Still Dead and Loving It

Years ago when I lived in East Tennessee, I knew lots of ol’ country boys who listened to nothing but Lynyrd Skynyrd and other Southern Rock bands. One day, I thought I’d test the limits of their musical tastes, and I asked Screamin’ Chuck Johnson, the singer in our weekend garage band, if he liked the Grateful Dead. “You know what?” he said, staring me coldly in the eye, “I’d be grateful if they was dead.”

I lost track of Screamin’ Chuck some time ago, but I’m going to guess he wouldn’t give two hoots about the surviving members of the Grateful Dead reuniting for a short tour starting next month. (They kicked off the publicity for it today, playing sets at three different small venues in the city). Jerry Garcia, per Chuck’s wishes, IS dead—deceased, I should say, to avoid confusion—so the legion of diehard fans known as Deadheads won’t be getting the full thrill of years past, but I’m betting there will be mostly sellouts for all the tour dates.

I have a Grateful Dead story. Well, not really a story. I saw them once. Most serious Deadheads have seen the band scores, even hundreds of times. I liked the Dead, but not enough to follow them around the country seeing show after show. But my one time was still quite memorable, partly because of where the concert was, and partly because they played my favorite song.

My high school buddies had gotten together for our annual canoe/backpacking trip, and ended up back in Boulder, Colorado, where some of them lived. It coincided nicely with some Grateful Dead dates at one of the most amazing performance venues in the world: the Red Rocks Amphitheater, in the foothills of the Rockies looking out over Denver. You can check out some photos of Red Rocks here. I think it was 1985, but one would have sworn it was the Summer of Love. A Dead concert is as much about the folks in the audience as it is the band, and two words briefly sum up the experience: tie-dye, and twirling. Almost everybody wears tie-dye, and it seemed like almost everybody twirls around and around for the entire duration of the concert. Looking back, I wonder if some of those people were on drugs.

Although I just “liked” the band overall, my number one favorite song of all time is a Grateful Dead song, “Uncle John’s Band.” I’ll never forget the first time I heard it. I just kept picking the needle up off the record and playing it over and over again. That annoyed some people, because I was at a party at the time, but I just love that song. It’s the last song I want to hear before I depart this mortal coil. I play it for people who ask me my philosophy of life. Nobody ever asks me, but if they did, I would have them listen to “Uncle John’s Band.” It was recorded around 1970, but is eternally relevant. Listen how the opening lyrics could be interpreted as a brief history of our recent economic developments:

“The first days are the hardest days, don’t you worry any more.
‘cause when life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door.”

I asked my buddies, who were semi-Deadheads (they’d seen the band maybe 10-15 times), if they’d play “Uncle John’s Band” the night we were seeing them. The consensus was that they would not. The Dead are/were famous for switching their set list around every show, but my friends said they’d never heard it played.

But--as one of my 7-year-old twins always asks as a preface to anything he tells me—guess what?? They played it!

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t such a great story. But if you enjoyed it anyway, and wish to relive the experience vicariously… I found today via Google, believe it or not, this set list from that very concert. You can see “Uncle John’s Band” there in the second set.. Funny, but I can’t remember the Dead playing a single one of those other songs on the list. Must have been the….tie dye.