Grateful Dead

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This was a hometown show for me at the time cause we were staying at a house in Ben Lomond.Dougles

Drove up with beautiful Stacy from CSUF. Was an excellent weekend :) Great show. I took some 35mm slides, they came out great. Very colorful. I remember the fairgrounds were right next to a cemetery. Hi Stacy; if you read this, I'd love to hear from you.

I remember the whole band wearing sunglasses in the second set,because the sun was setting directly behind the audience.

...were among the many memories of this show. Remember only 1 or 2 ticket sales locations, long lines wih many upset heads, many of whom who crashed a few fences/barriers, and little staff knowledgable to deals with the throng.

Dosed as we drove in the lot, remember warm, sunny day with peakin' comin' fast... yet no way in. Heck when we finally got in the place(2nd to last song of the 1st set), the place was barely 1/2 full, stands to the rear and right were full, GA "floor" was wide open, a true rarity at any dead show.

Even remember having to pass long concession lines and latrines before the break into the concert area. Lots of dancing, sunglasses, and wind. Remember sneakin' "backstage via a natural building corner break with a fence heavily entwined with vines... watching within 6 feet Linda Ellerbee of all CBS fame interview Mickey, then Jerry after the show(taped it yet one of my first...miserable quality), then joined in on the bar-be-que and coped a few autographs from Brent, Phil, and Bill.

The final score was collecting two(2) of the bright yellow "STAFF" shirts that had a wonderful skeleton at the beach motif with beach umbrella, play pail/toys, and inflatibles to complete the scene up against a fenced dune background. Jus wish I was smaller to fit into it today - Still have it !! Ahhhhh, let the good times roll.... Geoff "one way or another".... and "you need to be kissed often, and by a man who knows how"- Rhett to Scarlet - Gone with the Wind The Big Dog Dad - Schultzie

...then bam, some cat in a BMW drives up and offers me a ticket. Doubt that 5 bucks was put to good use by him, but my good times cranked up a notch or two as I walked in on TLEO. Small outdoor venue was a plus. I recall wandering around after the 2nd set for a while without being rushed out. Then the band came out for that Funiculi-Saturday Night oncore - a treat for the aimless!

Santa Cruz has an annual car show called Beach Street and in '83 it was the same night as the Dead show. However, the car show was by the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz (City of) and the Dead show was at the County Fairgrounds in Watsonville, roughly twenty miles away. There was drunken rowdiness at the car show and the newspaper, car show promoter and police all blamed the concert for the drunken rowdiness at the car show. Even though the rowdiness was taking place twenty miles away WHILE the band was playing. That is power and influence like you can't believe! Santa Cruz Sentinel, 9/25/83 if you think I'm lying.

I believe the boys wanted to do a free concert on the UC Santa Cruz campus and they were prevented. I've heard that that is why they didn't play that town too often. Once when JGB played SCruz Civic some of us used fake tickets to get in. Later I watched BillG. examining each stub and bawling out the ticket taker when he discovered our crime. I almost felt bad for the worker. I was always amazed to see the lengths that BillG. would go to to thwart ANY scam, regardless.

art saysAs we were driving to the show,we saw many people pulling over and parking,so we did the same.It turns out we were about five miles away (or so it seemed).We marched ahead,for a long time,passed a graveyard (!) on the way,and arrived two or three songs into the show.When Bobby sang It Looks Like Rain,his voice seemed break with emotion (or maybe it was phleghm) at just the right moments,adding so much feeling to the song.Between that and Jerry's inspired playing,I was very moved.I looked over at my friend,and she had tears just rolling down her face! Her man gently consoled her,and I felt a little closer to humanity for a while.A truly spiritual moment that I'll never forget. I had noticed the presence of the Santa Cruz County Fire Department and their big shiny red trucks.The men stood still and stoic as they helped to "protect" us from all manner of harm.I was amused by their rather stiff countenence.During the best "China Cat/ Rider" I had ever heard opened the second set, I looked over at the firemen,and to my joyfull amazement,some of them had rolled up their sleeves and were dancing with abandon to the Deads awsome jam. I spent the long walk back to the car in silence,in awe of the experience I had at this show.

Good place for a show...good show from what I remember. In the parking lot after the show two giant monster trucks met for some kind of hellish, macho death match. I'm talkin' those giant trucks with tires the size of a VW. They locked front bumpers and floored it...trying to push the other one back. Tires were screeching in the dirt and dust was flying everywhere. It was actually pretty dangerous in a crowded lot if one lost control cause--like I said--they had it floored. Some mellow hippie came by and remarked, "They must be from San Bernadino or something." I thought that was funny. Not sure why.

Wonderful show and life space...living the California Dream...driving our VW bus up the coast from Monterey...The Dead in our backyard....Too cool and hassle free for us...Last Deep Elem..loved Mexacali, Man Smart. First time hearing Throwing Stones and Day Job. Saw Linda Ellerbee's crew come by filming the show for a TV piece that I later caught on TV about how The Dead were alive and kicking under the radar of the Ray-gun's years...They played my favorite songs and I was joyous...easy to slip and let my memory drift and do nothing at all..did it really exist at all....

As a student at UC Santa Cruz, there were many Deadheads around and I was adopted into the family. After the Greek shows in May, Ventura in July, Frost in August, this local show was a dream come true. I walked to the box office to purchase my tickets. We drove in to the 'parking area' about a half hour before show time and walked around the crowd to the Brent side of the arena. The place was dancin' and spacin' and trippin' and all that kind of Deadhead thing.After the encore we thought we'd walk across the arena in front of the stage, when to our amazement the boys returned for a second encore of One More Saturday Night. Truly an epic show. Space > Uncle John's Band ! I was truly on the Bus The Sky was Yellow, and The Sun Was Blue People stopping strangers just to shake their hand.

My nephew Nicky drowned at this show, changing my life forever. I am writing a book and looking for anyone who has a bootleg from this show. Particularly looking for sound bites between sets and band makes announcements with Nicky's discription. I didn't get to see the show that day, I was too busy asking everyone if they had seeing a little boy about knee high...sorry, but I have an amazing life story and this was part of it. I watched seven white swans land and take off with Nicky's soul, at the time I had no Idea he was in the pond.