tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post4012639127855747893..comments2024-03-26T23:10:34.814-07:00Comments on Grateful Dead Sources: May 5, 1968: Central Park, New York CityLight Into Asheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-40642465031893770862017-06-28T19:38:23.451-07:002017-06-28T19:38:23.451-07:00That last is a great line.That last is a great line.Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-33671316681533087772017-06-27T01:08:53.048-07:002017-06-27T01:08:53.048-07:00Another spring in New York City, another free Dead...Another spring in New York City, another free Dead show in Central Park... The Dead made this an annual tradition in the '60s, which Rock Scully sounds proud of here.<br /><br />The Airplane had announced the free show at their Fillmore East show the night before. <br />Billboard reported, "An estimated 10,000 persons heard a free concert at Central Park's Mall on Sunday... The show was set up by William Graham of Fillmore East and Howard Solomon of the Cafe au Go Go, who probably will set up more such concerts in the future."<br /><br />The Village Voice (linked) described it: "The Dead nearly caused a civic disturbance by stopping when the permit said they had to (disturbance cooled by Bill Graham). It was beautiful. The audience - a little wiped out from hours of Butterfield Blues, Airplane, crush, and waiting - milled and sat. The Dead played: it was New York, but it was a free concert, in a park, on a sunny Sunday. The Airplane, back in the bandshell listening, grooved. The Dead started cooking. Suddenly a teenybopper was up down front, all limegreen and longhair and motion. The row of photographers in front of her were up. Then the audience, not in rows, but en masse, was up, dancing, screaming, frenzied. A firecracker went off onstage. Bubblegum flew. A drumhead popped and drumsticks flew. Everyone onstage was dancing. Suddenly it was over."<br />One witness fondly remembers, "Everyone was up and dancing and didn't sit down until they stopped."<br /><br />Most newspaper reporters covering free park shows at the time didn't pay much attention to the music, but here the fuddy-duddy New York Times has pretty good coverage (though you wouldn't guess from the article that the whole crowd was dancing to the Dead). As usual the reporter pays attention to the youth attire and the pretty girls in attendance, but he also says a bit about the "oddly named" San Francisco groups and their "overpowering electronic sound," and seems especially taken (or bemused) by the noisy, hirsute Dead. He probably sympathized with the glum police captain! <br />I'm reminded of the Toronto Globe & Mail's coverage of the Dead in August '67: "five simian men, presumably reeking with San Francisco authenticity...not volume, but noise...like a jet taking off in your inner ear, while the mad scientist was perversely scraping your nerves to shreds."Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.com