Grateful
Dead Ramblings
An old
tour head's insight
&
Dead experiences
e-mailme at malfalfa@yahoo.com
It's
1981 and my next experience begins
at the
Hampton
Coliseum-Hampton Va.
I went
to every Dead show in this venue
only
missing the Warlocks Shows
because
i had no ticket and never got in
(the
only time i went to a show and got shut out)
The
sound here was great-always had fun
saw
the first East Coast Help-Slipknot
in many
years-broke up with and re found the woman
who
is still my wife-
helped
roll kegs and do bongs by the pool at
the
Hampton Sheraton-
left
one show early second set because I had
so much
liquid in me and the walls wew breathing to hard
and
in the corridor they kept constricing on me
I remember
a well dressed business man asking me at the
front
desk one year "what the heck was going on"
I told
him the
was
playing close by.
He laughed
and said he used to be a DeadHead
but
when PigPen died
he just
couldn't listen any more-it wasn't the same
I laughed
then-but understood years later
when
Brent Mydland died
cause
i had seen him blossom so much with
the
Dead-in the end writng so much on
the
albums In the Dark & Go to Heaven
Poor
Brent never seemed to be appreciated
until
he was gone and replaced by Vince Welnick.
I never
fully appreciated PigPen either until
I met
and played with T.C.-Tom Constanten
and
he told me how hard it was to play with the Dead
and
live up to the Pigpen legend.
T.C.
is the kind of guy who you can talk too
and
get good info from-he lives near me now.
The
role of the Grateful Dead keyboardist seemed to
be a
perplexing thing. Same with Keith Godchaux.
Never
fully appreciated until gone.
How
sad.
Anyway
i spent most of the 80's going to Dead
Shows
all over the country-Greek Theatre-the Rocks
Merriweather
in Md.-Atlanta-saw the Dead
on Jerry's
40th bday at Manor Downs-Austin,Tx.
a horse
track-fireworks during the drums
parachuters
coming down-serious Texas hospitality
&
culture-1982
Oklahoma
City Zoo Amp the next day-100 degrees
a very
small crowd-stood right in front
of Jerry
no problem-bikers who danced on a coffin next
to me-My
first Iko-Iko
I did
the S.W. tour again in '85
took
my soon to be wife
always
loved Red Rocks-Kansas City Starlight
tried
to go back this was again in '86
after
the Greeks that yr. but
Jerry
had his first lapse into serious sickness
and
tour was canceled-
(I still
have my unused ticket for the Rocks)
"the
sky was yellow &
the
sun was blue"
Part 4 of my
grateful dead story