Grateful Dead

dead.net the official site

John

Holy cow, I've been a Deadhead for 20 years!

My buddy and I went up to this show in his late 70's Pinto. We brought 6 boxes of whippets along with the usual fair and ran into someone in the show that had another miracle of sorts for us both. We left for the show as soon as I got off from work, which was about 3 hours away, and when we got to the Rectum there were literally NO FUCKING PARKING PLACES in the God forsaken lot. We pulled up on one of the "mounds" that separate the street/sidewalks from the lot, by the subway entrance by South Broad St (I think), and ran into the show not knowing if we'd have a car to drive home in, when it was over. When the crazy ass show was over, the parking lot was the biggest fricken' party I have ever seen, before or since. There were literally 3,000 dosed folks that simultaneously decided to make our way through the dark night, right there in the Rectum parking lot, in down town Philly! We ran into a beautiful young lawyer from NY that had missed the last train to the city and invited her to have some burgers on the Hibachi, which had just gotten to a beautiful glowing amber under pure white ash. We turned on many folks to whippets and burgers that tried to pay us, each time we refused, just as had been done for me with so many items of the freakdom life and basic human survival at shows I had been to. Everyone did chip in some item of necessity like one guy named Chicken Neck who went into the black of the Philly night and found a 7-11 and brought back coffee, cup cakes and smokes! We all attempted at least, to pass the torch as we thought (even then) that our way in life was soon to be short lived. There were a few moments of trouble when the darkness got the better of a few heads that passed our little hill but we held our ground and protected the possessions and persons of those camped with us, that had fallen into the bliss of sleep. That little hill became like a mountain, covered in a canopy of trees and foliage, intertwined with humans like campers in the hills that were actually many miles away. My buddy had a great sound system in that little Pinto and I had some killer bootlegs of Dead and Jerry shows. One show that stopped time was the 1980 Lisner Auditorium show when Jerry played the instrumental version of "Eleanor Rigby". Our little hill had morphed into a psychedelic version of a platoon in some far off land where our presence was known but we somehow staved off attack. At one point, a Philly police van cruised by and surveyed the situation. After a few moments and viewing a fellow head using a concrete curb as a pillow, they simply shook their heads and drove off, into the twilight of day break. What an incredible experience! We helped our NY friend to the station and waved good bye forever, knowing we would never see each other again but also knowing we would never forget each other, the rest of our lives. Thanks GD for everything! It has truly been a Grateful Life... "We must become ourselves, before someone else does..."

Great "Let It Grow" and "Half-Step". Wish this was available as a soundboard!

But probably the least inspired of the 8 nights I saw on this tour.

:o)