Grateful Dead

my only show with no encore!

I was on this whole tour with a bunch of friends from NoVa. This was a killer show. Does anybody remember the little horse show across the street? LOL Love was definately in the air!!

Hey Stagger- Don't recall the across the street events but I'll post pics of the parking lot (and the show) to rekindle our memory's. What I remember most was that they waited way too long to open the front doors and the crush getting in was something that could have been avoided - it was scary. Yeah Zach, no encore - Brent was sick as a dog and UMass was coming up for the weekend. In hindsight, (and thanks to the wonders of the web community to actually re-hear what I mostly forgot) this was a show that let me down only because it never got the song-to-song-song segues ever going, especially in the second set. BUT, it was a sublime show for many songs done really well - Black Peter comes to mind. I've got a bunch of photos to post but it will take some time (one at a time it seems), I had just got the camera and was the only show I ever got pictures at. Oh well! Bear

I went with a bunch of friends from MIT (it was also my girlfriend's birthday) (You know, the photo of that girl in the parking lot looks a lot like her, but I can't be sure). I remember the floor was plywood boards over an ice rink, really hot inside. Some people moved one of the boards away, so there was a space with ice that helped keep us a bit cool. Bear, I'd definitely like to see those photos - put them up when you get a chance!

Gotta admit uploading pics to this site is way tooo complex but I'll keep pluggin' away. I blew into B'town a couple of days before and my sister popped up with the tix for this one. Getting in was one of the worst crush experience's I ever had, mainly because the venue didn't open the doors early enough. Oh well, the Boyz kick'd up a bit. -Bear

My first show. Wished I had jumped on the bandwagon earlier. Wound up getting crushed into the first row, right in front of Uncle Jerry!!

if i remember corectly Phil made a coment it was like playing in a toilet bowl. Hot! whew.

To this day, many people I talk to in town can't believe the 'Dead played B'rica! This show was U-Lowell's Spring Fling '79. I was a Junior at Billerica HS and my neighbor was a Freshman at U-Lowell and got me the tickets. I played hockey many times at the Forum, but it was quite an eye-opener when I got to the parking lot and saw the carnival in progress! There were tents set up all around the parking lot and surrounding woods. My friends and I sat at the top of the metal frame of the hockey glass at the back of the rink and had a great view of the crowd and the stage. I remember being mesmerized by the Leslie cabinet behind Brent! It was very hot in the Forum that night…but not nearly as hot as some of the shows at the Cape Cod Coliseum (a.k.a. Cape Cod sweat-and-see-em)!

This was my first show as well. The dead were part of spring fling at U Lowell where I was a freshman. My older brothers dragged me there. Growing up in Lowell, I played girls hockey at the Billerica Forum. Yes, in Massachusetts girls play hockey. Phil was right, this place is a rickety old dump. Little did I know what I was in for that night. First time seeing the dead and first time doing shrooms. It was a great opportunity to meet the handful of other dead heads attending U Lowell all of whom I am still friends with today. My only regret... not going to the UMass show the next day. Speaking of Billerica... SNL used to do a funny skit occasionally with Amy Poehler and Ben Affleck where the characters were from Billerica . A real crack up for anyone familiar with Billerica .

Everyone was hoisting the boards covering the ice over their heads and methodically stacking them in the front of the stage. It was hot, but we had ice at our feet. It didn't seem to help our friend Kenny who went into heat prostration and started flippin' like a pancake on the ice. Does anyone recall this event happening? He calmed down eventually, but in the middle of Ship of Fools we had to carry him to the back of the crowd for some air. I was so glad we stayed, because Black Peter was beautiful. It was a great show!

I barely remember a thing about the actual show. For some reason, I associate this show with a friend who had died of cancer the previous November - was this show right after a big anti-nuclear demonstration in Washington DC? Or maybe that's when the tickets went on sale? I seem to recall being in a panic about driving back from DC to MA in time. I know a few friends took me to this show, but that I was in a state of shock, maybe. Or maybe that's when we went to buy the tickets. Sorry, I know I sound rambling.

Just did some Googling...yep, there was a huge antinuclear demonstration (70,000 people) in DC on May 6, 1979.I know I was there, and went in memory of my friend who had died young of cancer. But this was 5 days before the show. Did tickets go on sale JUST before the show date? All I can remember is being panicked about getting back to MA in time, maybe to buy tickets.

I went with my best friend Jack. I was so thrilled to be there. Jack got the tickets from his girl friend at U-Lowell. $8.50ea. I couldn't believe the Dead were going to play at the Billerica Forum. I played high school hockey there! On the way there we ran into a high school friend standing out in the middle of Rte. 129 scalping tickets. I never knew Tim was a deadhead. That was a surprise. This was such a great show. I can still remember where Jerry staring right at us. We sat on the stancions which held up the chainlink fence on the boards. Great view of the stage. It was amazing we could even keep ourselves on there, we were so high. When I was able to get a copy of one of the tapers copies of the show I could hear myself in the tape yelling 'Estimated Prophet'. Great Show! If anyone has pics let me know. I would love to see them. Maybe take a trip down memory lane! :)

thank you for that info - like I said, my friend had recently died at age 23 of cancer & some friends took me down to DC for that demonstration. I remember we lost the driver (found his shoes on the ground, but not HIM!) - this was the days before cell phones - so we were scrambling to get a ride up to another friend's mother who lived in MD. JUST before we were going to take a train to MD, we found the driver (wandering around barefoot of course). Still high, he drove us back to MA, getting slightly rear-ended on an entrance ramp to 95. I swear, I recall it as we drove straight from DC to Bill-Rica (LOL), and went directly to the Forum to get tickets? I just remember being in a panic to get there in time.The show itself, all I remember is the acoustics were terrible (it sounded like they were playing in, well, a HS hockey rink!). And yeah, I vaguely remember it was hot.

of course girls in MA play hockey, we're practically Canadians!(NOTE that I did NOT say CanadiENs!).

Is the forum still there? I tried to Google it, but nothing came up. If anyone knows, post directions. I have a blog, www.grosvenorsquare.wordpress.com, about the venues that the Grateful Dead played. Just posted one about Atwood Hall @Clark U in Worcester! Thanks!!! Inspiration, move me brightly.

This was also my first show, came up from Middletown CT with some folks from Wesleyen U.I knew of Bilerica as where Jack Kerouac grew up. I don't remember much of this show either, I am not sure why. I've seen other shows that i remember better, particularly a couple shows at Radio City in '80, and the Dylan and Dead at JFK in Philly '87. Yes this was such a small place, i remember it was like a high school gym. Any way it was a great show, but i was disappointed at no encore, I remember.

My memory is a little fuzzy from this show ... but this is what I remember. I remember driving in and the sign on the side of the building said "Lowell Forum". Not the Billerica Forum ... I think. I sort of recall a dirt parking lot. There was this long line where we waited to get into the venue. People were walking up and down the line saying "Green Dragon, Green Dragon". Inside the venue there were no seats on the floor. We ended up in some seats near stage left. The floor just got too chaotic. There was this one very large individual spinning around yelling "I'm tripping my brains out" knocking people over as he went. This was the first show I saw with Brent playing (the new guy) and we were really impressed with his playing. At one point I had to go to the bathroom which was at the back of the arena. Right near the bathroom was a soda machine that looks like it the front panel had been torn off. There was this older gentleman screaming at someone over the state of the coke machine. At the time I couldn't understand what he was saying. It sounded all garbled and strange. At the door was this bored looking cop who I talked to for a little while. He was a really nice guy and was taking the whole thing in stride. At the end of the show someone came out and said there wouldn't be an encore because the keyboard player wasn't feeling well (or something like that). I remember thinking "yeah right ... blame it on the new guy". That night we drove to Amherst for the next show.

My best friend called me at school in Boston and said his girlfriend had bought a couple of tickets at U-Lowell for the show but was not interested in going so he asked me and I immediately said, yes!!! He drove to Boston in his '75 VW Bug to pick me up. We got to the parking lot early. We were probably in the door with the first 100 people. We sat just to the right of the stage on top of the stanchions which usually held the chain link fencing. We had an awesome view of the stage. I'll never forget that show! Etched in my musical memory for ever! I listen to the taper's recordings I can here myself yelling to them to play "Estimated Profit". We weren't that far from the sound table and the tapers. Funny thing about being there! I used to play ice hockey there when I was at Central!

Can't delete a post apparently

What a great time! Tiny place, we could walk right up to the stage... but what I most "remember" ("if you remember the 60's, you weren't there") was that my (Harvard) friends and I had each eaten a goo-ball -- I don't even know what exactly was in it -- and were absolutely flying, so much so that it felt like the whole place was rocking like a ship. I told this story to Dennis McNally, the Dead's historian, whom I'm lucky enough to have become friends with, at a Giants ballgame. He started cracking up laughing. Apparently, this show is well-known in the group's annals: add in the heat, as others have described, and that ice under the stage melted so that the whole group was pretty much floating on water. Hence, no encore. I knew it was a hockey rink but never had put two and two together!