ALL THAT  WENT DOWN

Bryan E. Smith

Copyright 2007 by the author

The following is a composite account of a Grateful Dead concert compiled from my personal experience. As far as I know, the show itself never took place, although everything described did happen at some point.

The closer we got to the venue, the more vehicles we would see on the highway that obviously had the same destination as ours. One after one, bumpers and windows with stickers that were a Dead giveaway as to what that car’s occupants were going to be doing that night. There was usually a logjam at the exit that lead to the amphitheatre, and stray Heads would be walking outside of cars, dressed in summer attire. Invariably, we would start seeing people with a single index finger raised in the air, as those who were without a ticket searched for their miracle. And you gotta know that a lot of them needed one everyday.

The route to the show started becoming more and more heavily populated with tie-dyes and tour shirts until we would finally see the marquee with the words we had been waiting a year to read: 

GRATEFUL DEAD

TONIGHT

6:30 PM


As we steered into the lot, some of the pedestrians got a little flagrant and would walk up to our car window before we even parked.

“Doses . . . doses . . . “

Sometimes we bought them right then and there, too.

The humidity of July and August only added to the heavy sensation that hung in the air. With thousands of people anticipating a mind-blowing experience, dosed or not, everyone was starting to catch a contact high, and the butterflies in my stomach would start flitting about. The mood in the parking lot was excited, but loose, as people popped cold beers and started lighting bowls, joints, and the occasional bong that could be seen passed around fold-out tables inside VW buses. Looking around, we could see Heads reuniting with hugs and hollers. Hot dogs, bratwursts, burgers, and chicken sizzled on little Smokey Joe grills that had been brought by the those who had the presence of mind, as well as the energy to do so, to include provisions that enabled them to enjoy the night on a full stomach without shelling out the cost for food bought at the snack bar. Dogs of the four-legged variety darted back and forth, some on leashes, some running loose, most being called by names like Samson or Jed or Althea or Delilah. And every step toward the front gate was accompanied by the absolutely unmistakable sound of Jerry's guitar wafting through  the air as people prepped for the evening with an anticipatory listen to the best selections in their cassette cases.
 
Almost everywhere, vendors had their wares lain on small blankets and ornate cloths placed on the ground in front of their vehicles. Some mavericks walked about with cold beers for sale, domestics for two dollars, imports for three. T-shirt hawkers diligently tried to unload silk-screened images of a hallucinogenically enlightened Calvin & Hobbes or the Cat in the Hat, not to mention little dreadlocked Loose Lucy from Peanuts. If the mood hit, we might actually make our way to browse the Shakedown, the main bazaar in the lot, where scores were encamped with collapsible awnings erected to construct improvised boutiques, allowing them a comfortable base of operations to carry out their version of the free enterprise system, all of it forming a makeshift mall, your one-stop shop for alternative lifestyle merchandise and hippie bric-a-brac of every kind: skirts and dresses, more t-shirts, jewelry, exotic drums, pipes and bongs, framed 8x10’s of the band, as well as a varied menu of hot food items, including veggie burritos and their infamously enigmatic ingredients. Here and there, more shadowy transactions of an illicit nature transpired, as well.

More stuff, more miracle seekers. I overhear a girl asking if anyone has a ticket for sale. I tell her that I just saw a guy trying to sell one a few yards back. “How much is he asking?” she inquires. I tell her, “Gate price, I think.”  “Too much,” she says. “I still have to make it to the Greeks.” We get a few feet away, and one of my friends asks, “What did she say?” I tell her, “She needs to save her money so she can make it to the Greek Theater shows in Berkeley, California.” Grateful Dead spoken here.

And then, the strangest thing. I walk by one of those guys who looks like he’s been on tour since Nixon was in office-really, really long hair and beard, an insane tie-dye, pupils that have been dilated so many times that there really wasn’t much left of his irises at all, and an unabashed smile fixed permanently on pretty much the entire lower half of his face-and I hear him say, almost completely under his breath while he’s walking through the crowd, “Free tickets.” I keep marching forward to the gate, but I do a double-take at the guy over my shoulder, and he’s looking right at me, as if to say, “That’s right, brother, you heard me.” And I could swear he’s got one hand clutched right up to his side, holding in his fist what looks to be maybe a couple hundred of, what I assume to be, free tickets. I think to myself, “Only at a Dead show. Only here would the band actually send someone out with freebies before the show, because they know there are so many out here in front who need those tickets. It’s just the right thing for them to do, to try to help some people out.” But the guy has to make sure he meanders through the lot with great stealth and reserve so as not to bring too much attention to himself, or else he could cause a riot. What a kick in the ass, though. It’s like the Dead have their own little Special Ops dude pulling off some kindly undercover work. And then I look for the girl who was headed to the Greeks, but she’s long gone.  

More and more and more people as we got closer to the gate, until finally a closely massed throng of hundreds, slowly inching its way through the security checkpoint. Patience was key at this point, as bodies began to push nearer and nearer together, possibly triggering any claustrophobic tendencies among the horde.

We were then treated to a quick once-over by a straight-looking hourly wage worker who couldn’t care less that we were there for the transcendental experience of a lifetime, something which could very well take place that evening. It made no difference to them whether they were conducting a cursory frisk of Dead Heads or John Tesh fans. Having taken some opportunity between our parking spot and the gate to cram my stash into my underwear, because they at least had the respect to refrain from searching there, I would step gingerly through, wait for my compadres to get tickled, then advance much more quickly to those who are waiting to tear our tickets. Once that part of the entry process was done, I would step away from any disapproving eyes that could yet be on the lookout for contraband, pull that stuff out of my crotch, put in my pocket, and breathe a huge sigh of relief because finally, at long last, we were at the show!

Finding a spot on the grass to call home for the next few hours was usually fairly easy since I was never one of those stragglers who waited for the last minute and then some to make my way into the amphitheater. There were those times when I was able to afford a more expensive reserved location within the pavilion, but they were seldom, and those tickets often sold out too quickly for me to grab one anyway. Unless you were within the first ten or twenty rows, it really didn’t make that much difference, especially after all of those places installed giant videotrons so those of us in the cheap seats could get a better view of the action. 

So, we'd spread our blanket, kick off our sandals, stretch and relax, take note of the pre-show music that was being piped out of the PA-it might have been The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley, Weather Report, Merle Haggard, or whatever. I'd peek around at the scores of boom mikes that tapers had planted, light a cigarette, fill a bowl for the opening song, check out what Ramrod or Big Steve were up to, take note, as well, of those beautiful Persian rugs that were stretched across the stage floor, look in awe at the complexity of the percussion racks, and try to have a few minutes of rest after a day of driving.
 
An added treat might be the surprise of spying a friend from school, possibly even a first-timer whose curiosity about the Dead had been sparked by months, or even years of listening to me and other Heads going on and on and on . . . "I knew you'd be here!" they would tell me, to which I would usually reply, "I knew I'd be here, too! Glad to see you could finally make it." Dead shows had a family reunion kind of quality to them, except you didn't have to make small talk with that crazy uncle who's got a metal plate in his head. I'd wish them a good show and find my way back to the blanket while random hoots and howls from the audience started becoming more frequent. The quippies would make final preparations for the band's entrance, and those butterflies in my stomach would become increasingly more frantic. 

It wouldn't be long now.

At about the same time that I might have felt the urge to check my watch, had I actually worn one, the pre-show music would be snuffed out, sometimes abruptly at that. That was the cue for the entire audience to erupt in jubilant noise.


Weir, the most athletic of The Grateful Dead (Mickey was a close second in that regard, if not his equal), jogs out from somewhere behind the stage amps, his guitar strapped on and ready to go. The drummers take position and start hammering away to warm up. Brent sits down to face his keys, and Phil makes his way stage right, all greeted with thousands of ecstatic cheers and ear-to-ear grins. The din bumps up to a completely different level as a smiling Jerry appears, only a couple of steps behind his co-workers, and he gives a wave hello to us with that stunted right hand. 

I'm back in the audience, and the band is back on stage. All is right with the world. 

A little bit of tuning, a few stray musical phrases here and there from the song chosen to get things started. Once the group mind becomes focused, Jerry takes stock, making eye contact with each of his bandmates as he strums the tempo for the opener: chunka-chunk, chunka-chunk, chunka-chunk.

Chunka-chunk. Chunka-----

Chunka-

He tacitly nods a “One. Two. One-two-three-”

Ba-da da-bomp----the good times start rolling. The song’s groove is tight from the jump. Even though the sun is still shining brightly from the western corner of the sky, Candace’s lighting design is already visible, that familiar shade of purplish red as welcome to my eyes as the music is to my ears. I light the bowl that I prepared earlier in order to foster a bit of introspection. And that happy blues shuffle gets my bones shakin’ instantly.

Jerry takes a step closer to his microphone and glances at Bob and Phil, then at Brent, with an unspoken cue of, “Ready? All together now---”

“Get in the groove and let the good times roll
We’re gonna stay here and let it soothe our soul
If it takes all night long”

Leave it to The Grateful Dead to pull a Sam Cooke number out of the rock-n-roll scrapbook and make it their own. And I make the mental note that this could very well be the best of all opening songs. I then correct myself by thinking it’s merely the best opening song for right here and now, but keep in mind that no other band with the same level of reputation as the Dead would choose to start things off for the night with something this laid-back, yet this much of a bellwether for what wonderful things lay in store for the next three-and-a-half hours.

Three verses, one each for Brent, then Bob, and ultimately Jerry. We meet his first lead vocal of the night with a swell of support. The song arrives at an a capella final cadence, followed immediately by a tempo count by Weir, and the band turns on a dime into Feel Like A Stranger. “Let’s get on with show!” The song serves as an early evening showcase for trademark Grateful Dead fusion. It gets them warm, but more importantly, hints that tonight will be hot.     

The band is in good spirits, and each song shows it. Darlin’ Sugaree, a story of regret and misgiving, is told with acute and upbeat soloing from Jerry, triads and triplets proliferating from his fingers and frets abundantly, playing off the rhythm section’s beat in double- and triple-time. Some knotty mathematics going on here. 

Tales of the old west, outlaws and six-guns, blood in the sand, drinking, gambling, and deceit-Me & My Uncle into Mexicali Blues. The dice get rolled and the whiskey is passed around because the Candyman’s in town. Weir paints a Dylan Masterpiece. 

In between each song, a breather. The Grateful Dead played whatever they wanted to play, whenever they wanted to play it. Loosely translated, that referred as much as anything to their notorious tuning breaks. They wouldn’t start into a song until they were good and ready to do so. Some shows were interspersed with pauses between numbers big enough to drive a Mack truck through them. Other times, their momentum had greater immediacy, and the presentation had a flow to it that was much more conventional, keeping closer to the standard of mainstream rock and roll concerts. Tonight falls somewhere in between, with breaks that are not too fast and not too slow. Which is probably what’s best for my state of mind, as the effects of the LSD have become increasingly more noticeable. It makes me antsy in between songs as I anxiously await the music to continue, the anticipation intensifying the payoff that each tune provides.

So, now that the doses are doing their number on the minds of the throng, what number will the band do? The timing could not be more perfect for Bird Song. As far as Grateful Dead concerts are concerned, this is where the rubber meets the road. The band has got their chops working now to the point where they can allow the music to start leading the band. We become enveloped by the sound, and the players seem to be equally entranced. There is no perceivable down beat, no one, measures are a mirage untethered by form, with only the barest suggestion of a tonic key. Comprehension of just how in the world they are able to make this happen is the challenge of the moment, as the music surpasses conformist limitations of any kind.
 

A parade of white clouds ambles overhead, casting animated shadows that appear to be choreographed with every note the band is playing. My skin tingles. People and things start glowing effervescently. This tune, so sweet, begins lifting my inner spirit above the crowd where it joins with a thousand other spirits in a dance that is part free-form, part ritual, but fully released from the confines of the mundane. I have been freed from the day-to-day suppressions and repressions of tedium by this elixir of resonance, if only for a little while. Something deeply mystical is happening in this place, and it starts to seem as if this is a world unto itself, that our very presence in this time and space is now wholly transformed beyond what we normally accept as being all there is.


Don’t cry now
Don’t you cry,
Don’t you cry . . . anymore

The Dead are still on the clock, though, just being their well-oiled-machine selves. Somebody has to work here so the rest of us can play. Lucky for them, though, their work is their play.

The final notes of Bird Song float away like petals falling delicately to the ground after the bloom has fulfilled its role within the cycle. Its melancholy conclusion is overlapped by a manifestly funkier descension of something distinctively bluesy from Bobby. Throughout the set, the massive accumulation of people has grown increasingly dense as more and more of them have made their way into the audience. Its population crested now, the entire crowd starts bobbing and weaving precisely on cue, while the song gels perfectly.

There’s mosquitoes on the river

I holler with boundless delight. They’re a band beyond description, and they’re about to prove it.

And so they do. Part gospel deposition, part folk parable, and part gutsy, greasy rock and roll, The Music Never Stopped hits the mark on every level. Weir retreats from the mike upon singing the title verse and they lilt into a gentle waltz. The notes from Jerry’s guitar begin a ballet of their own, dancing limitlessly, scales sailing in three quarter time. The music becomes a tilt-a-whirl of centrifugal rhythm and melody, until finally--- 

That bluesy beat from Bobby is back. Didn’t somebody say once how rock and roll music’s got a backbeat, you can’t lose it? Well, here it is, in all its glory. If you wanted something staid and reserved, you came to the wrong place, mister.

Grandiose finish to the song. Bill and Mickey roll over every drum head and cymbal within a five-mile radius. Brent’s hands drag back and forth across eighty-eight black and white ones. Bob and Phil face off in a showdown to see who can wear out a set of strings quicker, while Jerry strums maniacally, aping the noisiest garage band in the universe. He connects with the rest of the band, lifts his chin with an arch of his brow, points his guitar up and chops it straight back down with authority.

“We’ll be back in just a little bit,” said Bob.

No chink in the armor tonight. The Grateful Dead distinguish themselves yet again as the one to beat, the perennial blue ribbon winner.

The sun has met the horizon and the house lights come on. Wow. Good set.

Man, Jerry just sounded so good on Sugaree. I mean, God, like, he was just so ready to do that song.

Yeah, I know. What about, like, right there at the end of Masterpiece, and he and Bobby are doing, that, kinda like, Grand Ole Opry kinda thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.        

And what the hell was up with that dude who climbed up and ran across the stage? 

You could actually read the expression on his face when it dawned on him what he’d gotten himself into:

“Hey, hey, hey, I’m on stage with the Dead!”

“I’m on stage with the Dead.”

“What the fuck am I doing up here?”

By the time he ran past Jerry, Parrish was all over him like a bad suit and gave the damned fool the bum’s rush right off the back of the stage. And during the first song, too. What a waste of a ticket. People could do the weirdest stuff possible at Dead shows.

A visit to the facilities, a hearty laugh at some of the silly shit that a couple of fucked-up Dead Heads in the bathroom are saying to each other, another bowl when I return to the blanket in order to quell the rushes of the acid, and another cigarette just for good measure. The PA plays a Fleetwood Mac song I haven’t heard in a long time.  

Time passes. The sky is really black now.

Look: the spiral light of Venus, rising first and shining best.
 
Maybe the band has forgotten about us. They’ve never done that before, but you never know. Is it just me or have the speakers been silent for more than a couple of minutes? No, it’s not just me because the natives are getting restless. 

False alarm. Another intermission song starts. Well, they’re bound to come out eventually. And just as soon as I’m able to form that coherent thought-BOOM! Total darkness, the house tape is cut off mid-song, and the crowd roars with approval. Trails and tracers that echo the light spin in front of my bright, bugging eyeballs. It’s time for the second set.

The band members populate the stage and the audience noise trickles down to a few howls and requests being shouted out. Take it easy, man-chances are they won’t be playing Doin’ That Rag tonight, but I can appreciate your enthusiasm.
 
As it was at the beginning of the show, Jerry strums a tempo. Everyone is on the same page now. The drummers roll a down beat, and the rest of the band joins as one. Scarlet Begonias kicks things off sounding identical to the Mars Hotel version, as opposed to the band working into the song, bar by bar. This is gonna be great!

“Once in a while you can get shown the light
In the strangest of places if you look at it right”

It’s one of those Hunter lines that never fails to please each and every soul in attendance.

The solo in Scarlet builds to a perfect climax. The visual element of the show is in total sync with the music. The stage is awash in the same color as the flowers in the song, and the wind in the willows plays Tea For Two just as separate spotlight beams land on each of the singers harmonizing the final verse. While a pleasant, cool breeze sails through the lawn area, everybody's playing in the Heart of Gold Band.
 
Garcia hits the Scarlet coda with precise deliberation, a trippy tango that has me hypnotized. This is my favorite part of a Grateful Dead concert. No map exists for the highway they travel next, but the music is bright, shining light on the road ahead. Notes chase each other through peaks and valleys.  Dancers on the hill twirl in a joyful trance as patterns and shapes of a thousand colors swirl around the stage as well. Much of what I am seeing isn't actually there, is it? Intricacies cut with jigsaws and wire bent in curves with an inexact radius calculated by an even more complex geometry that is gauged by the music itself.

Wow. I haven't tripped like this in years.     

Jerry dabbles with a variety of effects through the jam, calling up a flute sound for a while, switching then to a more synthetic, digitalized air, accented by hints of metal feedback, eventually settling on the signature Garcia wah to hearken Fire On The Mountain's introduction. Piece by piece, the different elements of the song coalesce: the audience welcomes Phil's bass line like it is an old friend that has been eagerly expected to arrive at any moment; then, the drummers create something that is part reggae and part rock and roll; and finally, Garcia wrenches his part of the intro out of his guitar, strumming the chord and fingering the lead with a precision that, in less capable hands, might only be achieved in a studio setting. With overdubs, no less.   

Jerry delivers the lyrics with passion and commitment, Fire sets the night air ablaze, and the Scarlet coda returns. It’s one of those tricks the Dead would pull off as part of their registered trademark style of doing what they did, which was to play through a small eternity’s worth of music, then bring the audience back to a much earlier established musical and/or lyrical theme, astounding us with what an incredible psychological journey they could provide. It’s great to go places, but it’s always nice to come back home, too.

And just as one journey finishes, another begins, because Playin’ In The Band will surely go places heretofore unknown. But not before the song itself causes me to take note of how every song is a classic. I struggle to come up with a less hackneyed way of expressing it to myself, but the point remains the same. These songs come from such a long-established heritage of imagery and lore, and when I hear “When it’s done and over, a man is just a man,” the words ring like a clarion of pure and simple truth. 

The long interlude after Playin’ gets a little scary at times. Jerry’s fascination with finding scales that are not on the beaten path of other guitarists could be unsettling in its beautiful dissonance. Garcia's legacy as a guitarist who developed a style that was fiercely unique is a major component of The Grateful Dead’s big picture. Something else, though, that can never be overstated, is that he had STAGE PRESENCE, with capital letters, an almost indefinable quality, but he had it to be sure, just as much as Brando, or Elvis, or James Dean had it. Cliché though it might be, Jerry was nothing short of an icon.

The Grateful Dead were about as far removed from showbiz conventions as a Big Mac is from fine dining, but they walked a very thin ironic line, too, in that their shows would not have worked as extraordinarily successfully as they did if the Dead didn’t have the same innate sense of the spectacular that everyone from P.T. Barnum to Frank Zappa had. If nothing else, the Dead could deliver the goods. The package they served up was theirs and theirs alone, and they knew how to make it work. And even though there was that whole band+audience+whatever-the-music-itself-wanted-to-do gestalt providing a unique element that was impossible to harness, on the nights when they got their mojo working, and the cogs of the wheel turned without hitching, a Grateful Dead concert could be just as slick and just as polished as anything one can find from the Las Vegas strip to the bright lights of Broadway.

And Playin’ In The Band has the potential to go just about anywhere in between. Tonight, the jam slows after its considerable mileage, and the strange, incalculable directions it takes ultimately end up at the destination of He’s Gone. Jerry voice is almost mournful. 

I get a tad judgmental of the crowd, because while Grateful Dead music itself had a predictable unpredictability, many of the people in the audience could be a little too predictable, and I never saw any logical reason for them, just like clockwork, to cheer “steal your face right offa your head” every single time Jerry sings it, other than the fact that the Dead had an album called Steal Your Face. It’s actually considered by many to be their worst one, too. The message of the lyric is nothing that should reasonably warrant that reaction, but sure enough, almost as if a flashing applause sign were lighting up, there they are, night after night when the song is performed, cheering wildly the fact that some guy was such a crook that, if he could, he would even rip you off for your mug. But I let it go. Negative thoughts are unwelcome.
 
I take note of how smooth  Weir’s harmony is on “Hot as a pistol, but cool inside” And then I think of my Mom, because she always says how it’s “hot as a pistol” in the middle of summer. Get out of my head, Mom, I’m tripping at a Dead show for cryin’ out loud. 

Garcia’s solo, full of familiar but newly interpreted themes, precedes the bridge, which has a couple of my favorite lines, “Goin’ where the wind don’t blow so strange. Maybe off on some high, cold mountain chain.” It is a soothing vision, full of hope and possibility for a better life somewhere. Hunter, though, ever the fatalist, follows that ace with a slap in the face: “Lost one round, but the prize wasn’t anything. A knife in the back and more of the same.” The song eventually drifts into more areas of American musical traditionalism as the “nothing’s gonna bring him back” tag begins to hearken shades of call-and-response delta blues, scat singing, and vaudeville pathos.

The singers fade away from their microphones, and Jerry's guitar  sublimely  takes command. The ensuing phase begins with a serene melodic line that feels like it‘s taking us home to some sweet pastoral paradise, but ultimately intensifies into something darkly mercurial, even threatening, until peaking as the drummers take charge with dual rolls battering more rapidly than the speed of thought.

A subtle shift in the crowd's focus occurs. This is the point in the second set when many who are in need of a break choose to find their way to the sides or the back. It's perfectly understandable. There are, after all, those who just don't get off all that much on 12 to 18 minutes or so of percussion. Then there are those who fervently rate it as one of the absolute high points of the night and wouldn‘t miss a second of it.

It is a hugely energized display from Mickey and Billy K., as they urge each other to take it further, faster and louder. They both arm themselves with tympani mallets and deafeningly beat the life out of huge kettles suspended in the air at the back of their center stage arena. The sound is immeasurably deep and low. Ten hertz? One hertz? Were this an oceanside performance, surely it would bring Atlantis himself to the surface to find out who‘s making all that fuckin’ noise, goddammit!

Bill and Mickey satisfy their compulsion to pummel for yet another show and bring the tympani volleys to an enormous explanation point---POW!  Statement made. Time to move on. The audience responds with a much-deserved bellow of cheering applause.

The next several minutes are a symposium on the wide variety of implements available to create sound by striking one object against another. It is a more cerebral display than the fire and brimstone that preceded it. The volume level is notably quieter and the mood is much more mysterious. Tinkling, crackling, ringing, rumbling-like a soundtrack to some weird jungle movie, we travel to a place that is fraught with unknown creatures that lurk in spooky places we've never seen before this. 

From somewhere in the dusky murk, an odd hum emerges, triggering the image of some demented bassoonist hired to color the antics of a cartoon animal who is up to no good. A sense of fear creeps into my gut. Space is, by design, the most unnerving part of the show, but it is also one of the big reasons I keep coming back for me. Another migration on the part of audience members who hold no sense of endurance for the singularly most bizarre element of the show, but I take selfish pride in the fact that, even though the mad dissonance challenges my mental fortitude, I truly love this part of a Grateful Dead concert, and believe my genuine enjoyment of it, no matter how atonal and discordant it might be, solidifies my standing as a Dead Head to the core. More so than any other element within the giant musical tapestry that they weave, this is where we learn the real truth to the old adage---There is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert.

Grateful Dead

This is Grateful Dead music. The faint-hearted need not apply. I brace myself for the onslaught. This is why I am here. I had driven for hours that day through seemingly endless flat landscapes virtually devoid of scenery in order to get to this place where the night is tormented with frightening and brutal noise crashing against itself. My psyche gets shaken, assaulted viciously, but I opened the door to that when I ate that little white piece of oily cardboard which has utterly soaked my brain by this point. I watch as Weir and Phil toy with the knobs on their equipment, twisting a dial here, flipping a switch or pushing a button there with an almost insane professionalism, mad scientists creating Promethean clatter shrieking in an agonizing cacophony. Nevertheless, I hear beauty in it, a sonata for guitar and bass in the form of malevolent feedback. Brent contributes to the  melange with laser zaps and piano scales originating from somewhere on Jupiter. A thunderously loud rumble from Phil sounds like a dungeon door being forced open to unleash the hounds of the underworld from their fiery kennel.

And through it all, there is the man with the beard and glasses who has absorbed himself in the immeasurable possibilities of his infinite musical imagination. I think to myself, "he is a genius," and I mean it. He is one of the last true masters, the gold standard. There are others who have made their mark, and still more who may yet realize greatness, but in some way, all who have plugged a guitar into an amplifier to follow in the path of Chuck Berry since Garcia did so himself owe a debt of gratitude to Jerry for being one of the genuine artisans of the form. But ol' Chuck's legacy is barely discernible at this point, as Jerry goes pound for pound with the rest of the band, his one-of-a-kind custom-built axe snarling, grinding, shrieking, the sound mutating, replicating, distorting, discovering relationships among notes that were heretofore non-existent. Severe turmoil unravels from his fingertips. I finally admit to myself that I'm scared. Will I really be able to endure the madness without going off the deep end myself? For a brief moment at the height of the chaos, I swear I can see surges of energy emanating from him, distorting the scenery behind him like waves of heat, rippling in an electrified aura around him.     

Suddenly, the bottom seems to drop out and a startling silence jars the group consciousness of the masses with its abruptness. Hundreds shout out in the void. Those who had taken refuge from Space in the hinterlands of the amphitheater are beginning to find their way back to their places in the crowd, and the music starts to slowly find a clearer destination of its own.

The starship steers itself in the general direction where it is headed, but the crew is still securing the provisions for the next part of the journey. Jerry begins defining a rhythm that is unmistakable, then backs away from it, choosing not to let the machine take flight just yet. It's pretty clear, though, that we're about to begin the countdown before takeoff on a vessel christened The Other One.

Each player contributes a piece of the puzzle. Scattered patterns of sound coalesce. Tones and timbres climb up, over, and around each other until they all interconnect. 

Weir zeroes in on a distinct rhythm, providing a stable foundation upon which the instability that will soon follow can thrive. All it needs is a little more tiger in the tank. The Rhythm Devils, rested and ready to go after a breather backstage while their colleagues made a weird-hand turn through terra incognita, return to their own corners of the polygon and merge into the blend. A sort of cosmic shuffle ensues with bass, drums, guitar, and keyboard mingling as one, and Jerry plays off of it with an ever-intensifying build. Teetering precariously between calculated hesitation and full-blown onslaught, he listens keenly, patiently waiting until . . .

Phil lets us have it with both barrels!!!!!

All hell breaks loose. A surge of nitro-fuel is ignited in the afterburners. Suddenly we are in Grateful Dead hyperspace overdrive, and the six-headed dragon really starts breathing fire now. Jerry lets rip with a skyrocketing scale, fierce and terrible in its sheer meanness. Weir strums his guitar with the syncopated speed of an eight-cylinder big-block Detroit engine. Phil turns upstage, nodding his head in time with the frantic cadence dealt out by Mickey, who shines back at him with a smile so big that it could be seen back in the beer garden. And I laugh out loud, cheering how much fun those guys are having up there.

The Spanish lady lays on Bob her rose, the rainbows spiral 'round and 'round, my mind is already a smoking crater. 

Comin' around, y'all, back into the maelstrom. They throw at us everything they've got. No holds barred, take no prisoners, never give an inch, full-on Grateful Dead right up through Neal's big beautiful bus trip. It's been a hell of a ride, but it's time to let it coast. I'm ready, too. The acid rushes brought on by the roar that is finally settling down have been making me nervous.

A quick guessing game is played while twenty thousand wide-eyed souls try to figure out with each note what song is coming next. Just when we get ready to sway to a ballad, though, Garcia gets a light bulb over his head and says, "Let's keep it cookin', guys." He starts plunking out little baritone runs in perfect Nashville time. And I feel the corners of my mouth turn upward from the infection of that contagious shit-eatin' grin on his own face. After all these years, he still gets a kick out of Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad.

Jerry is truly in his element now: an earthy American folk song with gutsy lyrics, full of potential for some deep emotion, not to mention a chance to really go off on a tear instrumentally. He positions himself closer to the mike, sees out of the corner of his eye that Bob is ready to go, then peers over the top of his glasses at Brent, who is squirming back and forth on his piano bench like he’s in the back seat of the Family Truckster as it pulls into the Wally World parking lot. He’s obviously ready to go, too. 

Brent’s talent for harmony is a big asset, and he nails it, capping the high end of the trio right on target. There are three distinct personalities handling the vocals: Brent, frenetic but eager to please, always the new kid on the block trying to fit in with the older ones on the playground; Bob, the consummate showman, never singing only from his vocal cords, but rather bringing the voice all the way up from somewhere down near his ankles; and Jerry, the sublime traditionalist, forever channeling the spirits of forgotten travelers lost on life’s highway, vagabonds and ne’er-do-wells who did not got the chance for their own voices to be heard, but never failing to tell their stories with dignity and grace. 

It is, essentially, a sad song, but the Dead turn it into a celebration. Jerry solos triumphantly and even gives us just a taste of that old-time religion, too, telling us in one of the many repeats of the chorus, “Chillun’, I’m---goin’ down the road feelin’ bad!” A firm proclamation that “I ain’t gonna be treated this ol’ way!” and the band lays down the coda for keeps, a thunderous exit, simultaneously sorrowful and optimistic in its chordal simplicity. The tempo decelerates while the crowd roars euphorically, exhaling en masse, winded from that workout we just underwent. It’s starting to get late in the show and I’m getting a little tired.

But it’s a good kind of tired.

Jerry’s ready to take it slow himself, and slides into the blues of Black Peter seamlessly. Visions of loneliness, poverty, disease, and mortality-imagery a little too . . . real, perhaps? . . . For most songwriters, yes, but coming from Hunter’s pen, it is but another realm within the ambit from where he has Garcia tell his stories, a place where there is no room for saccharin sentimentality, just the plain, dirty, ugly truth. This tale, in particular, is accented with a solo that has Buddy Guy written all over it, too. Jerry plays through the progression twice, just to make sure he’s able to summon as much from The Checkerboard Lounge as he can.

Shine through my window 
And my friends they come around

It is one of the most beautiful, heart-wrenchingly poignant moments of any Dead song. The stage is suffused in a hue of spring green. Three voices combine in a harmony of rhapsodic splendor which then falls like a dying quail back to the graying spectacle of poor Peter’s forlorn, lonely demise. Look, another forgotten prisoner of this world is about to break free from the chains of desolation. Run and see. 

Jerry steps back from the mike and sends Pete to the great beyond. Not with a dirge, mind you, but by tearing off  a barrage of sassy blues licks, bending the strings to the limit and feeding back like there’s no tomorrow.

There is no tomorrow as far as my being at a Grateful Dead concert.. This show is coming near its end. I actually think for a second or two, “Another eight hours in the car tomorrow, back at work on Monday. There’s a whole other world outside this place that I have to face again. Fuck.” 

Fuck that. No time for the real world right now. I came here to leave all that behind for a night, and the show ain’t over yet.

No sir, it’s not.

Ah, Sugar Magnolia

She’s got everything delightful.

The Dead dish out the finest rock and roll from man or beast. It’s their specialty, and this song blows the roof off the joint just as rowdy as you please, like anything Bill Haley and The Comets ever did at the Grange Barn Dance. “I walk around now,” says Weir, but the band doesn’t stroll. They’re off to the races in perfect syncopation, playing through the changes of the jam for all they’re worth. Bob brings it right to the edge of the stage, strumming flailingly, daring the rest of the band to push the intensity, the utter excitement of the moment further, and further still. The audience is in frenzied rapture. We are anointed in the light of the music as thousands are illuminated by swirling followspots that seem to lift them right into the air. The band finds a stopping place to leave the music hanging unresolved.

Silence from the stage, but just try and quiet down this crowd. Well, it quiets down just enough so that we can all share in a synchronized release----

And----






BOMP!

Sunshine Daydream

BOMP!

Walk you in the tall trees

BOMP!

Goin where the wind goes

BOMP!

Bloomin like a red rose

The animated petals of the American Beauty rose unfold on the video screens and its stem is grasped delicately by the hand of the skeleton from the closet. Brilliant orange and yellow lights explode on stage as the band embarks on the set’s last big bang. And with the dream fulfilled for yet another night, they somehow call up even more volume, punch and sheer loudness than at any point thus far to shut the lid on it, hitting the final cadence like John Henry’s sledgehammer. A falsetto “Thank you,” from Bob.
 
We thank them by giving all the love that we have to give. The ovation clamors ceaselessly for the next few minutes while we wait, yearning for one last taste of the Dead’s delicious feast. When they at last return to hand out our dessert, there is little wonder as to the flavor of this final treat, because it is, after all, one more Saturday night with The Grateful Dead.

Much to our gleeful surprise, though, there is at least one more trick they have left up their sleeve. Instead of strapping the guitars back on, they saunter to their microphones, and without even waiting for the applause to ebb, they commence with an old spiritual. From the first syllable, the astonished crowd responds to this special gift overwhelmingly, but hushes quickly. When in church, one must behave with decorum.

Lay down, my dear brothers
Lay down and take your rest
Won’t you lay your hands
Upon your savior’s breast
I love you, oh, but Jesus loves you the best

And I bid you good-night
Good-night 
Good-night

And I bid you good-night
Good-night
Good-night

And I bid you good-night
Good-night
Good-night

Bob, Brent, and Phil, acting as the background choir, continue the chorus, while Bill and Mickey softly provide an unobtrusive tempo to the otherwise a capella delivery, as Jerry testifies:

I never would ride, well I never would ride (good night, good night, good night)
But his rod and his staff, they comfort me (good night, good night, good night)
Tell “A” for the ark, that wonderful boat (good night, good night, good night)
Tell “B” for the beast at the end of the wood (good night, good night, good night)
It ate all the children when they would not be good (good night, good night, good night)
Walking in Jerusalem, just like John (good night, night, good night) 
(irrepressible cheers for Brother Jerry call out from the audience)
I go walking in the valley of the shadow of death (good night, good night, good night)
I remember right well, I remember right well---

Lay down, my dear brothers
Lay down and take your rest
Won’t you lay your hands
Upon your savior’s breast
I love you, oh, but Jesus loves you the best

And I bid you good-night
Good-night 
Good-night

And I bid you good-night
Good-night
Good-night

And I bid you good-night
Good-night
Good-night

The hymn slows to its close. Amen. With that, the guitars are then retrieved.

Textbook rock and roll. They peg the minimalist intro unfalteringly. Energetic and fully committed to every lyric he wrote, Weir is prudent, nonetheless, not to go too far too fast, accenting the verses with relaxed ease: “hoo-it’s a Saturday night . . .”  The obligatory Garcia solo that falls in the middle of the four simple stanzas is raunchy and raw, perfect for the party that the song instigates. One last read of the chorus brings it back to that ballsy, back-alley beginning. The bridge then rumbles like a drag racer watching the lights descend from red to yellow and finally to green, exploding chromatically as it tears down the track.

“One more Saturday---One more Saturday night! Hey, it’s a Saturday night! Hey, it’s a Saturday night!”-another chromatic run-“Aaaaaa-Ha!” Bob Weir, a well-studied pupil of the Little Richard School of Womp Bamma Loomah, belts it out note-perfect, but with reckless abandon. Infected with the vigor of the moment, Jerry raises his pick hand away from the strings to point a finger in the air in exclamation, “One more Saturday night,” affirming the certainty that there is nothing else in life that can make one’s soul shout out as loudly as pure, primal rock and roll. 

The concert’s ultimate note culminates the night with a crashing finality. The fact that this show has been extraordinary is verified by Jerry, not Bob, telling the audience, “Thanks a lot folks! See ya’ later.” We let out one last roar of appreciation for being able to hear a few words of gratitude spoken by the usually reticent leader of the band. 

House lights are restored. Time to go. Exit music plays from the PA. Frank Sinatra summons anyone and everyone to start spreadin’ the news. Go shout it from the mountain that The Grateful Dead have once again given the word to the congregation. 
                   
The passage from inside to outside is, as is implied, a reverse process from how it was while entering in the afternoon. The difference at the end of the night, though, is that, unlike before the show when the process of entering took place much more gradually, now virtually everyone is trying to exit at the same time. It feels like trying to push an elephant through a mouse hole. The speed of the migration to the parking lot can be measured in iph’s (inches per hour). 

The slow trundling of feet makes the masses feel like they are being driven to market like so many cattle roving at a snail’s pace to Kansas City. Without fail, someone starts mooing. Others take their cue, and it isn’t long before the herd becomes a chorale of barnyard animals, mooing and neighing as if it is second nature. I plead, insistently, “Stop mooing!” but it is of no use. The menagerie ignores me. Taking a different tack, I try a vociferous whinny, thinking that perhaps the sound of a dominant stallion will put the fear of God into the flock, but it only makes them moo louder. Capitulating, I decide that when in Rome . . .  and begin mooing, too.



At last, we push through the turnstile, and in front of us is the long walk back to the car. You haven’t quite made it to the promised land just yet, Moses. So onward we trudge, our feet hurting and our legs weary from standing for the better part of the last 3 ½ to 4 hours. The giddy exhilaration brought on by the acid and the show itself is now replaced by a sense of fatigue. I’ve seen enough technicolor for one night and my cheeks are sore from smiling. I begin to believe that I’m actually tired enough so that by the time we get to the motel we rented on the way to the venue, I just might get some sleep tonight.

We pass a t-shirt vendor hawking one that says Take my advice you’d be better off Dead. “From Casey Jones,” he explains. “I knew that,” I quietly reply.

After putting more than enough new mileage on my sandals, I finally look with a sigh upon our vehicle, which has been waiting faithfully for us throughout the entire evening. I shout, “Eureka!” My friends all groan with relief, eager to get on board so we can get to where we can finally make ourselves horizontal. There is no problem in finding the keys, as I’ve already been jiggling them in my pocket for the last ten minutes in anticipation of unlocking the door, starting up the car, and getting on the highway just as soon as possible.

Only two things stand in our way now. First, we all agree on the need for something to wet our whistles. We’re dying of thirst from that weird kind of acid cottonmouth, and we look around for where we can shell out eight bucks for a handful of cold ones. We quickly find a guy patrolling the lot with a well-stocked cooler who looks like he won‘t be old enough to legally buy it himself for at least a couple of years. We pop them open and knock them back quickly because we do not want open containers in the car as we make our way down a road that is surely peppered with a staggered phalanx of the state‘s finest. I run the empty bottles to one of the many overflowing trash cans that are situated every hundred feet or so on the perimeter of the parking lot.

Our second obstacle is the line of cars pointed away from the amphitheater. I guess timing is on our side tonight because the flow of traffic is actually a flow, as opposed to a bumper-to-bumper, hurry-up-and-wait procedure. We reach the narrow strip of back road asphalt perpendicular to the dirt path leading out of the lot and follow the direction designated by the swing of a state cop’s flashlight arching to the left. One of my passengers sees that the marquee has been changed, and we mutually reject the thought of coming back on Tuesday night to see Rod Stewart.

Rolling on through the hushed darkness of the rural locale, we traverse closer to the interstate. Specters of fog have settled in some of the dells in the roadway, making for yet a little more trippy shit to look at as we drive through them. 

Approaching a four-way stop, we see a long white limousine reach the crossroads, then make a turn in the same direction that we are headed. I ask of no one in particular, “Who do you think’s riding in that thing?” 

A voice from the back seat answers,  “I bet it’s Jerry, man. Flash your brights at ‘em and see if he wants to party.” 

I actually consider the possibilities for a moment, then say, “Naaah. He probably needs a nap, too.”

We watch as the distance between us and the red glow of the tail lights lengthens. A long, weary silence ensues in our car. Finally, just as I reach the big four-lane artery of pavement, someone asks, “So, where are they playing tomorrow night?” 


