And I was there...

[gridlore]

Evidently, this weekend has been declared "80s Music Video" fest. Here's my entry.

Best part? This was filmed at Laguna Seca Raceway during a 2-day run. Also appearing were Ry Cooder and Bruce Hornsby and the Range (who outraged many Heads when they covered I Know You Rider during their set.) After the Saturday show, word went around the campground that a special event was going to take place at around eight, so get in line early. I did, and right about eight Phil Lesh walked onstage and welcomed us to the filming of the Grateful Dead's first music video. Took about four hours to film, and that smoke drifting around? It was fog. Things were quite chilly, and the assistant director kept having to tell us to take off jackets. The dog that steals Mickey Hart's leg? Just a tour mutt that learned the trick in twenty minutes. After the first two dozen playbacks of the song, when the playback hit the "We will survive" chorus we'd sing "we hate this song!" with great gusto. During one long technical break, Jerry and Robert Hunter came out and played Terrapin Station on acoustic guitars.

I just love all the little details. Bob Weir's skeleton does the little head-bop that Bobby used to keep time, Billy is of course smoking, and the skeletons looked right. Oh, and you can see my arm for a few seconds. Look for a left arm with a thick black watch band.

Comments

[pauldrye.livejournal.com]

Hey cool. Not a Dead fan, but I love that song (and the video).

Have tentatively IDed your arm....

[gridlore.livejournal.com]

Ah, that was a problem. A lot of non-Heads saw the video, and the song was a hit, so huge numbers of people who had no clue about the Dead started coming to shows. We called them In The Darkers. Some, of course, got it, and left the show with the glassy eyes of a new convert, mumbling "they do this every night?" and being welcomed to the cult by friendly Heads. Sadly, the vast majority expected a rock concert. They didn't understand that the band felt no obligation to play ToG every show. Nor did they get a band that would jam for twenty minutes off one song, or a band that didn't yell "Hello Cleveland!" or even talk much to the audience. Some of them got actively hostile.

Thankfully, this only lasted for the summer 1987 tour.

[izzylobo.livejournal.com]

While I've always loved a number of the Dead's songs (I'm not an *anythinger" in the idea of "I love everything you do" - I just don't approach music that way), this is one reason I've never been to a concert - their live scene just wasn't something I was all that interested in.

My one "meet the deadheads in quantity" story is more amusing for the setting - the Buffalo & Erie County Naval & Military Park, back in the early 80s - than for any events surrounding it per se. The Dead were performing a concert at the nearby HSBC Arena (it wasn't called that back then), and my Boy Scout troop was overnighting on the USS Little Rock, one of the vessels displayed there. Naturally, some folks on leaving the concert (at oh-god-hundred in the morning) wanted to tour the grounds without, you know, supervision, paying the entry fee, or otherwise operating during business hours. They were pretty good-natured about it all, fortunately.

(Several hours of Grateful Dead music also made an amusing lyrical backdrop to touring and "standing duty" aboard a WWII/early Cold War light cruiser, actually).

[dalen-talas.livejournal.com]

I think I'm starting to get the hang of the Deads...