Grateful Dead

We arrived the night before from NC and the venue was obviously in a very bad, crackville part of town because they parked us in a fenced parking lot, and there were quite a few of us and closed the gate and guarded it. Yikes. I remember in the lot the next day we saw and heard what must have been over 100 cop cars raging up the interstate going to a call. Apparently they would go to calls with overwhelming numbers to have a chance to compete with the crime in Miami. Dougles

The Miami Arena was quite a place. It could have been a crack buffet. Thank god for the fence. I was going S.F. from Boston via Miami, St.Pete, NOLA, Houston and Dallas in a 1967 Plymouth Valiant. I'm not sure the "I say NO to drugs" sticker on the rear bumper helped at all but we didn't get pulled over in the south or in TX. I miss having no cell phones or web communication and depending on your own character and creativity to get through the day.

I knew very little Dead music. Didn't even know they were still around until I heard they were coming to town, and my inner-hippie freaked out. Got tix to this (I lived in Miami) and the St. Pete Shows and got on the bus. It was great but I didn't know most of the music until they broke out with Dear Mr. Fantasy - one of my Traffic faves, and I was in love.

Somehow, a buddy of mine (hey Berm!) got front row seats for this one by waiting on line for tickets at a record store (Turtles? Peaches? can’t remember) up in Gainesville. The good old days before internet scalpers, etc, I guess. Only my 2nd show. Don’t remember a whole lot, but I do remember us being convinced that Jerry looked at us and laughed a “you tripping idiots” kind of laugh, haha.