Grateful Dead

there was a crazy riot at colt park after the show. Police went nuts on the audience. Fences were torn down. I saw one (not very nice) cop get shoved into a porta-potty and tuned upside down. Lots of friends were send to the hospital. ahhhhhh.... those general admission shows!

I was at the Colt Park show............the negativity started before the show did..........people crashing the page wire fence...........I sat in the back, on a blanket with my wife (at that time)........the show started, we got ready to pass the pipe and be mellow............two guys started to fight off to the side of us, and ultimitely fell onto our blanket knocking the pipe into oblivion, as well as its contents...............that was the only Dead show I ever left early......for some reason the kharma was bad, and it was time to go..........a shame, but Colt Park was infamous for those scenes which is why its life as a concert venue was short lived.........so it goes.................Peace & Love, "Cass"

thanks for the snapshot johnnycable. I had forgotten that fence butnow the picture is helping my recall. beautiful day, seemed like a cool place and i was thrilled to be outside at my 2nd show but there was a strange vibe...fortunately i missed out on the fisticuffs. i remember a car back up on the hill on fire on the way out. "You wrote it on the wall in letters black and tall"

Me and a couple friends hitch hiked from Queens NY the day before and made it as far as Hartford park where we crashed out and headed to the stadium the next day. If we had arrved earlier the previous night we could have camped with the tribes.I remember the biker security taking all my beer that I tried to hide in my sleeping bag...great show. What happened afterwards was messed up, but then that's how it was...cops were always trying to "keep order" and never did figger it out that it was just easy to allow people to leave on their own and not be pushed. Would love to see some more shots. If I remember correctly, I was just to the left of Garcia and about 20 feet back from the front.... Man, I miss those days

I can't remember if this was before or after the Roosevelt Show in NJ ( another place with that wierd vibe) I do remeber that this show was really good, When we left all the cars were we parked had been broken into. Not just one window on each car, But some all the windows Smashed glass everywhere, you could feel the anger. We were lucky, they broke into our car, but didn't break the windows. We swore we would never go back In all my years seeing the Dead, that was the only time I had trouble Paul

At this show Phil comes out a couple of hours before the show and starts playing for about 15 minutes. I remember him saying this not part of the the performance, but rather him just tuning up. The cops and all after the show was over was bad. I think this was the last concert at colt Park. I did see Neal Yound a week ealier at this place. But the dead rocked.

I drove from Trumbull, CT in my Dad's red 75 Ford Pinto to catch this show. I was 21 then and had seen them earlier in Boston Garden as a college sophomore at URI and this was my second of what would be many shows to come. I moved to Phoenix in 78 and caught my fair share of Compton Terrace shows before moving on to California in 84. I was standing to the right of Bob Weir down front at the Colt Park show. Soon found myself dancing and making out with a great looking girl and enjoying a great buzz. Crowd scene outside made for a nervous exit. Didn't deter me from more shows to follow. Thanks for posting the photo...

I drove from Trumbull, CT in my Dad's red 75 Ford Pinto to catch this show. I was 21 then and had seen them earlier in Boston Garden as a college sophomore at URI and this was my second of what would be many shows to come. I moved to Phoenix in 78 and caught my fair share of Compton Terrace shows before moving on to California in 84. I was standing to the right of Bob Weir down front at the Colt Park show. Soon found myself dancing and making out with a great looking girl and enjoying a great buzz. Crowd scene outside made for a nervous exit. Didn't deter me from more shows to follow. Thanks for posting the photo...

tomsull27, I did not make this Dead Show but I did partake in the "High Noon" weekly ritual on the "Quad" at URI. Lived in Browning 4 South ----- "can't get any higher" than that! We could have had the JGB at URI in Keaney Gym in Spring 1984(?), but the establishment went for David Johansen

tomsull27, I did not make this Dead Show but I did partake in the "High Noon" weekly ritual on the "Quad". Lived in Browning 4 South ----- "can't get any higher" than that! We could have had the JGB at URI in Keaney Gym, but the establishment went for David Johansen

all bad vibes aside...it's a cool vintage pic. it's a little blurry but i don't think i've ever seen jerry with that axe. also the boys are standing in strange positions. it's kind of weird to see jerry off to the left, phil in the middle and bobby on the right (stage left).. I guess it doesn't really matter...anyway...

oh wait....it's the travis bean.... I guess it doesn't really matter...anyway...

The Biker/Hells Angel security searched every last person, and confiscated all the alcohol and drugs they could find - it was brutal. They piled all the alcohol into metal trash barrels, and were seen openly consuming the confiscated alcohol in full view of all the concert goers.ile they drank their confiscated beer. They even taunted people who could not resist taking shots at these thugs. I am sure they smoked and ingested a lot of the drugs they found as well. The vibe was ugly right from the start. We got there early and staked out a blanket spot 10 rows in front of Jerry. By the time the show started we were crushed by the late arriving crowd pushing to the front of the general admission show. I will never forget the guy, tripping his ass off, who went to the bathroom. When he returned there was no was to get back to his spot, so he started running and jumping all over people and landed smack on top of our cooler which was smashed into a million pieces. The nazi security had already removed all our beer, so no great loss, and the guy kept jumping all over people to get to the weird fence in front. Quite a few people wanted to rip the guys head off, but they were so jammed in they couldn't get to him, unless they wanted to do what he had just done. Despite the oppressive security vibe the show was amazing, and yes Phil played solo bass for about 15 minutes working out the kinks in his new electronics. The two long sets were just packed with all my favorites. The Dead walked off the stage after playing Around and Round, and we stood around waiting for the inevitable encores. For whatever reason the Dead took their time getting back for the encores, and a lot of people had left thinking they were not going to do any encores. It was close to a 1/2 hour later that the lights came on and we too finally started moving towards the exits. Just then we heard the roar of the crowd and saw the boys come back on stage. The crowd that had left all turned around and tried to go back through the exits, but the security would not let them back in. There was a brief lull while the crowd slowly realized they were not going to be let back in, so people started climbing the fence only to have their fingers broken by the security with police batons. Some guys were hauled over the fence, beaten and arrested. At that moment the crowd started picking up rocks, sticks, and bottles and began pelting the security guards. We were stunned watching this, and almost got hit by flying bottles at which point we headed to the safety of the front to catch the encores. The riot continued unabated for the encores while the police arrived. We left by jumping over the fence in the back away from all the rioting. As we hopped over the fence we were filmed by local news who then used the clip on the 11:00 news to say we were breaking into the show! The Deadheads got all the blame, and the asshole security nazis got away with murder! Not a great vibe for my first Dead show, but I was getting used to this after a similar experience with my first Jerry show at the Palace Theatre in Waterbury. I wil have to post that weird experience on that page when I have the time. The show left me wanting more and my next show was the famous May 8, 1977 show at Cornell. Now that was a beautiful vibe where the music and the atmosphere all came together in one glorious moment.

A good example of everything that was wrong with the Dead around this time, i.e., predictable selection, songs played at half tempo, barely any jamming, and Donna dominating the stage. Add in the gestapo police force and a generally downbeat vibe, and this officially marked the end of my love affair with the Dead.