Grateful Dead

A few remembrances: 1. I was very very high and was totally tripping out on how awesome the “space“ portion was and how I thought Dan Healy was totally going genius-wild with the sound manipulation , working with the boys on stage. Later, I realized it was just sound problems and bad feedback. Maybe it would’ve been better if I never knew. 2. I started getting really bad vibes from this family that was sitting on blankets near by, staring at me like they were some Appalachian folks with some ancient blood feud thing going on. Sometime after the show I studied up on the Donner Party and now believe I was picking up on the vibes left over from when the Donner Party was stranded in that area for that horrible winter way back when. I learned that all the families took an “every family for itself“ attitude and there was no cooperation among them, not even speaking to other families for weeks at a time even though they were camped within few yards of each other. Their campsites, next to Donner Lake were within walking distance of where this concert was held. I believe I was feeling something like the blood that was spilled onto the soil. It was very heavy vibe that I’ll never forget. 3. Myself and my two friends camped somewhere in the area the night after the show and the next morning I was totally frazzled from my tripping the day before. For breakfast we went into some restaurant and the radio was tuned to a freeform FM radio station that was playing a selection of tunes that seemed like it was made specifically to chill out somebody who was still frazzled from their heavy trip the day before. I don’t remember the tunes, but I do remember there was a mellow psychedelic Beatles song of some kinds of Summer of Love and oth tunes that I thought had to been chosen specifically for the deadheads that were still in the area and coming down from their trips from the day before. Whatever the deal was, it felt beautiful and the perfect cure for my trippin' hangover.
I’ve never heard any tapes from this show, but I know it has a reputation of being bad but I don’t regret for a moment having gone. Although I can’t help feeling I’m part of that cliché when non-deadheads say you have to be really high to enjoy a grateful dead concert. Well, I got really high and I enjoyed the experience and I’m so glad I had the opportunity to attend the highest Grateful Dead concert ever.

So this was infamous as one of the worst shows. Bobby was having instrument problems, sounds was funky.

But at a certain point , some sort of aircraft flew right over that did not look like a regular plane. Whoosh and it was gone. It sort of hugging the contours as it flew which makes me think it was a military test drone. Everyone went "whoah!" and then back to sucking on doobs.

I was not on acid. This really happened.

We drove up later than we'd expected because getting away had been messed up
So we arrived late at Donner Pass campground.
But - what luck! - we discovered there was exactly ONE site left.
So we set up our tiny tent in the dark and crawled in.
Then in the morning light we saw the sign on the next site over.
It was closed because of being sprayed to kill off PLAGUE-CARRYING RATS.
The rest of the day was similar.
Didn't seem like the Band was okay - though even a bad Dead show is still the Dead.
And at least none of us got the plague.

My one and only birthday show, and it sucked. And we couldn’t get out of the lot afterwards because heads had a card game going in front of our car and wouldn’t move til they were finished.

Hot summer day, high altitude, and alcohol made for pretty zoned out audience. The “venue” was a stage erected in front of the ski lodge, with the crowd backed up onto the slope. The slope itself was made for skiing, not for viewing a concert, it was uneven and bumpy. I can’t remember if there was even grass on the slope. If there was, it was dead. The whole vibe that day was kinda off. The band seemed mildly interested in playing that day, the heat and technical difficulties were definitely an issue. Unlike most shows, there was never that sensation of the band taking off or launching into a groove that would propel the crowd. There didn’t seem to be any connection between band and crowd, which made for a less than usual Dead show experience. The stage was really tall as I recall, further disconnecting the band from the fans.
Having said all that, I must confess that I was still a Jr. Deadhead at that point. Boreal was maybe my 8th or 9th show (I need to go back and check my set list notebooks. Remember those?!), I didn’t even have my secret decoder ring yet. But relative neophytes and seasoned tour Heads alike remember this show as challenging at best.

I had a grate time at Boreal. I got there early and stayed late. Had a spot right in front of the stage. I was inside the stage monitor sound, so it sounded good to me :-) When Bob had amp problems I recalled my friend Steve Marcus saying Bob kept messing around with weird amps; he should just get a Mesa Boogie and be done with it. The setting was cool, because it was a ski resort in the mountains which means beautiful scenery all around.

I say any show featuring "Day Tripper" is ineligible to be considered for status as "Worst Dead Show Ever"