Grateful Dead

The Europe 1990 tour was one of the highlights of my young life. Coming there alone, I met up with some Deadheads at JFK airport in New York and proceeded to travel with a ragtag group to Amsterdam (natch) and then on for the entire tour. I've always wondered what happened to the friends I met, ate and slept with for those wonderful couple of weeks through Europe. If anyone reading this remembers Armando Santiago from NJ, Johnathan Wynn from Maryland, or any of the crowd from Hampshire College, (or even a guy named "Crow") drop me a message!

There was a large congregation of Heads in Amsterdam before the tour commenced, and many of us chose to stay there rather than make the trek up to Sweden for the first show. The band apparently had some major jet lag, and by all accounts, Stockholm was sub-par. The Gruggehalle in Essen was up next.....I crossed into Germany and met my California friends, a beautiful Winnebago and my tickets....we were practically pinching each other, absolutely beside ourselves that we were seeing the Dead in Europe. We met a group of wonderful Heads from Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor, Michigan that became part of our circle through the tour; they were very kind and to this day I miss them. We were chewing on a dollar bill all the way into the show, and the energy inside the place was radiant. Alice danced to my left and right saying, "Everywhere I go, I'm at a Dead show, and this is Europe!" We were on Jerry's side and not far from the stage. The first set was amazing....I had the impression they were making up for Stockholm. The opening chords of HIGH TIME...wow. I thought Cassidy would close the set, but they followed with Tennessee Jed, the set's NINTH song. The second set was classic Dead (see above); the China Rider rocked. By Lovelight our cheeks were hurting.....we hadn't stopped smiling for hours. About 14 of us stayed the night at the home of a local, laying around the livingroom like a quilt, finding it difficult to come down from what we had experienced. It was our first European Dead show, and there was much to come. Imho the most underrated show of the tour.

The only dead show i've been to but it changed my life forever. Way back then in 1990 at the age of 18 the only stuff I knew was the dead's current album "Without a net" and of course "Dark Star". As a german teenager it was not quite easy to become a deadhead - especially in the late 80's. The concert at the "Gruga", however, blew my mind: Sugaree, Tennessee Jed, China Cat Sunflower, Truckin' and of course the "drums". Since then I know that there is nothing like a (Grateful) Dead concert. So please come back to Europe! I'll be there for sure! Otherwise i'll have to cross over the ocean for the very first time...

pity I did not archive the ticket ... but I was there:) ... a lot of wonderful people in Essen :-)