JERRY GARCIA PERFORMING WITH THE JERRY GARCIA BAND IN CHENEY, WA. ON 10-27-78. PHOTO-ART BY BEN UPHAM.
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THE GRATEFUL DEAD-
“CLOCK TWISTS BACKWARD AS DEADHEADS BOOGIE”
BY KIM CROMPTON
SPOKANE DAILY CHRONICLE
SPOKANE, WASHINGTON
JUNE 16, 1980
The “Dead” were resurrected at the Coliseum Saturday night, but they didn’t seem nearly as grateful as the audience which came to life with them.
The Grateful Dead, one of the oldest and most unique rock and roll groups of the past two decades, treated a relatively small but enthusiastic crowd to three full hours of enjoyable music.
The diverse group of fans who came to see the group were almost as interesting, as the band itself. ”Flower Children,” “Hippies,” members of outlaw motorcycle gangs and other societal outcasts of the Vietnam era were there, mingling freely and comfortably with others from that generation who have since conformed to more contemporary norms.
The Coliseum lights came on during a 45-minute intermission, revealing a scene similar to those at Woodstock, Blue Mountain and dozens of other outdoor rock concerts of that period in time.
One young woman with long blond hair moved slowly through the shifting bodies on the Coliseum floor, smelling a long-stemmed flower while holding aloft a sign which read, “I need a ride to L.A.” Wearing a long flowered skirt, she resembled many of the other women from that era who were attracted to Spokane to hear their favorite group Saturday night.
Similarly, the men were scantily clad, for the most part, wearing no shirts and shoes, and many with beards and hair that reached to the middle of their backs. The crowd, overall, contrasted sharply with the group of teen-agers and young adults which gathers for most Spokane rock concerts. Members of this audience were older, appearing more content on enjoying themselves than on impressing each other.
An example was the group of fans which normally stands at the rear of the Coliseum floor. Concerts featuring rock groups which appeal to a younger clientele generally cause that area of the floor to turn into a traffic zone with adolescents milling continually back and forth looking for someone they know or someone they would like to know.
The scene was different Saturday night, however, as rockers from the ’60s and late ’70s utilized that area as a gigantic dance floor. Grateful Dead fans, overcome with musical rapture, danced all evening and most of them were dancing alone.
The band’s music gave them ample reason to boogie, as The Dead were right on target with their intermingling of nostalgic numbers with newer songs. Lead guitarist Jerry Garcia was excellent throughout the night and was complimented by the back-up fingerings of rhythm guitarist Bob Weir. They thrilled the crowd with their performances on songs like “Alabama Getaway” and “It Looks Like Rain” and with their vocals on slower songs like “Ship of
Fools.”
Drummers Billy Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart also were good and awed the crowd with a five-minute duet involving a large drum set-up at the rear of the stage. The entire crowd standing on the Coliseum floor bounced to the rhythm of most of the band’s songs, cheered loudly after each one and eventually called the group back for a single encore song, “One More Saturday Night”.
If the band were to be criticized it would be for its lack of response to the crowd. Members of the group refused to acknowledge the crowd’s applause, took long breaks between each song and acted as though they were rehearsing inside an empty hall. The fans, known as “Deadheads” didn’t seem to mind, however, as they appeared caught up in their own nostalgic rock revival.
Grateful Dead Setlist from the Spokane Coliseum show on June 14, 1980:
Set I-
Alabama Getaway
Promised Land
Friend of the Devil
El Paso
Brown Eyed Women
Me & My Uncle
Big River
Far From Me
Big Railroad Blues
Looks Like Rain
Don’t Ease Me In
Set II-
Feel Like a Stranger
Ship of Fools
Estimated Prophet
Eyes of the World
Drums/Space
Lost Sailor
Saint of Circumstance
Stella Blue
Goin’ Down the Road Feelin’ Bad
Good Lovin’
Encore: One More Saturday Night
GRATEFUL DEAD DISCOGRAPHY:
1967 The Grateful Dead
1968 Anthem of the Sun
1969 Aoxomoxoa
1969 Live dead
1970 Workingman’s Dead
1970 American Beauty
1971 Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses)
1972 Europe ’72 (Live)
1973 History of the Grateful Dead (Bear’s Choice)
1973 Wake of the Flood
1974 Grateful Dead from the Mars Hotel
1975 Blues for Allah
1976 Steal your Face (Live)
1977 Terrapin Station
1978 Shakedown Street
1980 Go to Heaven
1981 Reckoning (Acoustic Live)
1981 Dead Set (Electric Live)
1987 In the Dark
1989 Dylan & the Dead
1989 Built to Last
1990 Without a Net (Live)
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BOB WEIR PERFORMING IN CHENEY, WASHINGTON ON 10-27-78. PHOTO BY BEN UPHAM
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THE BOB WEIR BAND-
“RISING ABOVE THE DEAD”
by JOHN SWENSON
THE LETHBRIDGE HERALD
ALBERTA, CANADA APRIL 7, 1978
“This doesn’t represent me correctly,” Bob Weir complains to a photographer as he gestures at the half-empty dishes before him. “I hardly ever drink tea, and I HATE sugar.” He then tosses several packets of the stuff against the wall. Weir’s concern with image is lighthearted but pointed. After more than 10 years as lead singer and rhythm guitarist with the Grateful Dead, Weir is carefully’ beginning to set himself apart, with his own group currently on the road promoting his recent album, “Heaven Help the Fool”. “The Grateful Dead are going to do a major tour starting in April,” Weir explains. “We’re also scheduled to be recording sometime this year. So this tour is sandwiched in, as always.”
The Grateful Dead’s switch to Arista Records and producer Keith Olsen for their last album, “Terrapin Station”, certainly bolstered the band’s career, but it’d done even more for Weir personally. Even though he had recorded a previous solo album and one with Kingfish, both sounded similar to the Dead.
“Heaven Help the Fool” is a complete departure, a smooth and languid slice of California soul closer to the crooning of Boz Scaggs’ “Silk Degrees” than the bubbling amalgam of American music played by the Grateful Dead.
“I’ve been treated to some criticism on this record,” Weir jokes with a
slightly defensive, slightly annoyed grimace, “mostly from old Grateful
Dead freaks who accuse me of selling out and going commercial. When Keith and I decided to pursue this album, we knew it was going to come out a whole lot slicker.
“There’s a whole lot of music on this record, and people who are put off by the slickness are missing that.” Weir does not hesitate to point out that the Dead are far from the ideal recording band, referring to the group’s history on vinyl as “a camel becoming a racehorse created by committee.”
He goes as far as to suggest that Heaven Help the Fool, is what he’s
always wanted his records to sound like. “In the past, working with the Dead,” he says “When I tried to do a song there were always surprises, but this time I got what I was going for.”
In the studio, Weir was augmented by a crack band featuring guitarist
Waddy Wachtel, bassist Mike Porcaro, drummers Mike Baird and Nigel
Olsson and saxophonist Tom Scott. For his touring band, Weir hired drummer John Mauceri, who has played with Jackson Browne, and who suggested bassist Rick Carlos and keyboardist Brent Mydland. The band was completed by guitarist-singer Bobby Cochran, a flashy player who doesn’t listen to the Grateful Dead and whose roots are more in hard rock.
Onstage, this unit is much tougher than the Grateful Dead, and though the crowds still yell for “El Paso” and other Dead standards associated with Weir, the group keeps everyone jumping.
“Nearly every night some of the people seem to want the Grateful Dead material,” Weir says. “There was one guy sitting in the first row who was yelling, “Come on play the old stuff, we know you hate it but play it anyway.”
Grateful Dead fans, loyal as they are, may well have influenced Weir’s
decision to try this solo project. “We, and particularly Garcia, were
the cloak and scepter of a spiritual cult, that we and he never wanted,” Weir says. “We were a musical aggregate, first and foremost”.
“People advance spiritual qualities which may or may not have been important. Everyone has to have some sort of cosmology or their life won’t be rewarding. The only difference is that ours leaks into the media.”
It’s become standard for Weir to be collared by tripsters before and after gigs, “It’s one of the sacraments of the cult, whether I like it or not,” he said. “So I use my intuition and I try to determine whether there’s any possibility of communication. I can’t take every psychedelic derelict under my wing and nurse them to sanity, but I am good at it. I’ve babysat a lot of acid casualties.
“Estimated Prophet”, Weir’s major contribution to “Terrapin Station”, was fashioned as a message to some of the wilder elements of the acid fringe. “It’s about someone who has taken too many hallucinogens,” Weir explains, “And thinks they’re in telepathic communication with me. They come up to me and start off in the middle of a rave because they think I know everything they’re talking about. “By this time I think I do because it’s almost always the same”. The song is trying to point out these people’s holy folly.
“But I guess it didn’t work because the people who need to hear it think it substantiates their delusion rather than see their folly in it.”
Weir claims that the fool of the Heaven Help the Fool title track isn’t
autobiographical, but he does identify with the character’s situation.
“The song points out the absurdity of the music business, and it also ends up kind of defending it in so far as it’s the only game in town,” said Weir. “Until times change, people will be painting themselves into that same corner.”
At this point, it’s a corner that Weir finds less than distasteful. He’s changed a lot from when the Grateful Dead seemed to suggest a way of life based solely on playing music and living on the land.
“I have none,” he says, smiling. “In so far as I’ve taken on a great deal of responsibility and activity. I have changed my life. I don’t see Marin
County very much and I miss my doggie. Aside from that, I’m doing
what I should because it’s my only chance to amount to something.
BOB WEIR BAND DISCOGRAPHY:
1972 Ace
1976 Kingfish
1977 Live & Kickin’ (Kingfish)
1978 Heaven Help the Fool
1981 Bobby & the Midnights
1984 Where the Beat meets the Street
1998 Weir & Wasserman Live
2000 Evening Moods (Ratdog)
2001 Live at Roseland (Ratdog)
2004 Weir Here (compilation)
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