In California: the Dead Live On

(3 of 3)

Later, think about that later. For now, the doors opened, the kids who were first in line sprinted across the auditorium floor, which was empty of seats, like a high school gym rigged up for a dance, and staked out standing room in front of the stage. Five hours to go. Promoter Bill Graham got a volleyball * game started. In the balcony the tapers set up their equipment (the Dead, unlike other rock groups, permit amateurs to record their shows, with the understanding that tapes may be traded but not sold). People sucked at funny cigarettes and listened with cheerful toleration to the opening acts.

The Dead came on at 10:15, after half an hour of anticipatory hooting from the Dead Heads. As always, stage center was covered by two Oriental rugs, strewn with roses thrown by the crowd. Weir and Bass Player Lesh stood to the left, Garcia and Keyboardist Mydland to the right, the two drummers and a percussion rig vast enough to drive a spaceship elevated to the rear. Lights swirled, and the bandsmen swung into the saddle and began their long ride.

For four hours they played clear, strong rock, veering now and then toward folk, and once, surprisingly, toward the kind of electronic music that bright young conservatory professors are putting together with computers and tapes. To an outsider it was fine and enjoyable; to the Dead Heads it was a rare peak of brilliance. Most of the audience knew that the wife and baby of Veteran Roadie Steve Parish had been killed two days before in an auto accident, and they assumed that the performance was a special effort, a memorial. But the Dead are always private; no announcement was made. At 2:15 a.m., Garcia sang the last song, an elegiac Bob Dylan tune that ends with the words, "It's all over now, Baby Blue." An 18-year-old girl who had been in the first row told her father that "he looked straight at me, and he was crying." So were you, Honey, thinks the father, looking at her blotched, beautiful face; so am I.