Well, this is LONG. But as you guys have been comparing US gigs and reminiscing, I was moved to provide one person's perspective from the other side of the pond. Here it is.
I bought my first Dead album in '71. I was 18 and, though not yet taking advantage of chemical enhancements, had decided to be a hippy. I'd not cut my hair since age 13 when I'd first discovered 'classical' music and become enamoured of the Avant-garde; Stockhausen, Boulez, and particularly, John Cage. Also Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor...a precocious and pretentious kid was I, somewhat snobby about most pop/rock - although I had heard something in The Beatles White album, Cream, The Incredible String Band and The Band that spoke to me (I'd loved the Beatles at primary school...and the Dave Clark Five!).
It was my first live rock gig (a band called East of Eden in a room above a pub in North London) that turned my head back to more visceral, less intellectual music. That and reading imported copies of Rolling Stone. I knew nothing about the Dead when I first read a review of Workingman's Dead in RS. It was a glowing review. The Grateful Dead sounded to be a very cool band indeed. So while in Chicago (first ever visit to the US) as principal flute with the London Schools Symphony Orchestra I bought that album, along with Jack Bruce's 'Songs For a Tailor' and Jesse Winchester's eponymous first, featuring members of The Band.
I remember being surprised and disappointed by Workingman's. Country songs, tinny production, poor vocals...what was all the fuss about?! I did not get it at all. But as these were the first rock records I'd ever owned, I played and played them and grew to love them. Particulalry the bass playing...on all of them.
A year later and I'm full-time at the Royal College of Music, studying Flute and Composition (I'd been a 'Junior Exhibitioner' for a couple of years before that), and very ready to smoke my first joint. Joint smoked, to the accompaniment of Atom Heart Mother - or was it Umma Gumma? - I was ready to sign up for more psychedelia. The doors of my perception had been well and truly blown off their hinges. And the new vista was full of wonder and excitement.
By the time I heard that the Dead were coming to Europe in '72 I'd turned on, tuned in and was preparing to drop out of the Royal College. I'd taken up bass, heard Live/Dead and was ready for a repeat perfomance at the Lyceum. I'd also become complelety infatuated with a beautiful, unattainable blond, a twin, and a flute player. What better way to win her straight, classical heart than sit her down in front of San Fransisco's very own Grateful Dead...right next to me?
I bought the tickets. We arrived and took our places towads the safe rear of the auditorium and waited. I was waiting for a repeat of the peak experiences I'd had listening to Live/Dead at fellow hippies' houses under the influence of the best Nepalese black or Thai stick. I guess she was waiting to have her ear-drums blown out (they weren't - she 'quite liked it'). The sad fact is that although I was there; present at a gig the subsequent triple album confirmed had been one of the high points of the Dead's career, at the time it all kinda washed over me; passed me by. Rather like my first experience of hearing Workingman's, I was disappointed. Too many expectations, I guess. Too many concerns about whether Cathrine, the love of my life (or so I thought) was 'getting' it. So I missed them, the miracles taking place right in front of me. But I was there.
Two years later, in '74, I saw the Dead on their next visit to London, at Alexandra Palace. Now I was ready. Ready for the meandering lulls, the sudden surges of raw rock n roll energy (everybody UP!), the 'what is THIS? moments; for the good, the bad, the ugly and the miraculous. It was a complete Grateful Dead concert - all human life and so forth. It didn't matter anyway, I was by now a confirmed Armchair Dead/Lesh/head
And those are the only times I've heard the Dead live. Although my experience of the music has been overwhemingly record-based, and UK-based, I'm very ok with that. The band have taken me to places no other band has, and for that I am very grateful.
