Grateful Dead

I was musing over a connection that I've had for over 40 years now: that is, with the Grateful Dead.
My first awareness with the Grateful Dead would have been in the summer of 1967 & 1968, when I was in Army hospitals recovering from gunshot wound (1966); and later, malaria. Going home to Indiana over a # of convalescent leaves put me in touch with several old friends from high school. We all drank hard, and while I don't think I smoked dope, I may have.
Dope was readily available in the Army Hospital I spent most of my time in 1967 ... & certainly in the unit I was assigned to during the remainder of my time in the Army (i.e., latter part of 1967 & 1968 -- until June. when I was discharged. It was definitely the summer of 1968 that I got introduced to daily dope smoking, and dropping hallucinogens.
My friend then, Denny F., was already introduced to "the Dead" as they were known. I listened, and became an ardent, totally committed "Deadhead," from the start. I listened to the first two Dead albums, and practically had worn out
"Anthem Of The Sun," by April, 1969, when I first saw them play live.
Somewhere in the early new century, I think, but perhaps it was in the late 90s, I wrote two reviews of Dead shows that I saw. The reviews appeared in a book that came annually called "D-BASE." Deadbase, was the brain child of some SERIOUS Deadheads who had recorded hundreds of the many shows "the Dead" played. Taping suggestions, and reviews were always a salient part of Dead Base books. My reviews appeared in D-Base X.
Here they are:
04-18-69 Purdue University - Jerry Eagan
"My first Grateful Dead show was one of the most memorable. The four years preceding that show had been intense. I was discharged from the Army in 1968. Prior to that, I'd done a tour in Korea and three months in an Infantry unit in Vietnam, where I'd been wounded. I spent a year in various Army hospitals, began my trip into serious drinking and drugging, spent 1968 watching two of my heroes -- RFK and MLK -- assassinated, not too mention seeing some of my Vietnam friends going off to do riot duty in Baltimore - dropped acid in October, 1968 for the first time, and "turned on (in a much bigger way) to The Grateful Dead (including "Anthem of the Sun.") In the summer of 1968, I joined the ranks of several other "longhairs" working @ the U.S. Post Office in Indianapolis, Indiana, and by April, 1969 -- the month of my 22d birthday -- I was toasted. While my mind didn't articulate it -- I was ready for a shattering event to follow up with where the Acid had left off, and take me into new territory.
"I foubd it that night @ Purdue University. Purdue is not the place you'd expect a paradigm shift to occur. I'd always considered it a "cow college," -- i.e., agriculture and engineering. But the Ballrooom was small with room for maybe 2000 people? Certainly not the massive numbers I'd be part of later, at Dead concerts. We went through the opening act - a guy named George Stavis. Never heard of him since. May have been a couple of songs he layed that energized me @ the moment, but I was psyched for the Dead. I'd already worn out one copy of "Anthem of The Sun" and like the guy in "Jerry McGuire," ('show me the money!'), I wanted the Dead to PLAY ME ALLIGATOR.
"There were screens between the North & South Ballrooms (located in Purdue's Student Union). The Dead were set up in the North Ballroom, let's say, and when Stavis completed his act, the screens were opened and we (who had been forewarned this would happen) rushed into the other room. The lady I was with (named Sheila), and I wound up flush against the stage. They guys who had played Cryptical and New Potato Caboose on vinyl were right up there in front of me, looking down on me, and then they cut loose with a Hard To Handle that rocked me back so hard I thought I was going to explode. They blasted that song out so hard, with so much energy that I felt stunned. Pig Pen was singing with that yoddle of his that cracked me up. I was smiling and dancing and screaming and could feel something sneaking up my spine that was unfamiliar.
"Then Jerry began "Morning Dew." Soft, sweet, with that nasally voice of his that I would come to know with that song that took me into a new and beautiful soft place. There was a space there where Garcia played that song so soulfully that I felt like I was going to cry. I was watching all of those guys do their thing, and was exhilirated that I had made that I had made it to this time and space. And then they cut into a Cryptical>Drums>Other One>Cryptical>Top Of The World>King Bee segue that was the ride into that new place I'd been searching for. I can't say exactly when it happened, but somewhere in that long blast off, someone up in the front row, beside me, got up on stage. It wasn't that big of deal ... just six or seven feet (if that) off the floor. I was being squashed against the stage, so I did the same, heloing Sheila up with me. We squeezed into the bow of the grand piano that Tom Constanten was playing. Cryptical had gone into drums. First time I'd ever seen two drummers trading licks and the sound on stage was deafening. I was screaming ALLIIII GAAAA TOOR! It's always amazed me that I didn't get thrown off the stage by one of the roadies 'cause I was deinitely in an ALLIGATOR frenzy.
"Looking back over the set lists for shows preceding this one, those guys were probably sick to death of playing Alligator, but they somehow put up with my crap and went right on through that incredible fabric of tunes. The Cryptical was clearly one of the most memorable I ever heard. Top of the World and King Bee were full of blinding energy. If I had to describe the music and the delivery the King Bee was oily, sensually oily, like the massage oil you spread all over your lover's back in the dim light of your bedroom.
"'Doin' That Rag' always cracked me up. 'Lovelight' wasn't the finale this night, as it had been in so many later shows. It was a song that pulsed and surged up and down several times, as Pig Pen and Jerry played with it, Pig doing his rap. Jerry, threading through some incredible rifs that were like shimmering needles he was shootinh into the air off his guitar. Bobby joined Pig Pen in the finale of that song and then they went into the one and only 'Cosmic Charlie' I've ever heard live.
"Somehow, that song exploded some of those time release capsules of 'Red, White & Blue Acid' that I' taken earlier in the spring, 'cause everything that been stuck up in my skull came loose. The deep rumbles of the beginning of 'Cosmic Charlie' reverberated in my molars and went all the way down to my heels. I was awed into silence by then.
It was all too much. I felt like I was going to melt. And then they finished us off with 'BIODTL.' I climbed down off the stage after a fine minutes of watching them leave ... looking at the drum sets that were standing there without their masters, and shook my head again and again. They hadn't shown me 'ALLIGATOR' ( I never heard one live), but they'd shown me plenty more. We drove the forty or fifty miles back to Indianapolis early in the morning, charged, psyched, definitely a half dozen people who'd all been taken into a new dimension of reality.
"For me, the music was liberating. I was pointed in a new direction. The pain of the death and destruction I'd seen in Vietnam, the incredible desolation of having my right arm nearly shot off over there, seeing hundreds and hundreds of 18 and 19 year old guys moving around me with arms and legs gone in Army hospitals, the deaths of the last good part of the Kennedy/Civil Rights-Movement-early 60s-heroes-American-cities-burning-down-antiwar protestors-being-tear-gassed -- all of that crap that had left me so full of despair -- was left behind by what these Grateful Dead guys represented. I understood -- without being able to articulate it properly at the time -- that there was a form of freedom here, not just with the music,but with "the movement, the dane, the smiles, the community of people exploding into new lifeforms all around me, that I had fallen in love with. And I have always stayed in live with that experience from that night in April, 1969, to the last concert I attended -- the infamous Deer Creek show in 1995. And for me, 'The Music [has] never stopped.

OVER THE YEARS, BEGINNING IN 1969, UP TO 1982, I ATTENDED A NUMBER OF GRATEFUL DEAD SHOWS.
ONCE I GOT SOBER, IN JUNE, 1982, I TOOK AN EIGHT YEAR BREAK. I WAS DETERMINED TO DO WHATEVER MEASURES I HAD TO USE TO STAY SOBER AND CLEAN. AS OF 24 JUNE, 2010, I HAVE 28 YEARS OF CONTINUOUS SOBRIETY. IN 1990, LEARNING OF "WHARF RATS," FROM A COUPLE OF GOOD SOBER & CLEAN DEADHEADS, I BEGAN ATTENDING SHOWS AGAIN. I HAD THIRD ROW, CENTER, PAVILLION, DEER CREEK, FOR THE THREE SHOWS SCHEDULED FOR JULY, 1995, BUT THE RIOT THE NIGHT BEFORE ENDED THAT RUN. I WOULD HAVE SAT RIGHT DOWN IN FRONT OF JERRY, BUT THAT WAS NOT TO BE. I WAS ON THE SOUTH RIM OF THE GRAND CAñON WHEN I LEARNED JERRY HAD DIED.