tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post471807024940340481..comments2024-03-26T23:10:34.814-07:00Comments on Grateful Dead Sources: March 5, 1971: Oakland Auditorium Arena, Oakland, CALight Into Asheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-37693630980305272362019-06-28T17:38:28.006-07:002019-06-28T17:38:28.006-07:00Most of the people going to the benefit might not ...Most of the people going to the benefit might not have cared about the disputes that much - it wasn't well-attended, most of the audience was white, and the kids the Barb reporter ran into were there "to hear the Dead" and didn't even know about the Panther split (though they sympathized with the Panthers in general). <br /><br />A couple attendees on dead.net recall: <br />"I was there, a young lefty, for mainly the Grateful Dead but with interest in the speeches of the Black Panther leadership as well. After the political speeches finished, the entire group of Black Panthers and supporters left the building, as well as most of the politicos, leaving a very small audience for...a short but tight set of music."<br />"Huey Newton, Black Panther Party Chairman, gave a long, rather boring speech before the band went on. As he introduced them, ALL the black people left the place! There were like 50 or so people left, so we all sat onstage to hear the band."<br /><br />The reporters note the bad sound system, and agree that the Dead played to a mostly empty arena of perhaps a thousand people: <br />"Black people looked on rather amazed for a few minutes and then began to leave in droves." <br />"Most of the blacks and the white power freaks filed out of the auditorium, having heard what they came to hear." <br />The few Dead fans who remained gathered up at the front of the stage and danced. Per the Barb, "the Dead managed to get in a really good set and had everybody bobbing up and down with good vibes." But they had to stop at 11. (The event had started "two hours late" after the Panthers searched everyone coming in, so the entire proceedings may have taken only two hours or so.)<br /><br />In the Barb article, some kids from Sacramento say "the Dead had played in Sac the night before," and they were seeing them again. Although this seems to indicate a lost show, I can't find any evidence of the Dead playing in Sacramento; and since they'd just done a show there in December '70, a repeat visit so soon seems very unlikely. Maybe the kids had been at the Dead's Fillmore West show a couple days earlier and the Barb reporter misunderstood?Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-90717847742086413792019-06-28T17:38:07.045-07:002019-06-28T17:38:07.045-07:00Ironically, this lost show is one of the best-repo...Ironically, this lost show is one of the best-reported events the Dead appeared at, with full and detailed coverage in three papers that I've seen (and probably others as well)...but the Dead themselves are only a short footnote in each. All the reporters were there because it was a political event, hence 'newsworthy,' so the Panthers' problems and Newton's speech were reported at length, while the Dead's set was only worth a brief mention. <br />There is also a radio recording of the Panther portion of the evening (speeches and music), but no recording of the Dead seems to exist. (As one reporter notes, "Anyone with a tape recorder was barred.") Oh well! <br /><br />More details on this event, and recollections from several attendees, are in the Lost Live Dead comments, so I won't repeat those here. <br />Back on 9/16/70, the Dead had met Huey Newton on a plane flight to New York, talked with him through the flight, and spontaneously agreed to do a benefit for the Black Panthers. It was originally supposed to be in New York in December '70, but the plan changed and it ended up being in Oakland in March '71. McNally writes that it was "a very mixed experience... Panther notions of security led to pat-down searches of everyone in the band and crew, and...Elaine Brown failed to charm the Dead." (p.395) <br />Peter Doggett also writes about the show at length in his book There's A Riot Going On (p.411). <br />The Panthers' attitude toward the Dead was one of strong mistrust, and one article notes the Dead weren't allowed in the auditorium until Newton left. Needless to say, there was no further contact between the Dead and the Panthers. <br /><br />As these articles make clear, by the time the benefit took place, the Black Panther party was already disintegrating as the leadership attacked each other and split into factions. So it was not a happy occasion - these articles call it "gloomy...a downer...a sullen bad vibes environment." Underground papers like the Good Times devoted pages of articles to the Panthers' internal dissensions, trying to figure out what was going on, which side was more ideologically correct, and how true revolutionaries should respond. As one reporter put it, "Now...the whites are deciding who was righteous and who was a fascist, which isn't our right."Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.com