My Last Time

Raw's comments on the JGB show reminded me of the last show I attended. So I thought I’d share it with the Hubbubers.

Although I agree with Raw about the JGB show (JGB at the Mann Music Center in Philly, circa 1985, is in my top 5 shows EVER!) my last Dead show was pretty interesting, to say the least.

It was in the middle of the corn fields of Indiana at a place, not unlike the Mann in Philly, called Deer Creek. This was a month or so before Jerry’s untimely death. The reader may recall that the summer of ’95 was a down year for the Horde, Lollapalooza etc. and the Dead tour seemed overrun with Phish Heads and hangers-on with nothing to do that summer but take mom's car and follow the Dead. There was an exceptionally strange vibe in the camp sites and parking lots before the first of what was to be 3 shows there. One chick, that was hanging with our group, liked to wear mini skirts with no panties so most of the men in our group were having trouble concentrating on anything but…well, you get the picture. One of them wound up marrying the chic, but I digress.

Once tickets were secured we were on are way to rock-n-roll with the boys in the band. Upon getting to the gates we noticed something different was going on. The security was scanning folks with metal detectors and heavily searching people. Hard to realize that before 9/11 this was very unusual for Americans to go through. Rumors held that there was a death threat on Jerry’s life from a disgruntled father who lost his little girl to the dreaded “Dead.” This was the reason for the added security. They even left the house light on for the entire show. I don’t remember much of what the band played that night except that Jerry was totally off his game. They played a “Playin” that they had to slow down to like one beat per 10 seconds trying to get jerry back into the song without any luck. Then it happened! Loads of people started rushing around when we noticed that the fence at the rear of the venue was torn down in sections and people were streaming in for free. Bobby went into “Victim or the Crime” at that point but that is about all I remember of the music. The rest was just a crazy scene. After the show, while waiting to get out of the grid locked parking lot, we were held up for at least a half an hour as police car after police car left the area after the “Riot.” That’s right, the authorities were calling this a riot, but really it was just a case of mass gate crashing.

Next day we found out that the rest of the shows were canceled. There was a fella selling medical grade at our camp site and he was selling at whole sale prices because he no longer had two more shows to sell it at. My lasting remembrance from that show is Du4 and I sitting by the pond, that the hippies washed themselves in, huffing on balloons and fantasizing about selling Fresh Steamed Lobsters on tour with Fatty Taddies and Drawn Butter. Best laid plans of mice and men I suppose…

Our next stop was Mammoth cave since we had some time to kill on our way home; but that is another story for another day. Oh…FYI we never made it to the cave.