Confession: I'm a deadhead

[snousle]

Funny how some of the most amazing things live right under your nose for years and years and somehow you don't see them.

When I bought my car, I got a year of free XM radio. I wasn't thrilled with the service - no way I'm going to pay a subscription and still have to listen to ads - but I did happen to come across a channel that was SO INTERESTING. It turned out to be the Grateful Dead channel, all dead, all the time. Could not turn it off. So over the course of that year I heard pretty much all their popular stuff.

Last night was the first time I've been to a live "Dead" show. Wow. I mean, I've heard a lot about deadhead culture but actually being there was way better than I had expected. What stuck out right away was the complete absence of bad taste. No ugly tacky shit, anywhere. No corporate logos. No day-glo nylon windbreakers. No crappy junk food. No stinky cologne. No loudmouth assholes either, even though more than a few people were pissed as newts and could barely stand up.

Everyone looked so great! Almost all the men had facial hair, and about half the audience, men and women alike, wore dreadlocks. Most people who weren't in boots/jeans/flannel were wearing interesting handmade or vintage clothes. Lots of children, too, who were uniformly well behaved and happy, chasing chickens around the yard or playing on the swing set out on the lawn. A portable wood oven churned out hot pizza and the bar served up the local wine and a couple of micro-brews. The air was thick with marijuana smoke - and that was outdoors.

The band played in a big old barn, cladded with ancient wood and a rusty metal roof. The ground was padded with straw. The music wasn't over-amplified, and the all-wood interior provided perfect acoustics.

I've been to lots of concerts in my day, but never one that made me feel so much at home. WHAT THE HELL WAS I DOING THE PAST TWENTY YEARS? How did I miss out on this?

I kind of lost it half way through the main set, tears were running down my face and would not stop. I guess it's common for people to not "get" the Dead until later in life, but having "gotten" it I can say there isn't anything else like it. Not even close.

Comments

Welcome!

[bigredpaul.livejournal.com]

I saw the Dead five times before Jerry Garcia died, including a NYE show in Oakland. The shows were all amazing and delightful experiences.

[dhpbear.livejournal.com]

I would believe that people that don't "get" The Dead, have never seen The Dead. I've always figured after hearing some of their stuff that there has to be more to it than just the music!

[snousle.livejournal.com]

Definitely better in person. But if you didn't like the music in the first place, the live concert would be intolerable.

[bluebear2.livejournal.com]

I never liked the music I heard of theirs so there must be a reason that people would travel around and go to all their shows. I never liked rockabilly until I went to a show and started dancing and then I "got it". It wasn't music for listening to. It was music for partying to.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

In 1994, as a fweshman at the University of Oregon, I was invited by a coupla dreadlock hippie dudes from the next dorm over to go with them in their pea-green VW Microbus up to Portland, I think it was, for a Dead concert. I was terribly curious, but I was also a severely self-inflicted shut-in on account of my cloistered, friendless, and otherwise-distorting suburban upbringing. I begged off on account of homework (homework!) and didn't go. That was almost certainly a dumb error.

But…uh…the Dead are still around? I thought they sublimated when Mr. Garcia died. I do recall the whole of Eugene taking his death quite personally.

[snousle.livejournal.com]

It was a lineup of tribute bands, which are numerous and often supremely talented.

[albear-garni.livejournal.com]

Uh, oh, I think you are now an *official* resident of Mendocino county!

[chefxh.livejournal.com]

Ten years ago I wept throughout an Indigo Girls concert in Phoenix, by which they seemed a bit put off (I was in the third row). Don't know why some music touches me so. Tears are always a sign that something important is going on, though what it is can be difficult to pin down.

Glad you found your groove!

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

I saw them once in concert ... amazing.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

Best part: I discovered many understand bi-sexuality and bathing with their duds on. I've only had one in the shower (many years ago) but it was heaven.