Grateful Dead

Several songs into the show, I leaned over and asked my girlfriend, "Am I seeing double, or are there two drummers up there?" She turned to me and blurt out "Two!". We erupted into looooooooong jaw-breaking, belly-busting, side-hurting laugh.

I was a sophmore at George Washington University. I met a girl at the dorms who wanted a ticket to this show. She was a freshman. I met her a few days before and she heard I might have an extra ticket. I told her I might have one if my girlfriend from home doesn't come. Well the girlfriend doesn't come. I go to the dorm, and bring her the ticket. She asks me when I am picking her up. Well I had no intent of taking her to the show, I just got her a ticket. She explains that she doesnt know anyone, classes havent even started yet. She has no idea of where the place is or how to get there. To make matters worse we had 3rd row seats, and the seat I got her was not with me. I had a bad experiance taking a girl to a dead show years before and swore I would never do it again unless we were going out for a while. All this and my brother, my two roomates and several of their friends were meeting at our apartment and going to the show together. So here I am stuck for this ticket or I take this girl I just met who is begging me. Even though I am sure this will be a disaster I agree to take her. I pick her up at her dorm, and bring her back to the pre show party at my apartment. Her and around a dozen guys smoking, drinking, coke, ludes etc. On the ride we feel sorry for her, and we will need to explain to her at some point why we are so high, so we offer her a lude. She immediately says she needs more than one to get high. At this point I should have know better, but we give her one and only one anyway saying we don't have more even though we have dozens. We get to the show and she is having no part of leaving me and going with the the guys she is supposed to sit with. So here I am again with a dilema. We are stepping onto the rear of the floor, she is wearing a nice brown peasent dress, and I am feeling bad for her. I know most of the guys I might push her off onto, and I decide to cave in and have a puppy with me for the show. I am not looking foreward to this. We have 6 seats just to the left of center in the 3rd row. The guards up front look like marines. They are ok most of the time, but when people sit they realize we have too many people so they hassle us. Everything goes suprisingly well, she is not an idiot, she is a deadhead. The show is a good show. I have a good time. I tell her I am too high to take her back to the dorm. We go back to my apartment. She sleeps with me in my waterbed. She is cool, no sex but she was cool. She hangs. She basically never moves out of my apartment. I break up with the girl from home at her request. Hundreds of shows later....We are married 23 years now and have three kids. This is why you should never take a girl to a Dead concert.

This was the point I realized the dead heads were alot cooler than the metal heads I'd been hanging out with. I'd already dosed a number of times and knew I liked it. So why not put the two together? We jammed way too many people in the back of a van and headed off to cap centre. I don't recall the vending scene, I was chasing a girl that had parked next to us. The show and blotter kicked off and I was disappointed that the dead didn't sport the light show or flash pots that the other bands did. They pretty much sat there and played... I recognized some of the songs from "Go to heaven" and "skeletons from the closet" (my 2 sources of reference at that point). My high point of the first set would have been a rollicking Red Rooster and Deal. The lights came up and I assumed with the length of the first set, that was the show (but also noticed no one was leaving so decided to hang out). Enjoyed the smoke break and recognized a decent number of songs during the second set. My trip made me restless during drums and some of us got up and walked around the concourse... LMAO! There were all these people in the hallway dancing and spinning, I'd never seen anything like it and in my state could only laugh until my sides hurt. I assumed I was hungry and bought some fries. Sat down against the wall and watched the dancers. Then the fries started talking to me, so I had to distance myself from them. We returned to our seats and experienced some of the coolest sound effects I'd ever heard (I asked a friend afterward "What was the song that sounded like you were flying through space?" Oh, that's called space...). COOL! After the show, I wedged my way into a cluster of people and bought an orange/ white tie dyed Garcia "drivin' that train high on cocaine" shirt. I was probably the last one who did. As a portent to the future of the cap centre, a cop on a horse moved into the middle of the cluster and stoled the guys shirts and money (I mean confiscated them...). The bus came by and I got on (but still didn't have a clue).