Sweating Down In Binghampton...With The Grateful Dead (1979)
Bobby Weir has left the arena....Drums remain to end this era.
(Note: With the passing of Bobby Weir this year, I wanted to revisit this night with the Grateful Dead. It was a magical day.)
I have been listening to the Grateful Dead since I was about 13. That year was 1970.
My siblings’ friends were into all sorts of music, and FM radio filled my head with brand-new music all the time. What a time to hear so much brilliant new music. Sometimes I think so much of what I hear today is derivative of those days.
Aoxomoxoa was the 1969 album that I first heard. St. Stephen, Mountains Of The Moon, China Cat Sunflower, and Cosmic Charlie caught my ear but did not lock me in as a fan. All of a sudden, a year later, Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty appeared. After considering two of their best studio albums, I became a Deadhead for life.
Still recall someone handing me the America Beauty album cover and me saying, “American Reality. That’s a cool album title". They laughed and said, “No, it is American Beauty!” The meaningless palindrome of that 1969 album should have clued me into these pranksters.
I do not think either of us knew that there was a rose called American Beauty. He just read the cover one way and I read it the other. I did not find out about this ambigram until years later:
American Beauty was released just over four months after Workingman's Dead. The title of the album has a double meaning, referring both to the musical focus on Americana and to the rose that is depicted on the front cover. Around the rose, the album title is scripted as a text ambigram that can also be read "American Reality".
And I thought I was just stoned, the way I spent a large part of the 70’s.
These two records I have played over and over again for 56 years. They stand the test of time, and along with The Band, the Dead are the modern roots of Americana. The genre that did not exist back then. Good music was just that. Good Music. I consider those 2 records to be perfect.
Time moved on, and Europe ‘72 found its way into my eardrums and the sound of the Dead live became a constant companion. I was deep into the San Francisco sound, and I was more of a Jefferson Airplane kid. I did get to see Jerry Garcia play pedal steel with the New Riders in the early 70’s and that was very special. Many shows with NRPS and Commander Cody and others filled my youth.
And even though I was constantly attending concerts, I did not see them live until I was 20, in 1979.
My college education was over, and we had a couple of weeks before graduation. State University of New York at Oswego was positioned on Lake Ontario. It was located in what was called a snow belt. in 1977-78 we received 231 inches of snow (586cm) and in 1978-1979 138 inches of the white stuff (350cm). 1978-1979 was also one of the coldesst winters in US history. We did not see the sunshine much that winter on the banks of the Lake.
We made the most of the weather, and there was always a warm bar with cold beer or something to keep us occupied when we were not hitting the books. Cabin fever ran wild, and by the time the weather report announced a warm day a-coming in May of 1979, we were ready to walk in the sunshine and defrost our frigid bones.
On May 6th in Oswego, it was 50F (10 °C). According to the weather outlook on the 8th and 9th of May, the temperatures were going to leap into summer-time highs! Since the weather was going to be shorts-and-t-shirt, Diane and I decided to find that little container in the freezer. Inside a plastic bottle and wrapped in aluminium foil were a couple of hits of LSD.
The morning of May 9th came around and we decided to ingest these little beauties and hang around the lake and enjoy ourselves. This tale is 47 years old, so don’t hold me to every detail. (Diane: correct me if I am wrong)
We were strolling down Fulton Street in Oswego when a car cut us off. My old classmate from grade school and the dude who lived above me in Oswego leaned out the window and said, “Hey, Paul, can you type?” I took stock of the waves of hallucinations going on around me and said, “Of course!”
Frank went on to explain that he and his mate Larry had printed up a bunch of counterfeit tickets to the Grateful Dead show that evening in Binghampton. We jumped into the car and drove to where the typewriter and tickets were. I focused and typed the details:
We headed off on the road trip with beer and weed and a car full of freaks. Di and I already had our heads screwed on properly, and we were laughing and flying. I was dressed in overalls, no T-shirt, and sneakers. It was H O T. Temperatures were approaching 100F (over 30C), but we were digging it.
I can recall getting in a line to enter, and NO ONE looked at my ticket. We were let in with the rest of ‘the animals’, as one police officer called us in the press.
We figured that this Ice Hockey Arena would be much cooler than the parking lot. As we found our spot on the floor, close to the stage, we noticed that it seemed hotter inside as the first set went on. There was a crush up front, and a barrier came down. Jerry was playing some amazing solos but was not showing much emotion. According to setlists online, they played for only 40 minutes and then took a break.
We ran off to the bathrooms. I bolted into the Men’s room to get some water and I certainly go that. Some folks had filled the sinks with cold water and they were splashing people as they came in. Considering a good number of those in attendance were tripping, this turned into an amazingly cool water fight.
We needed any cooling possible. The story goes that someone at the arena was responsible for turning on the Air Conditioning. Supposedly, they had turned on the heat instead. We were all melting, but we were having a damn good time.
Dancing, dancing, and more dancing. The set-list wasa made up of 13 of my favourite Dead tunes. A 20-minute Sugaree to kick the evening off melted my brain. Jack Straw, He’s Gone, Truckin’, Looks Like Rain, Sugar Magnolia and more surprised the hell out of me. This was like a greatest-hits Dead show, if they had hits!
I did not know at the time, but China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider had not been played East of the Mississippi in 5 years….until tonight. I had no idea why the place had erupted in a true fever of Dead Head happiness until years later.
Closing down with Chuck Berry’s Johnny B Goode left us all sweating even more. I would have preferred Promised Land, but this was fine, fine, fine.
So that was it. I don’t recall the ride home. It had been quite the day, and we arrived back in Oswego after midnight and rested our bones. With thoughts of the next time we could dance and smile, smile, smile with our community.
It’s the end of an era with only Mickey and Billy beating the drums….the rest is Space.
There will be Others, the music will never stop.
“My major consideration for what I do—the decisions I make, how I approach this or that—is not what ripples it will make now. My major consideration is what will people say about what I’m thinking or doing in 300 years. It occurs to me if we do all this stuff right, they will still be talking about it in 300 years.” -Bob Weir CBS Interview 2022
Fare Thee Well Bobby.
Below are some articles about the show….and the day. Just some history! It was a short show at 155 minutes….but for me and those who attended it was a very special night. You can find the gig here if you want to listen. There is no soundboard…
https://archive.org/details/gd79-05-09.naks.seff.4881.sbefixed.shnf
