Grateful Dead

Cool Show, but one of the buses following the tour crashed while journeying from KC to Cedar Rapids, with one fatality. It was interesting during the day, the locals driving around to check out the carnival, but everyone was pretty subdued. During the show, Phil dedicated a mournful He's Gone to the young man who died. Then, somebody lit a smoke bomb in the elevator shaft of the attached hotel around 1:00 AM, evacuating the whole place!

I was able to attend this one with my wife. We'd been married just less than a year and she knew I was a fan since at that time I had every album made by the band. It was an awesome experience to be able to share it with her. So long as we remember them they will always live with and in us.

At the time I had a bus too and all of the bus people knew the other bus people. The most shocking part (based on the reports from riders) was that all of the furnishings inside the bus busted loose from their moorings and clew to the front of the bus. I believe the bus swerved, oversteered on the correction and F L E W off the bridge landing nose first in the water. "Paulie" (the dead guy) got his neck broke and drowned. He was from my area (North Jersey) and I had been a rider in his van for part of East Coast '83.

lost my buddy as soon as we got in. danced with the most beautiful brunette all night long w/out ever sharing a word. got outside and fireworks were going off everywhere. one couldn't hardly get across the street. made it to the parking garage and got to where i thought we had parked, there i spied a dude lighting a huge brick of firecrackers. from a fewq levels up, he goes sprinting over to the edge and unloads the brick. down below was a poor unsuspecting sole sitting cross legged on this triangle of grass. he was mesmerized by all the fireworks when that brick exploded rt behind his ass. that dude jumped up and ran sooo fast. it was hilarious and it was my buddy. on our way back to des moines, we spied a carnival way off in the distance and found another adventure to add to our journey.