March 14, 1971: University of Wisconsin, Madison

WOODSTOCK SPIRIT HAUNTS "DEAD"

The Grateful Dead are a pleasant and competent band from San Francisco who for some reason have come to stand for all that is admirable and wholesome in hip culture.
Part of this mystique originates from the Dead's legendary alliance with Ken Kesey in the early days of the Haight-Ashbury culture, and their presence through the Hashbury "Summer of Love" in 1967. It was the Dead who played for free in Golden Gate Park, it was the Dead who cheerfully provided a backdrop of lovely sound for Kesey's Acid Tests and Sunday picnics.
The Grateful Dead used to be the Warlocks, but somebody thought that didn't roll off the tongue quite right and they became the Grateful Dead through some strange word associations. The Dead began with a highly electric sound; lots of distortion, feedback, and wah-wah pedals.
As rock music became Big Time Business, hordes of label makers and small-minded thrill seekers attached themselves to the world of electric music. Some came in search of a buck, others just wanted a good lay, but they brought with them a horrifying vocabulary of meaningless tag-ends, and with the easy alliance of the Dead and Kesey, "acid-rock" as a term was coined.
Acid-rock means nothing, of course, but people do get an image when they hear this crass appellation of commercial America. They envision highly electric music, fuzz-tones, feedback, any ponderous or strident stretching of guitar tones. The Dead were the original acid-rockers. Then the Dead got fairly sick of their brand of music, which was limited although at times very compelling, and they mellowed out to everyone's surprise with a country twinge which they have retained to date.
This is all uneasy preparation for a difficult and fruitless task; evaluating the Grateful Dead Concert in Madison on March 14. That concert was no musical event--it was a social event. Why should thousands of people pay three dollars to be admitted into a huge, uncomfortable cave of a building, staffed by a small army of cretinous bullies, for the privilege of sitting in a cramped position on the floor or on one of the awful benches while a dimly-defined band played competent country and western music for three hours?
Consider that until about a year ago, country and western as a musical genre was anathema to the average freak on the street. Country and western is the music of Merle Haggard and Dick Nixon. C&W stands for the extra-straight life, down Texas way, and nossir we don't smoke no marijuana. The reason that the mighty public can flock to enjoy an eminently unenjoyable situation is a sense of mystique that surrounds such social events in this country in the wake of Woodstock.
Every concert by a "groovy" band is now an excuse to recreate the spirit of Woodstock. It is a gathering of the tribes, a place to smoke reefers in open defiance of the security guards, to flash the frisbees and prove that the Fieldhouse belongs to the people. The thousands come not so much in hopes that the spirit of Woodstock will reoccur, they come with the subconscious intent to force the spirit of Woodstock to emerge. "We'll boogie till dawn--or else!!"
The millions of American youngsters who didn't make it to the great mud field in New York will not be cheated by time and circumstance; they will have their Woodstock whenever and wherever they can. Necessary ingredients for one cosmic rock festival: any groovy band, Credence won't do, nor will Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Their vibes aren't groovy enough. But the Dead are probably the most desirable mystique band of all. It's all there if you want it, the legendary San Francisco nights, the promise of non-stop music.
And we come to another interesting selling point. The Dead promised (so rumors went) to play non-stop for four hours. This undoubtedly contributed to the astonishing turnout in the Fieldhouse.
Why would people be interested in four hours of non-stop music? No one, no one can fully enjoy four hours of the very best music in the cosmic world straight through. Aha, my friends, the reason the people came is because nobody planned to listen to the music that much.
The groupies came to group and the hippies came to hip (and the greasers came to grease)--which is just an insulting and facile way to say again that the whole thing was a social event and the promise of four hours non-stop music was merely a guarantee that the magic moment would be prolonged as long as possible. "Maybe we'll force them to stay open past curfew!"
If anyone is interested in the music which the Dead played, they were competent and pleasant. Garcia now devotes his time to the pedal-steel guitar, on which he is very proficient, spinning off some lovely twangy loops in accompaniment to Bob Weir's bland acoustic amplified guitar and pleasing singing. Bill Kreutzmann is a good drummer. All members of the band are effective and they sincerely wish to provide a groovy time. Because their sincerity is evident and their music is pleasant, a good time was had by all. But musically speaking, the Grateful Dead concert was an event of passing significance.

* * *

Rumor has it that some "counterfeit" tickets to the Dead concert in Milwaukee Sunday are being sold in the city. Promoters of the concert say they will not honor these tickets. They say the "real" tickets can only be purchased at outlets listed in their ads and at the door.

(by Mike Baron, from the Bugle-American, March 11-17 1971)

Thanks to jgmf.blogspot.com

http://archive.org/details/gd71-03-14.sbd.cole.6115.sbeok.shnf