tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post6710725977073490754..comments2024-03-26T23:10:34.814-07:00Comments on Grateful Dead Sources: October 9, 1972: WinterlandLight Into Asheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-17466973869591169852015-06-22T12:11:31.861-07:002015-06-22T12:11:31.861-07:00The dead.net site has some memories of this show: ...The dead.net site has some memories of this show: <br />"We arrived to see "Grateful Dead, NRPS, Toilet Bowl" listed on the marquee. Turns out that after the show, Bill Graham had a touch football game vs. the Dead's crew... Grace Slick came onstage with the boys at the beginning of the second set. She seemed completely ripped. They played a short bluesy jam with Grace lending some off the cuff vocals for a minute or two before she began going from one mike stand to another, raising, lowering and generally screwing them up. Bill Graham came on and escorted her off to the side of the stage, where they could be seen dancing later during Truckin. Also, during the end of Sugar Mag, Graham slowly brought the house lights up until the room was as bright as day."<br /><br />"They had Winterland set up sideways. The stage was in the middle along what was usually the right-hand wall so the floor was wide instead of long. When Grace Slick came out at the beginning of the second set...she was really drunk. Jerry and Bob just kept their distance and eventually (probably about 2 minutes in) Bill Graham came out, put his arm around her, and dragged her off the stage... <br />We were lingering at the end of the show and were among the last left of the audience when the bouncers stopped saying "everybody out" and announced "anyone staying needs to clear the floor and get up on the stage out of the way"... By the time I made it to the front part of the stage the football game had already started... The football game was between the dead's crew and Bill Graham's crew with Bill Graham and Weir also playing on their respective teams... I'm pretty sure that the dead's crew lost." <br /><br />"At the end of the show, there was no announcement of the game, and they began to clear the house like that was it, time to go home. We stayed in the lower floor seats and they cleared Winterland normally, but never insisted that we leave. A handful of other fans who had figured out the "Toilet Bowl"...also stuck around quietly in the lower seats, waiting expectantly while they cleared the house. It couldn't have been more than 20 fans as I recall. Eventually they shut the doors, and about 15 minutes later the two teams came running out in t-shirts, tank tops and shorts, whooping and obviously excited about the game... One team was made up of Bill with a headband and his Crew, and the other team was made up of Dead Roadies, I don't remember if Bobby played, but I think he did. We went over and got on the stage. It was a real loose scene where everything goes. All the Dead family were partying on the stage. They had a big cooler with Heinekens... Phil was sitting on a toilet that they had set up in the front center of the stage, drinking beer, obviously in a good mood. As the game went on, I remember a ring of empty beer bottles gathering at the bottom of the toilet... It had a wood seat that had been engraved around the ring: "Dead Ringers Vs. the Graham Crackers"... That was the prize for the "Toilet Bowl" game they were playing. Graham's team eventually won, the game was over, and we were asked to leave."<br />http://www.dead.net/show/october-9-1972 <br /><br />(Oddly, both accounts say that Graham's team won the game, contradicting the article.)Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-10738633532832602472015-06-22T12:11:06.353-07:002015-06-22T12:11:06.353-07:00Wasserman only stayed through the first set of thi...Wasserman only stayed through the first set of this show, so he missed Grace Slick drunkenly staggering onstage with an impromptu blues scat to start off the second set. There seem to have been plenty of other guests hanging round the stage, too. <br />He writes that a "mass freak-out...marked their last stay at Winterland" - I assume he's referring to the 5/29/71 acid incident. Presumably he forgot that the Dead had played Winterland three times since then. Nonetheless, a Graham associate still warns, "Don't drink anything you haven't opened yourself." <br />His knowledge of the Dead is spotty - he knows enough to talk about their post-Viola Lee country-rock period, but he mistakes El Paso for The Streets of Laredo, and he doesn't recognize Playing in the Band (the last tune of the set; an awesome version by the way). His description of the show can be condescending - "time to haul out them rock and roll cliches" - but Godchaux gets some extra praise. The crowd sounds as wild as ever for a Dead show. <br />Noelle Barton, "the Dead's house dancer," had been a resident of the Olompali commune and friend of the Dead's back in '68-69, and was probably a regular at local Dead shows since those days.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.com