Jack-a-Roe
El Paso
Candyman
Little Red Rooster
Loser
Cassidy
Althea
Let it Grow
Deal
Lost Sailor
Saint of Circumstance
Scarlet Begonias
Fire on the Mountain
Playin' in the Band
drums
Good Time Blues
Morning Dew
Playin' in the Band
Around and Around
Johnny B. Goode
U.S. Blues
dead comment
THIS WAS THEIR FIRST SHOW IN
vegas show
Vegas Too Much Fun
A bazillion degrees
dead heads all over the the
Dead at the Aladdin
Fully just as weird as one can imagine. You gotta remember that in 1981, there was plenty of Fifties-Sixties style society still around. Pus this was before the big expansion and rebranding of Vegas, so most of the Strip was just a tad shabby. Usually shows were self-contained, but this Aladdin Theatre was built onto the Aladdin Hotel and Casino, so we entered and exited from the Casino.
A couple strong memories. The casino waitresses were either too young or too old-- at the beginning or end of their working lives. They had a uniform look of sadness. I felt sorry for them. And Deadheads didn't make it much easier, but I hoped they saw the humor in what was going on. It was pretty much an invasion. Freaky people trippin, skipping, singing and real-life Straights slack-jawed and aghast at the sight! I was glad that I got my Us vs Them moment, 15 years after Death of Hippie. Meanwhile, casino customers were older and dressed up. I guess there were still some cultural holdouts like Casinos where Polite Society still held sway, like the way air travel was 20 or 30 years before. People dressed for it.
Funniest thing: there was a paging system for messages, but it was much more than paging band members as other commenters said. People were paging characters from Dead songs: "Jack Straw, please pick up the courtesy phone. Jack Straw..." etc etc. So funny! And the band members were kinda around! I heard a few people talking about running into them. So I 'm walking down a casino wing and ahead of me is one of those small bars built into the wall, maybe 6 feet deep, with just enough room for a bartender to duck under a half door and serve customers sitting on 4 or 5 barstools. Two stools are occupied by Bobby and Billy, having a good' ol time, laughing and jiving like they weren't about to play to 7500 people. While I could see them, for that 60 seconds, no one disturbed them.
I always felt sorry for younger Heads who only knew Sam Boyd Stadium as the Vegas tour stop. That Aladdin show was a true cultural throwback and one of my most cherished memories of the Dead. Now, how do I upload my poster?
Fully just as weird as one can imagine. You gotta remember that in 1981, there was plenty of Fifties-Sixties style society still around. Pus this was before the big expansion and rebranding of Vegas, so most of the Strip was just a tad shabby. Usually shows were self-contained, but this Aladdin Theatre was built onto the Aladdin Hotel and Casino, so we entered and exited from the Casino.
A couple strong memories. The casino waitresses were either too young or too old-- at the beginning or end of their working lives. They had a uniform look of sadness. I felt sorry for them. And Deadheads didn't make it much easier, but I hoped they saw the humor in what was going on. It was pretty much an invasion. Freaky people trippin, skipping, singing and real-life Straights slack-jawed and aghast at the sight! I was glad that I got my Us vs Them moment, 15 years after Death of Hippie. Meanwhile, casino customers were older and dressed up. I guess there were still some cultural holdouts like Casinos where Polite Society still held sway, like the way air travel was 20 or 30 years before. People dressed for it.
Funniest thing: there was a paging system for messages, but it was much more than paging band members as other commenters said. People were paging characters from Dead songs: "Jack Straw, please pick up the courtesy phone. Jack Straw..." etc etc. So funny! And the band members were kinda around! I heard a few people talking about running into them. So I 'm walking down a casino wing and ahead of me is one of those small bars built into the wall, maybe 6 feet deep, with just enough room for a bartender to duck under a half door and serve customers sitting on 4 or 5 barstools. Two stools are occupied by Bobby and Billy, having a good' ol time, laughing and jiving like they weren't about to play to 7500 people. While I could see them, for that 60 seconds, no one disturbed them.
I always felt sorry for younger Heads who only knew Sam Boyd Stadium as the Vegas tour stop. That Aladdin show was a true cultural throwback and one of my most cherished memories of the Dead. Now, how do I upload my poster?