Grateful Dead

by Jesse Jarnow

The Grateful Dead’s pair of June 1973 mega-gigs with the Allman Brothers at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. were the group’s biggest east coast shows to date, not counting Woodstock, though that particular record wouldn’t last long. On this episode, we welcome Alan Paul, author of the great forthcoming book, Brothers & Sisters: The Allman Brothers and the Inside Story of the Album that Defined the ‘70s.

Though the shows were in Washington, they were the result of a relationship with Philadelphia’s Electric Factory, detailed by Dead scholar Corry Arnold. (Events at the show would also put a pause on that relationship for a few years.)

The newsletter that went out to the mailing list in late May or early June 1973 featured Alan Trist’s State of the Changes alongside Mary Ann Mayer’s infamous illustration of the Ouroboros, the serpent that eats its own tail, to visualize the band’s business affairs. The band’s early 1973 newsletters are filled with enigmatic delights, including illustrations and cryptic wisdom by Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, and Willy LeGate, among others.

A small sliver of silent footage shows the parking lot camping scene at RFK and the band playing inside. The show on June 10th was the final performance of “Wave That Flag,” an early draft of what became “U.S. Blues” with slightly different lyrics. Our guest Ihor Slabicky compiled the first version of his Compleat Grateful Dead Discography in the late 1970s, now available online.

There were a number of mysterious cancellations in spring 1973. On May 27th, the Dead and the Allmans had been scheduled to play the Ontario Motor Speedway in California. On June 15th, the Dead were booked at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati (canceled due to “insurmountable” obstacles, according to newspaper reports), and at Denver Coliseum on June 20th (a show that immolated under sketchy circumstances).