Grateful Dead

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...Road Trips ‘The Wall Of Sound’ minus the Bonus Disc...I play it quit often! Thank you again my friend, I hope your still enjoying those major Europe 72’ shows...love it!
🙏❤️😎

I apologize for the length of this post.. but man.. that storm.

I grew up perhaps an hour hike from Merriweather Post Pavilion.. and after getting harassed by Howard County's finest for hiding beer under my car instead of pouring it out on the curb as instructed at a Jethro Tull show a few months earlier culminating in a thorough and regretful search of my parents car and a loss of a nice pipe and some hash.. I just started walking to shows from that point forward (at least until I moved out of my parents house). I probably saw between a hundred and a hundred fifty shows there over the years.. probably about the same number of times I saw the Grateful Dead. I'm ashamed to admit now.. but I knew how to get in that place for free plus the ticket collectors were mostly people I went to high school with, so taping two stubs together and presenting an amicable grin was usually enough to gain entrance. I did buy tickets for many/most shows, certainly for all the Dead shows.. - never take unnecessary risks.

Some background.. I wouldn't compare this to one of the greatest or best shows, but it was memorable for lots of reasons. My first show was 4/19/82 at the Baltimore Civic Center (perhaps my biggest lysergic GD moment, save that for another day).. I believe I made the Capital Centre shows in the fall that same year but they weren't playing super close in the Spring so we headed South to Hampton and my first GD road trip in April for my one and only birthday show. I think I drove and I am confident we did not tell my folks we were taking the family car to partake in all kinds of shenanigans and see the Dead.. in hindsight, so dishonest. Then it was announced that they would be playing two nights in the summer for the first time at Merriweather Post, my local venue. I couldn't believe it.. That would make this run my fourth and fifth shows.. I was still quite green behind the ears.

I had friends that worked as busboys and room service at the Columbia Inn, where all the bands stayed back then that performed at Merriweather, they told stories of bands partying in the bar, tips they got (or not) and what floors they would put them in, etc.. so the night before, on whim.. we showed up and went to the bar. I could barely drive but with an older brother that looked similar, and the drinking age being 18 at the time, I had an ID and we headed past the lobby to find Phil sitting at a table by himself.. we closed the bar that night and had some passes for the next day... I have to say, he was super nice and not at all an icon or unapproachable. I do recall a few of the stories told, but the memory I left with was that I could not muster up the courage to offer anything intelligent to say and couldn't think of a decent question to ask until I was walking through the parking lot to the car at the end of the night. After a few beers, humor was flying and things seemed fine. Phil seemed happy to have a group to party with. I was so young I couldn't even order a beer correctly.. I asked for a tap beer and she brought me a tab (soda).. so she returned it and brought me a draft Budweiser.

So the next day.. a few of us walked from the neighborhood where we all lived to the show, a bit early.. I had my pass and went backstage and it was so weird.. plus early. I just couldn't handle it. I didn't know anyone except my buddy.. and it was like being in a foreign country. Nobody seemed to want anything to do with us and the band wasn't there yet.. So we decided to split before the show started, inhale a bit in safety and get to our seats, which were pretty close.. I am fairly sure we took some mushrooms too which only made it all the more weird. So the only time I ever had backstage passes, I totally wasted them. ..Perhaps for the best.

I don't think you can talk about the show without talking about the storm. Growing up there.. the only time I recall it raining harder was during Hurricane Agnes in 1972. This is the only time I recall the highway on the way in (Route 29) flooding and being shut down like it did that night. The storm was biblical and it wasn't just rain. It thundered and lightninged for hours that night and I believe lightning hit the lightning rod at the venue or perhaps the shed itself at least once (during He's Gone, Truckin' and perhaps one other time), but that's probably impossible to verify. You can hear it on the tapes though including the PA going in and out several times.

So the performance aside, there was other energy and stimulus going on that night.

The setlist was fairly standard for the day.. my second Peggy-O, second Truckin', second China>Rider. The first set was pretty standard, but things started to get weird by The Music Never Stopped.. I forget exactly when the started and ended and then started again, but I think t had had rained in the first set and the beginning of TMNS, then the sun came out for a bit during this song, then set break.. then big cumulonimbus clouds, then it started getting spooky dark as the setbreak came to an end. ..and then things really got weird. In hindsight, we should have starting building an ark.

The second set started with China>Rider>Sampson>He's Gone>Truckin'>Drums. By the transition in China>Rider, everyone was getting soaked and the rain entered the pavilion area as it was raining sideways. I had to pee as Sampson started and by then people were body sliding down the lawn and everyone was so soaked that it just didn't matter anymore. Soaked to the bone, you couldn't get more wet.. When I got back to our seats, the heavens opened up and the lightning started and it went from weird to downright scary. The people working at the venue sought shelter, anarchy ensued and there was a mad rush from the lawn to the pavilion area. Everyone got squashed and became bug eyed.. and safety became a big concern. We got pushed forward and what row you sat in mattered less than the need to create more room inside, under the shelter. By He's Gone, there became a general feeling of insecurity and helplessness, just as I began to peak. Lightning struck the shed and the power went out.. but the weirdest thing of all, the band was just as freaked as we were, but the they kept playing on. I swear Phil and Jerry were playing power chords in sync with the thunder and lightning. By the time Space ended, we got a rare Bob Star (one of three times played).. during Sugar Magnolia I think Bobby got shocked and put down his guitar and took his mike to a strange part of the stage and started wailing into the mike.

There was no encore and no soundboards exist.

So what to 20k tripping, soaked, disoriented hippies do when the show ends? The deluge had stopped but it continued to rain. There was a tiny creek between the venue and the parking lot, usually a trickle like you see on a water fountain.. it was flooded way over the banks and to make matters worse had washed away the foot bridges, so you really couldn't safely walk to the parking lot, but people managed.. the lawn was so eroded both from the rain but more from people doing mudslides down it that at dawn, they had to bring in heavy machinery and rebuild the lawn as there was another show that next night. After they Dead left.. they really went to town and had to do a total rebuild of the lawn area, changing the contour forever.. lots of heavy machinery. They spent the day off to rebuild it with different contours to the format we have to this day.

When we walked home, still tripping.. we could not go the way we came, it was not passable. So we went an alternate route. Getting over the highway, which was still flooded.. we held hands as the current was strong and waded in waste deep water eventually getting to other side and about an hour later to mom and dads house. Some quick showers, then post show activities until the sun came up then sleep.. only to do it again the next day on a reformatted lawn with straw and new sod. They played Looks Like Rain that next day and you can imagine the crowd reaction.

So back to the show.. Yea.. I sort of remember 6/20/83. It was the weirdest, highest energy GD show I ever saw. Not the best, but certainly one of the most memorable. I saw every GD/JGB show played there but this was perhaps the most fun. Thanks for jarring my memory.

They say the oakwood interior of the cathedral was built in the year 1200, requiring trees that would have been 400 years old, thus sprouting out of the ground in the 8 or 9th centuries. Hard to believe.

Bob t - thanks for the heads up on One From The Vault release date. I could use a change from the E72 binge. I did manage to get in 6/14/76 and 12/26/69 today, both on the Rolling Stone top 20.

Lovemygirl - I don't recall which ones you sold me, I'm thinking Tivoli II, Lille France, and maybe one of the Lyceum shows? Lotta weed in between ;-) I don't remember what I sent you, refresh my memory. My memory is outstanding on everything until I was 25, and then past 3 weeks. But everything in between is shit.

Holy Smokes.. yes, I was there. It was biblical, as much or more from the storm then from the music.. but it all combined for a complete sensory overload.

I wrote something on this a couple times over the years.. but I think I was too shy to share details, or perhaps too lazy to try and remember it all and it put to paper.

Just getting home, if I have some time once I get settled I will try and put my arms around it..

Such sad news.

Not just an architectural marvel, but one of the most important structures in the history of mankind.

My deepest sympathies to the people of France.

I too just got my notice that the CD issue of the Warfield performances will be in my grubby paws in a few weeks...I tried at first on a couple of record shop websites that do online ordering of what is left of the merchandise on Sunday but no luck...I went to Amazon and Bingo! i feel like I won the jackpot considering how many copies are on Ebay for over a $100 a pop...can't wait...meant to say that the nearest record shop to me is over three hours away...at least it's all downhill but still...

Did anyone just see the post on facebook from the Dead about this. Released 4/15/91, 28 years ago..... This changed everything if you were trading tapes back then!!! Everyone had this show, either FM, or the bootleg called Make Believe BallRoom.. But now we had a legit release!! It really did change everything... It took away i have 1000 hours of tapes and only want to deal with someone who had the same amount and started to level the field..... Sorry to rant but I was in that era... bob t

Edit my first copy of this were two cassettes!!! Didn't get the CD's because wasn't a fan yet!!!

Hopefully no lives were lost or people injured-doesn't seem to be much in the news about that. The only thing I could find was that one firefighter had been burned. Pretty remarkable.

like we have a false prophet among us.

...first I’d like to make a statement about the horror in Paris today, a sad day in my soul, so much lost turning to dust & rubble, my prayers are with Paris’, May the songs of old play on in heart & soul. 🙏❤️😢
...Trainwreck, you asked me about my last post and by what I mean by “treasure trove” is a new batch of tapes have been recently found. 😉 I’ll share more info when I can. ‘Exciting News For Me’, I love new and unheard recordings of all bands, the Grateful Dead more so now in my life than my past with the likes of ‘Elvis’ & ‘Beatles’ Records lol ...Plus Some confirmed dates for new Dead releases/product...😌
...Keithfan, hope all is well as always. What three shows did I send you from the ‘Europe 72’ boxset, i can’t remember, but I do remember them being Primo Shows ! 😎 and the Primo Show you sent me, love it! 🙏❤️😎
Off to dinner, have a grateful evening everyone...