot because we were so boxed in. We arrived back at the hotel, parked the car and headed inside. We enter the lobby and get to the "elevator" at the same exact time that Jerry, Bobby and the hotel manager did. YIKES! {did'nt know that there was a double encore that night) We all enter the elevator and my other buddy said hello to Jerry and told him that it was a great show at which point Jerry snapped back "yeah well I thought it sucked". Bobby then looked at me and my med-fly t-shirt and said that we should have stayed at the campgrounds that the band had arranged for the fans. We just stared each other down for the remainder of the ride. Upon exiting, the friend who complimented Jerry wished him and Booby a good night at which point Jerry said "in a pigs ear". This is an absolutely true account of what took place that day. I just dismissed it as a bad day for ol' Jerry but my friends were not so forgiving as I was. Can't say that I blame them seeing that they were the ones being scolded by their idol. I at least snapped back at Jerry initially but kept my mouth shut during the second encounter. I continued to follow the boys for the rest of their musical journey and saw many good shows in the years to come. My friends however pretty much exited "the bus" with their tails between their legs. In retrospect it was the beginning of a tough road for Jerry and the demons that would plague his health in the not to distant future. There was one fellow head on the elevator during the first encounter by the way. Maybe he can vouch for me. A truly strange experience. A few months later a friend of mine who was a d-jay at a college radio station called and invited me and a friend over to the studio to sit in on a Bob Weir interview. Bobby and the Midnites were playing the Rose Room that night. At one point during the interview Bobby looked right at me and again mentioned those darn campgrounds. Blair does that qualify as a war story?

edheadwharfrat Here's a story from the same Red Rocks 1985 run. A group of four of us flew from D.C. to Houston, and rented a car. Our plan was to do the Oklahoma City and Kansas City shows, then Red Rocks. The only problem is that we didn't have tickets to the sold out RR shows. We stopped at a rest area to crash for a few hours somewhere in the plains of Kansas, and there were hundreds of Heads sprawled out all over the parking lot and lawn in the middle of the night. Someone told us that they had heard that additional RR tickets would be placed on sale at the Denver area ticket outlet the next morning at 10:00am. We didn't know whether to believe them or not, but we took it on faith. This was before laptaps and smart phones connected to the internet, after all. We showed up at a sporting goods store in Denver that had a ticket outlet that next morning and there were two or three other Heads doing the same thing. Sure enough, they opened up at 10, checked their computer, and sold us tickets for all three shows!!!! We felt extremely grateful, as there were many hundreds of ticketless souls wandering the Red Rocks parking lots all three days.

Heading home from the show on some godforsaken stretch of back road, we were driving along in very high spirits when suddenly...thump! thump! thump! Flat tire. We all rolled out of the car with a fair-sized cloud of smoke in our wake, and proceeded to find the jack and the spare and started to put the stuff together in the dark. About halfway through this less-than-efficient process, a car pulls up behind us. Blue light comes on...ok flat tire, and now we're gonna get busted as well! But no, the cop was just being helpful, didn't do anything but keep his lights on us so that we could see what we were doing. Tire changed, he, then we, were on our way, albeit adrenalized to the max. Got back to our town, my buddy is searching for the bag that had us so paranoid. Not in anyone's pockets, we tore apart the car looking for it, including under the flat tire in the trunk. Not there, not anywhere, gone. A week later, broad daylight, tooling down the same godforsaken stretch of road, my buddy pulls over. He hadn't said anything, and the rest of us were all looking at each other wondering WTF! "This is the place." He got out of the car, walked up and down the side of the road for about 30 seconds, bent over and picked something up. Yup, MIA baggy found... Mount Airy? In my current neck of the woods...

Except it's making me nervous just readin' 'em! Keep 'em comin'! Multiple entries encouraged...

though I still don't remember how I found my car in Park City... but as surreal moments go, there was the interlude on Highway 5 en route to Eugene in '82. Traffic suddenly slowed to a crawl in the middle of nowhere in rural Oregon, because, it turned out, there was a pony who'd somehow gotten loose from a trailer. And about a dozen helpful folks in tie-dye running around the highway, having abandoned their vehicles by the roadside, trying to wrangle the terrified critter to safety as he ran around the freeway. Sort of heartwarming instant community, and yet, whether any of the dramatis personae actually had any horse skills I cannot say, and to this day I just hope it all turned out well...

When I was a junior in high school it was decided that a bus be chartered to take the whole rag tag bunch of us to the Spectrum instead of having a highway full of individual cars filled with all that stuff that makes a road trip so special. So that is what we did. I still remember the old guy's name who drove us there. Charlie. Charlie didn't know what to make of us when he arrived at the high school to pick us up, what with the cases of beer and all. The ride down was alot of fun and the show was a blast. On the way back home we decided to have a little fun with Charlie and someone took his bus drivers cap off his head and started passing it around the bus. This made Charlie very angry and he threatened to pull the bus over if he didn't get his hat back. When his hat was returned to him it was piled high with cold hard cash. Charlie was, needless to say, very "grateful" for the remainder of the trip back.

Driving in to the second show the traffic was really bad, and all of a sudden it just stops. Everyone just started pulling over and parking along the road and walking up the rest of the way. So I did also. I thought it was like the footage of Woodstock or something and I'd just find my car later. Well, of course I "fully" enjoyed myself at the show ( including seeing sparks shooting out of Jerry's guitar during Terrapin! ). So after the show I'm wandering down the road and you guessed it - the car is gone! And in my altered state I'm just trying to figure out if it's really there or not! After awhile I figured it was towed and I didn't want to deal with it then, so I hit the road and stuck my thumb out and hitchhiked back up to Chief Hosa campground. The next day I'm back to earth and find a payphone(!) - call around saying things like " What happens to cars in Colorado when there missing? " - and finally find out what happened. They simply towed all the cars along that road into the parking lots! All I would have had to do was ask someone ( like the police! ) where my car was! Hah! No way!!! I got my car back that day and learned my lesson. Always park in a real parking spot!!!

tree-ap2 Well... all three of us tripping during the show at the The Spectrum & fairly well still after, my one friend who didn't go in had worn down the battery in the car while listening to the radio all night. Anyway, we try & find someone to jump the car, but it still won't start for some reason. While wandering around that "battle zone" that surrounded that area, we're all three walking back to the car to try & get some sleep, after getting chastised by a cop that we were interupting his dinner by us asking for his help getting out of their parking lot. We come across a guy who was obviously "upset"---too much acid I'm sure was part of the problem. Well, he was jumping up & down on the roof's of a bunch of cars in the lot behind the venue, yelling & screaming unintelligibily. We take a wide berth around him, and some how he managed to avoid being detected by us until he was just a few feet away asking us to "hold up a minute." He starts in on how he's lost his friends, and "man, my friends have really f'ed me over, and I need to find them." He then wants us to " role play" where we're all supposed to be playing his friends. Well if he'd said it to you that they f'ed him over, how much would you want to play his friends? Exactly... Now I was a little scared at this point with my own state of mind, and didn't want to be dealing with this crazed person!! Well, before the "role play" started, the cops had materialized out of thin air---I'm mean LITERALLY! The crazy guy looks over his shoulder, and loud enough for the 4 policemen from the 2 cars & one paddy wagon to hear, says something like "watch what I'm going to do to these guys..." We start to back away from him & he turns to swing a punch at one of the cops, and I see 2 billy club's go in the air and come down on him several times...I'm sure I heard bone breaking. In what seemed like a milisecond, the van had been pulled up backwards & they're throwing him in the back, have the door shut, and are gone---disappearing as fast as they appeared. We take off running back to the car, trying to make sense of what we thought we saw for the rest of the night---still scared from it all. We managed to get these guy's with a big boat battery in their Maverick to try & start my car as the sun was coming up, and it started right up. I got us home to MD later that morning, and slept until the next day. I often wonder what happened to that guy, even questioning what I actually saw/think I saw. I also feel bad sometimes for maybe not reporting what saw/think I saw...hindsight. I had very little contact with my show-mate-travel-companions after that, so I don't really recall talking to anyone about it since then, maybe telling it once or twice to a few others. Anyway, it was a very good show to see, as the whole Fall tour was pretty spectacular that year, which I only learned after many years of listening afteward to tapes. I didn't see my 2nd show until Spring '90 at the Cap Centre in Landover, MD, which was STILL REALLY GOOD!!! I'd wanted to go to the implossion of The Spectrum (a year or 2 ago I think), but missed it. Too bad, as that was an alright place to see them, wasn't it? I always enjoyed myself there afterwards---last show there in the Fall of "94 with one of my greatest friends ever (& to this day still...I Love You brother!) & my 3 year old son, and we had a great, great time...

While looking forward to the Fall East coast run of 1988, I pulled the dopey maneuver of blowing out my ACL in early August. Needing to generate some cash, I sold some of my tickets to friends, thinking there was no way I was going to be able to make the planned roadtrip in a leg immobilizer and on crutches. Well lo and behold I found myself at Landover with some tickets but no Saturday night. I usually never worried about it because I had always been successful in finding a trade. Well Friday came and went with no trade in sight. I remember having a blast at the show even on crutches - actually I discovered a pretty cool thing-handicapped/injured special treatment and seat location. So Saturday arrives, we get to the show and I get right on looking for a trade. Not happening and showtime is getting closer. Still no luck as it's time to head in. At this point I have a Monday night ticket to trade for the Saturday night and nobody's even taking a look. Finally my friends and I part ways and I head towards the entrance in desperation to make a trade. I'm standing on my crutches, holding up my Monday ticket and giving it all I got. Unfortunately there are 3 or 4 others doing the same. Just as I am about to accept that I won't be getting in, this dude approaches and asks what I'm looking to trade. I tell him I have an extra Monday ticket. He tells me that he really needs a Sunday. Hearing that, the guy looking to trade next to me jams out his extra Sunday ticket and says "I've got your Sunday right here". I'm thinking "damn, shut out". The dude with the extra Saturday that we both needed looks at me and then the other guy and says "I think this guy on the crutches needs it more". It was like Santa Claus had arrived with my ticket. I practically danced in to the show on my crutches in amazement at the miracle I had just received. Made it to the seats a couple minutes before the lights went down. The show was great, as were all the shows of Fall 88 in my opinion and we get to the encore. One More Saturday Night naturally, but it seems very laid back to me like they are hiding something. I'm sure alot of people knew what was coming next but I did not. Ripple. I got so excited that I broke one of my crutches while jumping around. I'm sure I didn't help out my torn up knee either. Needless to say I left the show that night an extremely happy camper. It's times like this that I look back to when I think I'm never catching a break, realizing that I have indeed been lucky along the way. I'm enjoying everyones tales from the road!

Oh man it seemed like every Dead show I went to resulted in some sort of war story, thankfully nothing too catastrophic. Losing the car keys in Tempe '92 ranks up there. Don't remember much **probably contributed to the lost keys** but there was a lot of hitch hiking on the highway to town to sleep with a bunch of strangers in a hotel room and back to Compton Terrace to get the car. Felt like that episode of Beavis and Butthead where they were hitching on the highway in the middle of nowhere, no cars coming, sun blazing, all sun burnt... Get back to the amphitheatre, car is gone, towed out of there of course duhh! Buuut the venue was open and they had a lost and found and the nice beautiful lady had our car keys!!!! I'll never forget hugging her and I think I kissed her!! But we had to hitchhike back to the tow company and spend the last of our dough to get the car out of the impound. The tow driver also took all of our cassettes and beat the car up - the fog light was hanging by a wire... but hey we got out of AZ and back to CO in one piece! That's all we cared about in those days! "It's got no signs or dividing line and very few rules to guide"

I'll have to see if I have any stories for public consumption given that my picture is part of my profile...but I am thoroughly enjoying the "war" stories.

Ah, so many, some happy, some sad, many "miracles", many adventures. (Many not fit for the internet!) A quick and happy one. I was introducing a new roommate to the Dead, and we were flying to Red Rocks. This would be his first show, and he knew nothing of the scene. I told him before we left, "Believe me, Heads travel far for shows, there will be Heads on our flight to Denver from Chicago." He did not believe that could be possible, thinking no one but I was crazy enough to fly to see a show. Well, we get on the flight, we take off, the "fasten your seatbelt" signs goes off--and five seconds later a friendly face from the seat in front appears and says to us "Like some hash brownies!" My friend was amazed and that moment got on the bus. We ended up becoming good friends with the Heads in the next row, and spent each day of the shows white water rafting on the Colorado River, then going straight to the shows. The rafting company we were with liked us so much (we kept them pretty "happy") that for the next couple of years of Red Rocks shows they told us they would "offically" close their business, but open just for us... for free! Each year we made our annual pilgrimage rafting and shows, a great combo.

Mine story dates back to spring of 1984, when after a mid-atlantic swing that stopped in Hampton me and my pals were driving back to Pennsylvania. We were somewhere in Virginia, it was early in the morning, but I was already drinking a road soda. Don't worry, I was a passenger in the back seat. Well, our intrepid driver, who will remain nameless, must have had to take a leak or something. So he takes an exit and we are suddenly driving down this heavily wooded lane, entering what looks like a mall. But it is out in the middle of nowhere and this mall has a crossing gate. The gate is not down, so my buddy drives through. Suddenly we all realize that we are on a military base. My friend the driver does a quick U-turn and we slowly approach the gate where a uniformed armed guard is spitting mad. After a few yessirs and nossirs, he tells us hippies to get the F' outta a here. Which we gladly did. After the shock wore off we torched another bowl and had a good laugh.

..first a comment to SPARC, who got a ticket at the 88 Cap centre "Ripple" show. That was the only show I ever got shut out of due to no tickets (I rarely went to a show past 87 without any tix, the scene became too hard ...)We got in the first night, but the next night, we're shut out, of course missing Ripple. ...I'm surprised I haven't seen any Merriweather 83 war stories yet. Here's one: That first night storm was an experience for the ages. We were of course in the lawn for the entire show, where it rained steadily during the first set, and then poured with thunder and lightning during Set II. Add in some "electrified" heads, it was intense. Then, after the show and the creek behind the pavillion jumped its banks, we luckily headed toward our van, only to be told by the PD that we couldn't stay in the lot that night, so we were forced to drive the DC beltway all night looking for a hotel room. Finally, at about 8am, after having no luck getting a room, we head back to Merriweather, only to find out that the cops let people back into the lots after they had kicked us out to camp for the night....

Just a quick story... My first show was 7/2/88 Oxford Plains. After the show, the crowd was slowly making it's way toward the exits, packed like sardines, not an inch to spare, when someone vomited. A 20-foot circle opened up as if a nuclear weapon had been set off. Few things motivate like vomit.

Our war stories are always happy ones: at Telluride in 87 we got to town Friday afternoon without a place to stay. Yes, we had sleeping bags & a tent in our car, but we're really not campers. On the road into town we met a woman who had a sign: room for the weekend! Right on. Her cottage about 3 blocks from the Town Park was barely 2 bedrooms; there was no door over our bedroom - $200 for the weekend, a steal by Telluride prices - just an Indian bedspread. She had a wonderful big dog, Burke, who liked us, so we were made in the shade. The $200 was Laurel's approximate winter heating costs. It was the most romantic weekend - our second honeymoon, having been married August 2 the year before (and having missed Red Rocks, our intended first honeymoon in 86). Our time in Brokedown Palace as we lovingly called this place was one of the greatest honeymoons we've had. Nothing compares to the wonder of the Dead road experiences.

Spring tour 78 Decide to hitch down to William and Mary from DC, we were just south of DC holding up our little sign that said "Grateful Dead" and some Indian guy sees the word dead gets off at the next exit circles back and picks us up b/c he thought someone had died, he drove us all the way to the show. Needles to say they played the only Dew of the year and it was all over, went back to school the nest day gathered up a group and a car and drive out to Huntington WV, where we knocked on the back door and got let in for free, the cute girls didnt hurt I guess Fall of 78 Imbibing an hr or so before the cancelled New Haven show and then driving to hartford 79 Driving out to Pittsburgh scoring 4th row tickets for both nights at the Stanley Theatre at the box office SPAC 83 Tell my father I am borrowing the family car to take a few friends to the beach and then a bbq instead drive 4hrs up to Saratoga from Long Island Park the car in the middle of nowhere inside the park somewhere Imbibe various substances get my mind blown at the show while dancing on the lawn. somehow find the car after the show, and find out I had dropped the keys! Run back. what seemed like a few miles, to the middle of the lawn, stop, crouch down light my lighter and there they are! First try! Begin to truly believe in miracles at that Point! Get home tell Dad we had a great time at the beach the next morning If my kids are anything like me Im fucked

"Borrowed" my father's new VW (without his knowledge) to drive up from Philly to New York spring `71 to see the boys, dropped some acid, attended a fabulous show during which it snowed outside, then on the drive back while still high, skidded on ice on a New Jersey Turnpike exit into a parked big wheel and totally cracked up the driver's side fender.Upon arriving home in the 'burbs of the City of Brotherly Love, Dad, as you may imagine, was none-to-pleased and forbid me from ever driving the bug again. In hindsight, quite a funny memory, but at the time, all hell was raised. Once in a while you get shown the light In the strangest of places if you look at it right.

Went into town with a girlfriend, came out of town with a fiance... Wasn't exactly the plan, but 22 years and still growin'

...hope you're both still enjoyin' the ride!

Back in '85 we decided to go down to Long Beach for shows for the first time. Stayed in a hotel right across the parking lot from the Long Beach Arena in adjoining rooms with some friends. Shows were pretty good (though not as good as '87, which I did not go to). After the first show, when sleep seemed unlikely for a while, our group decided to go exploring in the area and found ourselves onboard the venerable Queen Mary ocean liner, the historic ship that had been turned into a hotel, I think. Except no one seemed to be staying there or even working there. In fact, I have no idea how we got in at all. But there we were, roaming through these endless corridors and having a great old time... until a security guard came by, wondered aloud what a bunch of people in Grateful Dead t-shirts were doing there and firmly but politely told us we had to leave... What a buzzkill! Not really; I think we laughed all the way back to the hotel...

Left the GOTV 2007 show early, because the ex didn’t like how crowded it was, wouldn’t come out and watch George Clinton and P-Funk in the rain, etc. I saw DSO, Mickey with Molo and Kimock, but missed RatDog. In 08, Bobby and RatDog came to my backyard, Royal Oak Music Theatre. I work a few blocks from there, so parking was free. :) Bought two tickets, but the ex kept saying that she was going to get really really drunk so she could stand the show. I finally told her to stay home. Not busting my groove two years in a row! I didn’t miracle my ticket, well, not directly at least. I’m seat 4 from the aisle (with seat 3’s ticket purchased but not used). Seats 1 & 2 are taken up by a couple. Up comes a guy who’s supposed to have seat 5, but he’s on crutches. I tell the group that seat 3 is “mine” but won’t have anyone in it, so the couple moves over and lets the guy in crutches have the aisle seat. Very nice! Even better, no one’s in seats 5 or 6, so I scoot over one spot, all of our coats can now rest in my old seat and everyone has room to dance--evenCrutches Guy was grooving from his chair! In 09, I’m determined to see the Dead open on Easter in Greensboro. Told the ex that she was welcome to come along for the trip, even if she didn’t go to the show, but that I *was* going. She declined. So I’ve got my ticket, maps, and a printout of the route to take to get straight (no pun intended!) to Greensboro from Detroit. But on the Ohio turnpike, I passed my exit. When I realized that a few miles later, I decided that since I was going to see a band noted for improvisation, I would improvise my trip! Drove to DC (first time there) and then through Virginia on to the show. Got to my hotel with enough time to catch a quick nap before showtime. All day, I kept thinking of TMNS, so when they opened with it, I was pleased that I called the first tune! 2010, and I have a raging cold and a bad foot. That didn’t stop me from seeing Furthur’s first night in Chicago, though! Not only a great/grate show, but some truly wonderful people in my section. One conversation was about music--Coltrane, classic rock, Hank Sr. The other was about architecture! Gotta love the diversity and knowledge of Deadheads! Pretty tame stuff, but let’s see what the Summer Tour has in store... :)

Glad to see that she's now your "ex." That could've been fodder for our 'Mixed Marriages" discussion a few weeks ago... Life's too short to spend time with the clueless...

...I missed that blog entry someone. Definitely will post over there, because the irony is that she's the one who got me ON the bus!

Saratoga Performing Arts Center - June 24, 1984My wife Col & I (RIP Col) Partying in the Lot! Way too Long. People we were with had disappeared into the gig and next thing we hear the Dead Tuning up!!! $hit...We gotta get in..NOW! Well we get near the Entrance gate and it's mobbed with people with NO Tickets. We can't get thru. Well it was an Outdoor show with a very high fence surrounding it. So I climb up and JUMP IN. As Col gets to the top of the fence 3 SECURITY Guards inside the fence come up to me and start hasslin' me. I tell them we have tickets but can't get htru the gate. They Don't Care that we have tickets. They are yelling at Col to climb back down the fence...I'm yelling at her to Jump in!!!! Meanwhile the crowd is "Cheering Her On" She finally jumps in and I catch her. I tell the Guards...Look, here are our Tickets...Can we just go Enjoy the Show? One Guy tells us we have to leave..but then the other Guards says...Go have a Good Time! Off we go and Col says to me...That was one of the most Incredible Experiences I've had...All those people "Cheering Me On" Ain't too easy climbing fences and jumping off "STONED" 8-)

My buddy and I had ticket for the Alpine '86 shows but no ride. Through some misty chain of events we ended up getting a ride from a friend of a friend, and she showed up from Iowa with another young woman and off we went. Along the way we discovered that: 1) she'd "borrowed" her mom's VW without telling her or that she was even leaving town for the weekend, and B) they were both 15! (Mann Act! Mann Act!!) Of course about 15-20 miles away from the venue the bug dies and none of us has any idea how to do anything with an automobile. After a long few hours on the side of the highway we finally got a ride in a station-wagon full of freaks headed for the show, figuring we might be able to find a mutual friend who was coming down from the Twin Cities area. Lo and behold, our ride parked just a few cars away from the Minnesota crew and there was much rejoicing and plans were made to attempt repairs on the morrow. Show was... iffy, and we spent a really cold night trying to share one blanket in the dirt next to the car (the girls had gone off to entertain themselves and didn't return until dawn). Anyhow, these Minneapolis freaks we'd never met actually drove us out of the lot and down the road looking for the abandonned bug which was actually there. After a few more frustraing hours of attempted repairs (including a whole biker gang rolling by in formation giving us the finger and yelling "Buy American!") it started up on one last running push and we hopped in on the move to head back. Unbelievably our parking spot was still there when we got back. I gave our benfactors about half my remaining party favors and we settled back to wait for the show, which was... kinda iffy again (although we did spot Black Flag in the crowd on the hill, seemingly into it-- at least Ginn). Made it home the next day in good time and without further incident although I was a bit freaked to hear that the girls had bought a sheet in the lot... "I tremble for my nation when I reflect that God is just, and that His justice cannot sleep forever." Thomas Jefferson

Somewhere around Berserkly? Oakland Ca. 1978 ?,my first trip to the golden state On the drive up north from L.A. some dude ,a friend of a friend etc. guy is driving on the fucking wrong side of the road,for a long time,it was dark,I tell him but he becomes a dick. Later in some diner in Oakland I lunge over the table at him with a butter knife, I guess I said something about carving him up hahah I was only kidding! never saw him again.,Did see a show at a small arena,general admission,saw the band drive up to the show in their own cars,Bobby with his dog,Phil with some gorgeous woman,Jerry in an old Beemer, Met the Beaming leach who gave me a piece of paper with a red dragon on it. Spoke with the immortal Bill Graham who was standing on the stairs welcoming people to the show " hey youse guys look like yaw from NooYawk ...great guy,made our way inside and ended up front and center,a real Grateful Dead experience I will never forget except I forgot most of what happened, no better place to trip but at a Dead show. I still have the t-shirt from '78,gonna be buried in it when its time! Next story,my python Connie,Danny the pirate, Hells Angels and bad craziness in Rochester,NY

Bring it on, gonzoblackfoot!

I was there ticketless with my buddy. We're wandering around the Calderone Theater in beautiful, downtown Hempstead LI, but nobody's selling. Over an hour, and not even an overpriced offer to sell is heard. We're standing around in an empty alley next to the place (not sure why we were there), and some guy just appears from the shadows and says "you guys want to get in?" Hell yeah! "Gimme 10 bucks each." Uh OK. "Follow me." He starts climbing the ladder of the fire escape of the building next to the Calderone, and up we go. We get to the top and we're like 3 stories high. We run to the back of the roof, and the dude hops over a wall to the adjacent building. Up another ladder, through a door, and we're in the spotlight room of the Calderone. The spot guy turns around laughing,and points us to a door. Through the door,and we're in the top of the balcony of the Calderone, as the lights go down, and Sugaree starts. Funniest thing though was that as soon as Sugaree started all the exit doors opened and everybody else got in anyway. Crazy days man.

I was in the parking lot of Merriweather Post Pavilion with my middle son (intent on showing him some remnant of what I had been telling him for so many years about our scene) and I decided before we left that I'd play my Baltimore '77 tape in just enough time that we'd hear that delicious "Uncle John's Band" before entering this event. Just as the tape went into "Round and Around"... the tape got eaten! I was desperately trying to rewind the darn thing with a Bic pen when a guy pops his head into the cab of my truck and says, "Hey! That was Baltimore '77 wasn't it? That was a great show man!" I was speechless for a second then I said, " No way did you just ID that show from across the parking lot dude... That was AWESOME!" He tossed me a card and said, "Oh yeah and if you need a sound board of that show just drop me a line and 3 blanks!" We've been friends ever since which tells all anyone needs to know about his patience and grace. Thanks again Tom! That was one of the coolest things I've ever had happen to me ANYWHERE. Oh and what might you think the band would play that night in rip-snorting fashion? Hint: We got to the end of that tape in one sense or the other.

but I do actually repeat myself to all my friends. However some of you might not have heard about the 'fire on the mountain", (and I did give it an edit or two). Let me bend your ear a bit.....This 'event' happened after the first show of the 3 day '79 Dead run at Red Rocks. The first show (8-12-79) that night was magical and several spectacular musical and mystical (enough M-words yet?) happenings ensued that evening. Girlfriend Mary (now wife) and I had met up just prior to the show with friend Beano and his girlfriend Erin. They informed us that Erin’s folks had an A-frame cabin up the mountain behind Evergreen. Did we want a place to sleep after the show? Yes, that sounded fantastic and we started following them back to this cabin from the parking lot. Suddenly fog attached itself to our little caravan and became more dense and soon we could barely see in front of the car. It seemed like hours as we traversed the short distance, going 10 to 15 miles per hour winding up and around this mountain. Headlights illuminating fog, Beano's taillights, if we were lucky, as that evening's party favors kept us alert, intent and apprehensive, fearing that we wouldn't keep up or maybe our VW Bug would turn into a pod from 2001 ("get my pod Hal") and drift off into that cool Colorado night sky. But no, there is Beano's car pulling next to a small A-frame cabin enveloped in fog. We jumped out, along with our Golden Retrievers Zoot and Garth, grabbed our sleeping bags and ran to the cabin. There we spent several hours, giggling and yapping, reviewing the Dead’s performance that night along with our seemingly endless journey through that ‘thick air’, thankful for our boundless luck at finding this great spot to rest our heads. Good times, good friends. The next morning we awoke early to the mountain chill and started a fire in the free-standing fireplace in the middle of the living room. Zoot and retriever brother Garth looked at me in anticipation and I let them out to do their morning 'duty'. My other buddy “Gasser” had also arrived after the show last night. He told me that Erin said we could take showers but we need to light the pilot light for the hot water heater. We looked around and went outside to locate two propane tanks on the side of the cabin and we turned them on full-blast. We stood overlooking Evergreen, nestled on the side of a mountain way up high..the air, the sky, the clouds...ahhh. The view was breathtaking for this boy that grew up on the plains. I let the retrievers back inside and walked over to the living room to start pontificating all who were just waking up (my captive audience!). I was in my element, gesturing wildly while reviewing last nights highlights, noting what songs they didn't play, as I stood next to the fireplace, in my boxers and dead tshirt (a regal sight I assure you) and predicting what aural wonders the Dead might have in store for these next two shows. All of a sudden flame emptied out of the wall behind us and rolled across the floor toward us like a waterfall of fire. This sheet of fire was about 12 feet by 8 feet and advanced quickly cascading along the floor. The room was filled with the smell of burning hair as Zoot and Garth (who now looked like seals, their hair ‘trimmed’ and their whiskers all burnt off). The boys ran across the room and right out the door. Everyone was screaming and it wasn’t the wild dance that I was performing that was exciting the crowd. All the hair on my ankles fried as the waves of flame were pulsating and hovering a couple inches off the floor as the fire swept further into the room. Everyone started using their sleeping bags, clothes, blankets, pillows, whatever was handy to beat at the flames and I was relieved as the fire disappeared, almost as quickly as it had arrived. We looked at each other wild-eyed.. like the 3 Stooges would do... And then suddenly the waterfall of flame shot out across the floor again! And pandemonium returned as we all did a repeat of our flailing with whatever was handy to battle the flame back and then someone yelled “the fireplace, put out that fire in the fireplace!!” Mary quickly grabbed a canteen and began dumping the water to douse the fire in the fireplace as the flames continued to roll out once again from the bottom of the wall, right where the wall meets the floor. We were able to put out those flames again and it did not re-ignite, since the fire in the fireplace was extinguished. Then I heard screaming again. Erin ran toward us yelling "there is smoke upstairs!!" We all grabbed pots, canteens, coolers, anything that could hold water and ran upstairs to be confronted with an open closet door where smoke was billowing out and more flames were lapping up through the back of the closet wall (and roof) of the A-frame. Shittt!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was an insane Chinese fire drill, a frantic hallucinatory bucket brigade with everyone’s faces looking like they were drawn by Ralph Steadman as we dashed to fill any receptacles that were handy and then bolt upstairs or even pass the water filled container up the stairs to then throw or dump (and mildly dampen) the ever-growing fire and smoke beast that threatened to envelope the cabin. Suddenly Gasser and I had the same idea (10 watt bulb ON!). The PROPANE TANKS!!. We both dashed outside to the tanks we had turned on. He ran in front of me and as I looked ahead to see a small flame burning down the attached metal tube from the wall towards the propane tanks itself. In my minds eye, I saw Gasser and I both flying, arms outstretched, airborne over Evergreen. But then I snapped into reality and saw him turning the gas valve. And thought did he turn it the right way? Gasser then ran down the hill to another cabin to call the fire department as we didn't have phone (this happened before cell phones, kids). The fireman/women quickly showed up, hooked the hoses up to the truck (the water had to be hauled on the rig, there are no hydrants on this mountain), as they peeled the roof/walls back off the A-frame with their axes (what would Erin tell her folks?) and then they shot water into the walls with the fire hoses. Those propane bottles were originally hooked to a kitchen stove (which was now an electric after a remodeling job). And when we turned the tanks on, the hollow wall was filled with the propane gas until it leaked out into the living room and was then ignited by the fireplace. Then when we beat the fire out each time, more gas would escape through the bottom of the wall and re-ignite. Thus the ‘wall of fire’ that kept rolling out into the living room. After all that we all fled down the mountain to the Black Bear tavern in Evergreen. I had my first ever 9:30 a.m. shot of Wild Turkey 101 that morning. And the 101 did shave off a bit of my adreneline from that wild ride. The Grateful Dead played the next two nights at McNichol’s Arena due to Red Rocks being rained out. And if I recall right, we found out at McNichol's that a deadhead was killed when he fell, after climbing 'high' into the rocks that prior evening. Unfortunate and sad deal. Anyway, the Dead didn’t play ‘Fire on the Mountain’ like I was sure they would. But the boys did play us a rolicking version of Althea...... “You know this space is getting hot….yes, the space is getting hot”. ;o} When Bob used to remark "disaster narrowly averted", it reminds me of that morning in '79. I believe this one might qualify as a 'war story' Blair, completely self inflicted this time, of course, we did survive.. The Truth is realized in an instant, the act is practiced step by step.

I think that one qualifies! Yipes! I hadn't read that one before... ;-) I think it was Dennis "Wiz" Leonard, sound guy for the Dead for years, and later for some post-Jerry bands, who told me recently, in discussing the Europe '72 tour, something to the effect that the real Acid Test was how you responded to the weird stuff of everyday life while high... Sounds like you passed...

Too many to tell at a sitting, but a few come to mind at the moment. I remember spending Xmas Day '79 in LA with family, then doing the midnight-to-dawn shift at work where someone told me GD's playin' up north tonight. Rushed home to grab refreshments, hit a gas station and sped north. Was arriving Oakland around sundown running on fumes when I realized I was starting to head across Oakland Bay Bridge in bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic and not enough fuel! I noticed a hole in the fence to the opposite side and slid the car through back to Oakland and the show (DP5). Flash forward to New Year's '83/'84.... We leave the gig (now in my truck) and only had a hotel room back in Concorde. We're a bit zipped and, yup, find ourselves heading out on that Oakland Bay Bridge again so I start looking for that same hole in the fence. I pass it, slam on the brakes and back up. Suddenly the cab fills with flashing red & white lights, and we're busted! Everyone freaks but no cop comes to my window. We finally look through fogged back window and it's a street sweeper! We went through the hole and home to the hotel. Another funny one was K&D's last show in Feb '79. I took a backpack and a Greyhound to Oakland, and left my pack with some strangers in the parking lot. I managed to relocate them and headed off to the Denny's at the end of the parking lot where the whole counter of patrons were losing stare-downs with their fried eggs. A taxi-driver with a mini-van popped in to ask if anyone wanted rides and a few of us piled in. Somewhere along the way we got T-boned by a car at an intersection, and we all scattered into the night (minds still blazing). Somehow, I finally made it back to a SF bus terminal, tied my pack to my leg and tried to sleep, and caught the morning bus to Eureka and the Redwoods. Speaking earlier about 'no cops', there was one night where we were holding everything one could hold, and I balked at a real stale yellow light and decided way too late to stop, leaving me stopped well into what seemed an empty intersection on a red light,...except for that police car watching me on the side-street. (Honestly, I'm not usually a bad driver.) My passenger's started freaking like babies, and I had split seconds to decide what I was gonna say, when a little voice in my head said "Cops won't help". I started gesturingly grandly as if my column-shift had siezed as the cop's flashing lights went on, and I'd already pulled over to the opposite side of the road, lept out and thrown open the hood, while pointedly ignoring the policeman and acting like I was adjusting my linkage. Amazingly, the bluff worked.The policeman slowly moved behind me, then off without saying a word as my passengers gasped in disbelief. We did a road trip to the Portland Oregon show in Fall '81. Coming back down the California Coast we picked up a hitchhiker who started telling us about having just attended a satanic wedding ceremony, where participants drank wine from a human skull. The stories continued, but we got a bit spooked and lost him in Santa Cruz. There was that rainy night coming back from one of the early Irvine shows. We were heading up the busy freeway when a van ahead started spinning out-of-control and stopped facing traffic. He gunned it (best defence is a good offence) into a giant U-turn which occured right around us as we sped past and he nudged a car as he finished his correction. Lastly (for the moment) was that Ventura Holiday Inn. I left the door ajar thinking someone might wander in for a party and all we got was a dark gentelman in a suit claiming to be salesman 'Oscar' from Oxnard. He tried to be cool, but it was quite obvious that he was the house detective, and he kept trying to get us to blow cover by asking us for those 'cigarettes without filters', which my pal instantly obliged by breaking a filter off his cigarette and handing it to him. When we used the crowded elevator to the downstairs parking lot, Oscar was already there (having used the employee frieght elevator). We eventually told him to go find someone else to bug. There was one Sunday when I stayed outside Ventura because I'd been there so many years (including the cancelled '86 'coma' gig) and never got to enjoy the beach. There's a train track bridge and lagoon behind the Ventura stage, and there were folks back there swimming. We soon noticed that there was a giant sea lion with big teeth chasing people out of the lagoon. We also noticed that there was a naked couple getting it on on the opposite bank. The girl was smashed and very wobbly and as they started to get dressed to come back across the lagoon, we started shouting at them to beware the dangerous beast. However, the girl just kept shouting back about her new date, "Well he seemed like a nice guy, and one thing led to another, and well he was a nice guy, ..." etc, etc etc. She was still too hammered to stand, so the guy picked her up in his arms and started to carry her across the lagoon. The sea lion was following only a metre or so behind them, we were still shouting to "Look out!!!!", she was still shouting what a nice guy her date was. Miraculously, the sea lion never lurched like it had at the other swimmers, the pair emerged on our side of the lagoon never being aware of the danger, and we all walked away exasperated.

I've been a Deadhead since 1982 but my worst war story would have to be from about 3 weeks ago. I went to the Electric Factory to see the DSO. Still being fairly new to the Philly area I thought I'd give Septa a try as my mode of transportation. Jeff Matson and the boys were on fire, playing an original set list. They played a long show, until about 12:30 a.m. Septa's last train leaves from Philly at 12:40 a.m. I was having such a great time dancing to the encore (Shakedown Street) that my appointed departure time rolled around (12:15 a.m.) and I thought I'd just stay just a little longer, and just RUN for the train station. At 12:20 a.m. I waltzed out into the rainy streets of Northern Liberties and started hoofing it for the 8 blocks to the station. About a block into my run, I slipped and landed on the street. I hobbled the remaining blocks on a painful foot but I MADE MY TRAIN (lol). Next day, I was told about my broken foot. I'm still waiting to find a copy of the show I broke my foot for!