Grateful Dead

My first show!

After Uncle Bobo welcomed us to the morning, Phil added, "Lay back and spread 'cause it's breakfast in bed with the Grateful Dead!!!!" Bill was called in at the last moment to save Wozniak's techno festival. Requirement: sell some 30,000+ tickets within some three or four weeks to help Steve break even for an event that was projected to be the Woodstock of the 1980's. The answer, ask you best friends for a big favor!!! Get out of bed and the break of dawn (or play in the morning after an all-nighter) and give the deadheads a discount on a 3 day tickets through GDTS, close to the price of a single dead concert tix. It worked. Steve did not loose face and the Apple name was not completely discredited and now I-splats are everywhere. The gates opened before to 8am, there was barely a line at the gates as those youngsters of the 80’s couldn’t handle three days in a row. A most fond friend was there to great us at the gates, the security top man, Willie. Big hugs exchanged!!! When Willie’s there, no deadhead dared to dis security. He remembered everyone. As we gathered in front of the stage, there were no strangers. Steve Parish, Harry, Joe, Paul and “Ramrod” mingled into the breakfast party before the show, stopping for every breakfast fatty that was passed to them. It was too early to have time to roll their own. They were running cables and checking the soundboard since 5am. It was so loose you could barely call it a crowd. We hardly filled ¼ of the field when we saw some wide awake smiling faces step into those familiar spots on the stage ‘bout half after nine. Uncle Bobo was trying to run a tight ship and I saw him working hard to get the guys back on early for the second set. He was constantly checking his watch; after all, this was the only group that he could not delegate time management to some other stage manager. .I saw him mouth the words, “only one more,” when our friends walked back onstage for the second encore, “Satisfaction.” I heard Brent tease Bill Graham, “One more set?’ They were ready to go!!! Bill would only appear that nervous on New Year’s Eve,. When he needed to find his son David, both get positioned and in costume before the stoke of midnight. I never saw the dead crew rushing so hard after that last dip of Jerry’s guitar to clear the stage. The sun was getting hot and we looked behind us to see that the audience now reached to the top of the hills, only steps away from the gates a port-a-potties. The new crowd rush quickly ahead to find that those “crazy hippies” were walking away from the best spots on the field….We got what we came for!!! After that, there was no early line-up at the beer garden and the water in the beer garden wading pool was clear and yet to be polluted for the day. Bobby, Billy and Mickey were just finishing a press interview and I had an extra beer to share with Kreutzmann. Hey, I only had two hands!!! One brew was for me!!! Bobby, Billy and Mickey hung out for thirty minutes of so before they bid farewell. Mediocre set list, but one great show!!!! It’s all in the energy. My favorite So Cal show.

carlos, jerry, jimmy buffet, The cars?fleetwood mac and more very hot but they sparayed the crowd Hey kidd you still out here?mills bless dangerous doug and danno

I remember that they were late, I later heard that Bill Grahm was not going to let them on stage; but, they rushed past him. The sun was just starting to set as they came on and they echoed off the hill, it was awesome. I went to all six days 82/83, and the memories will stay with me forever. Remember Edie Money singing give me some water as the water cnnons were getting us all wt? man, it was hot!

The ad in the paper said "Breakfast In Bed With The Dead", an obvious ploy to bolster flagging ticket sales for the upcoming US Festival. It worked for us!We partied at a pal's house until close to midnight, then took the drive to San Berdoo and waited for the sunrise. The rented transfer buses arrived at the parking lot (730-8am?) and were swarmed upon by the sharply increasing throng of arriving Deadheads. We squeezed onto about the ninth bus and headed off for a surprisingly long drive (10+ minutes?) through barren scrub desert to the concert site. (I wonder if they still find concert-goer's skeletons out there?) Once inside the gates we found ourselves standing in a vast expanse of very uncrowded cleared desert on the slope of a hill facing the stage with the US logos. As the Dead crew set up, piped music played from an Oregon radio station, including cuts from Brent's Silver band album. One thing was very obvious; it was VERY hot, but as usual, this didn't stop the obligatory doses. The band hit the stage very close to the promised 10 am and the temperature was already past 110 F! In years to come, I would be surprised to hear some folks refer to this as a "pedestrian" set; how often would one imagine the Dead would open an outdoor gig (let alone this early, this hot, on an unfamiliar PA) with Playin' snaking straight onto jamming in 10's, then drop into Shakedown? By several songs into the set it was clear that there were very pronounced crackles coming from some of the Fender Tube amps in the heat, Brent's and perhaps Bob's (?), which was causing "oh no, we're blowing it" glances among them. The Dead always seem a bit nervous when playing in front of non-Deadheads, with lots of wincing and signalling at each other. They shouldn't have been worried as a glance behind us revealed that most folks hadn't even arrived yet. Also quite comical was the general lack of wild dancing due to the intense heat, which for the most part had been reduced to standing still with lots of twitching fingers! Under the circumstances, crackles aside, the Dead were playing quite admirably as they cranked home the 1st set with a China Rider and remarkably, were gonna do their normal two sets. Break came and the sun rose higher. After a few minutes, the buzz of the audience went a little quieter as a familiar looking clown walked to the middle edge of the stage and laid down with his head propped up on one elbow and a microphone in the other hand. It was Wavy Gravy! The buzz became a murmur, the murmer a whisper, then the crowd finally became silent. "Warm, isn't it?" he sez, and proceeds to do a rap about how at Woodstock they dealt with rain, and here we're dealing with heat and here's a few tips, etc. Another memory I have is a guy in the crowd that had been running around in a white jump suit, hat, and whistle with a big water rifle backpack squirting hot fans. Later on he was flat on his back in the sun blowing the whistle, and occasionally when he'd go all quiet, we'd say "do ya think he's dead?, let's go check" and he'd burst into life laughing through that whistle again and again. The second set started out considerably mellower with Sugaree and Woman Smarter, but when they hit Space they pulled out all the stops, perhaps for the arriving and present alike, and just started pounding and banging those guitars "Kraaannnngggg!" and really giving the PA a workout. They finished with Sunshine Daydream and as they walked off the crowd responded with "ONE MORE SET! ONE MORE SET!", which elicited wry smiles and a USBlues/Satisfaction encore. As the piped music came back on, it was the Eagles singin' "we haven't had that spirit here since 1969". Too much! We stayed to watch Jerry Jeff on the giant TV screen in the desert from up the hill, overlooking the freight trains in the distance. We would come back in a year's time to pickup where we left off at the Country US Festival, but for now, one of our party had roadying obligations back home so we headed out. We, and quite a few others, passed thousands of MacHeads and BrowneHeads heading the opposite direction asking us in bewilderment where we were going, but we just told them that the best band had already played!

I didn't need to have the Dead in the lineup, but they were the icing on the cake, thas' fo' sho'. As soon as those "US" Festival tickets went on sale, I bought about 8 on the spot, up in Sunnyvale, where Woz was King. I had little doubt that it would be a blast, regardless of all the new age lifestyle attitude being promoted. Heck, I was a R & R fan from the beginning of the British invasion in the early '60s, could have gone to Woodstock but Mom took the keys. Here was a chance to make things right, and I sold all the tickets for face val. (I might have gotten a break on early group sales, don't recall for sure), and was not into it for profit. We all were ready to go Thurs. eve. and we caravaned down I-5 at a cool 70 mph, all night long. Rick and I were in the last car, his Toyota Celica ca. '78 or so. Just east of Pasadina, his car started acting up, and frickin' died right there on the freeway in Azuza. And our buds didn't seem to have looked back. We were on our own. Fri. dawn, 100 deg. A CHP pulled up, and showed us what a blown gasket does. It pumps water out the tail pipe. To make a long story short, it took us until dusk to finally get to the US Fest. and into the humongous AMPHITHEATER. As we were approaching and entering, I think it was the end of Oingo Boingo. Darn! Then came the B52s and that was a blast. Then came Talking Heads, and the whole crowd was about 12" off the ground, and I'm talking a couple hundred thou. pairs of feets. By then it had cooled off, and was a comfortable 100 deg. after a high of around 117 deg that aft. The night ended up with a great Police set under the full moon. Everyone left orderly, pretty maxed out, to find that the shuttles were as totally F.U.B.A.R. as could be imagined in some N. African war zone. One look, and it was, screw this, let's walk back to our campsite. It was an hour or more to walk the 3 or 4 miles, and we whistled the "Col. Bogie March". I take credit for that. Everyone for as far as we could hear was trying to whistle, but with the dry throats, we were croaking it. Slept good, hit the show early, and there was little wait for shuttle. Hit 117 deg. again, lots of performances, ending up with the Cars, followed by my favorites, The Kinks after dark. Then came Pat Benatar, and her sound system sucked big time, so I bonked and headed out for the night, skipping Tom Petty, ho hummm. No wait for that shuttle at that early hour, and I was soon passed out in the tent. I was up at the crack of dawn, and headed back for The Breakfast Show, didn't miss a note, sat center, back for my ears, near the water cannons, and really enjoyed the show. Can't recall the set list, but that's what's so good about this website and others. It was another long day after that, but a great day again, and although I didn't really care that much for the Buckingham/Nicks era of Fleetwood Mac, (compared to their roots with Peter Green blues), I was blown away by Lindsay Buckingham, and it was a fitting close to one hell of a long weekend of HOT ROCK AND ROLL. We were some of the last to leave the stadium. Hours after it was all over. Stayed the night and took Mon. to get back home in a rental. Unforgetable.Peace; Dizz Quixote Travelin' at the speed o' light.......

not sure how long these have been up on you tube but great to see another show from 82 was at. jerry is cookin on China rider HistoricFilmsArchive·731 videos

Hooked ever since

Things had improved in Southern Ohio and we took two weeks to go travel out west. I had to convince my wife that a move to California was possible, and the right thing to do. We left Zanesville, Ohio, stopped to see friends in Indianapolis and St. Louis, and then barreled out the 40 in our VW diesel rabbit with our 9 month old future rock drummer in the back seat. We crashed in the parking lot the first day, with our poor black cocker spaniel hanging out under the car with a big bowl of water - a South Carolina dog - she had no problem with the heat! We miraculously found a motel that night, and I remember giving some desperate Mexican hitch-hikers a ride - the guy in the back seat said, "You come from God, amigo!" How I got through that traffic I don't know! I remember the big fence with everyone in line looking up at the mounted police officers far above on the embankment. Everyone was throwing their "goodies" into trash cans at the gate. One guy asked the cops if he could have them back when he exited. Another head said, "Don't worry man, there's plenty more inside". I distinctly recall a big cess pit of mud and piss in front of the sound tower, and a totally nude, very curvaceous woman picking her way past that with a big dude on each side of her - all she had on was a red cord around her hips - welcome to California! All I know after that long drive was being there for the Dead set - I was totally burned out and it was early. I was interviewed by a TV crew. The Talking Heads were incredibly good with back-up singers and a couple of conga drummers - that was probably the next night. It was incredibly hot - we had baby boy wrapped up like an Arab to keep the sun off him, but it was the beginning of a successful transition.

What better way then breakfast with the dead and it was 9 am on a hot day and the band came to play even in an abbreviated slot still rocked out better than any of the other headliners!