New Minglewood Blues
Row Jimmy
Big River
Loser
Looks Like Rain
They Love Each Other
Music Never Stopped
Scarlet Begonias
Help on the Way
Slipknot!
Franklin's Tower
Dancin' in the Streets
The Wheel
Samson and Delilah
It Must Have Been the Roses
Not Fade Away
drums
The Other One
Ship of Fools
Sugar Magnolia
Johnny B. Goode
dead comment
1st show 8-4-76
1st show 8-4-76
Now it makes sense!
I recall fireworks, but
first show
Another Roosevelt Night
Worst show
Jersey City Crumbling
1st Show
first show
Mr. Chips!!!
only dead show
First Dead Show.
NO Memory
Fireworks
Roosevelt Stadium
2nd show
roosevelt stadium
Wharf Rat meting section
RS Dead show 76
Reschedule
The monkeys name was mr.
I went to my first Jerry
My first show
Mr. Jiggs simian extraordinaire
This was my 3rd show
August 4 1976 Sugaree playing as walking in........
Was this show rescheduled from 7/2/1976.
My ticket stub says July 02 1976. The show was at the old Roosevelt Stadium in Union City N.J.
First Time On the Bus
I went to my first Jerry Garcia concert on 10/24/75. The Dead weren't touring then and when I bought tickets to hear Jerry again on 4/1/76, rumors were circulating that perhaps this was to be a Grateful Dead show. It turned out that Keith and Donna played on that date, but the rest of the band was hanging at home.
But in June, the Dead began to tour and I bought tickets for the July 2nd show at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, NJ. I'd been to the stadium before. It was an old, broken down piece of concrete that held maybe 30,000 or so people. Being as the show was scheduled for just two days before the big Bi-Centennial celebration, I figured this would be one for the ages. It would also be my first Grateful Dead show.
But as luck would have it, it rained on Friday, July 2nd and instead of taking place the following night, as the ticket promised the show was postponed until August 4th.
All good things come to those who wait though.
On August 4th, with the sun just starting to set behind the stage, the Dead came out and launched into Sugaree. There's a great video of this song that circulates and I can tell you that everyone was as happy to be at this long-awaited show, as the few folks on screen appear to be. I remember literally laughing out loud when the show started I was so excited to be there.
Big River (which has never been a favorite of mine) was especially good, as was The Music Never Stopped. And I was really pumped to hear the band end the first set with Scarlet Begonias.
At the Intermission, I hung out in the field area with a couple of heads I'd met, going over the first set. We had agreed that it had been much better than we'd expected when we were interrupted by a lot of noise coming from the stage. A magician/juggling act was up there, blowing folks away. Fireworks were to follow too, as this had originally been planned as the Bi-Centennial show.
The second set opened with Help On The Way > Slipknot! > Franklin's Tower > Dancing In The Street > The Wheel > Samson And Delilah. I was right down front for all of it and recall being completely overwhelmed at hearing The Wheel. It was the one song I'd wanted to hear the most when I arrived that night. The singing was particularly good and I had to admit that Donna more than held her own.
I went back to where my group of friends was sitting in the stands for the rest of the show. The guy sitting next to me (an old childhood friend) tossed a couple joints to people in front of us as the band started playing Sugar Magnolia. That was his favorite tune and they wailed on it for over eleven minutes! We got a Johnny B. Goode encore and the show was over.
What struck me the most about the whole night was that I'd tapped into a community of strangers who were as passionate about something as I'd ever seen. Yeah, the Dead were a great rock 'n roll band, but there was something else going on and I wanted to find out what it was. I was on the bus and it was heading out of town, with me on board.