A Strange Trip

This month I am going to explain how I first discovered the glory that is live music. Like any other thoroughly brainwashed young American citizen, I was brought up to believe that music is a commodity. I thought that the radio gave you a taste of what a band sounded like which in turn made you want to go out and purchase the band's album. MTV started just as I was becoming aware of what was going on around me. Music was all about a catchy tune with a killer video that would become very popular. Songs like "Come on Eileen" by Dexies Midnight Runners, "Land Down Under" by Men at Work, and "Puttin' on the Ritz" by Taco swirl in my subconscious as some of the first examples of how I heard and saw music. As a child of the 80's, one could see how I was put on a path of musical ignorance that could have rendered my life musically void. Luckily, I had some friends who showed me the light in the strangest of places when I looked at it right.

It was 1988 and I was a wannabe prep-school hippie. I was 15 years old and had figured out that Deadheads liked to party and wore clothes that seemed new, different, and bold to me. They seemed rebellious and I was eager to be a part of it all. I, too, would be a Deadhead revolutionary, I thought to myself. I bought the "Official Book of the Dead-Heads" and read it cover to cover several times. I reeled at the tales of crazy acid trips, free love, and a culture that seemed like a completely different world. I listened to the music on American Beauty and Skeletons From the Closet and found it to be quite catchy. Basically, the Dead seemed like a cool thing and, at age 15, I was in a never ending quest for coolness. Little did I know what was lurking under the groovy surface.

A friend returned from Summer break with tales of the Rochester '88 Dead show he attended. He was bouncing off the walls explaining all of it to us. He tried to explain the parking lot scene, the availability of drugs, and the complexity of the music. "Every song is great," he said. "These guys just pour out this music and emotion from their hearts. You have to see them live!" I could not grasp the concept of every song being great. I knew that all bands had good songs that were played on the radio and bad songs that sat in obscurity on their albums for only the die-hard fans to hear. I knew "Touch of Grey" was the Dead's best song because I had seen the video and heard it on the radio. Of course, my friend had seen the Dead show experience first hand and was enraptured. He collected tapes from college aged friends and we all listened to them. The long jams seemed tedious and monotonous to us, but we forced ourselves to listen. Of course, it all made a heck of a lot more sense when we added the mind-expanding drugs to the experience. The long jams were exciting journeys now, not boring noodlings. As a 15 yr old kid sitting in a dorm room listening to a 1973 Dark Star zooted on acid, the Dead thing was becoming clearer.

My first show was in September of 1988 at Madison Square Garden. It was the last night of a historic multi-show Rain Forest Benefit run. On the ride there, I made sure to scribble drawings of mushrooms on my faded and ripped jeans. I was wearing my favorite tie-dyed t-shirt, necklaces, bracelets...you know, all the stuff I saw people wearing in the Deadhead book. Unfortunately, I did not understand the power of psychedelics and ingested way too many to even be able to comprehend that I was at a concert, never mind at a Dead show in the middle of New York City. I was a young kid in a weird place with a head full of drugs. The fact that I made it out of that experience without a total breakdown seems like a small miracle. After the show we rode in a subway to where we were staying. We were packed into a car with hundreds of other heads. A guy had a guitar and started to play. Every person in the subway car knew all the words to every song the guy played except me. I started to realize that this community was not all about a freaky image and taking acid, but instead that it was all about the music.

The whole MSG experience served as an eye-opener. I learned to respect the drugs and to listen to the music. I learned that the Deadhead community was one of the kindest and most accepting places I had ever been in. I returned to my prep-school with a new vigor and respect for the music. I may not have remembered any of the songs played during my first show, but on that subway ride home I learned that the music was first and foremost in any real Deadhead's eye. Needless to say, I burned through hundreds of bootlegs when I got back. I listened hard and long. I listened to the funny banter on Ithaca '77, the crazy Phil jams in '74, the power house versions of "Hell in a Bucket" from 1988. I memorized lyrics, bought posters, sang in acoustic sing-a-longs, wore tie-dyes, and dropped acid. I was starting to respect the music and was eager to appreciate a live show now that I knew some history and the songs. My next Dead show would be seen, heard, and remembered as far as I was concerned. Little did I know that I was about to embark on a life-changing journey.

It was now Spring of 1989 and the Dead were touring. Unfortunately, our boarding school was in rural Pennsylvania which was nowhere near any of the stops on the tour. The fact that we had no car or even a driver's license definitely made things difficult. Also, to leave for a weekend from our school, we had to have the school's and our parent's permission by filling out some forms explaining our plans for our weekend away from boarding school in detail. Our college friend from New England who had graduated from prep-school the year before informed us that he would be heading to see shows in Cincinnati and then Louisville. He was under the impression that since the Dead were playing Freedom Hall in Louisville for the first time since 1974, that the busting out of "Weather Report Suite" was pretty much a sure thing. That's why he was committed to driving so many miles for a couple shows.

After lying to our parents and the school about how we were going to a friend's school in Maryland to hear a symposium on the environment, the big weekend slowly approached. The school expected some parents to come pick us up in their car and drive us down to Maryland. One had to leave for their approved weekend with a parent or guardian no later than 7:30pm because after that time it was against the rules for students to be off campus. Well, our ride was late. We had to hide in some bushes for hours. We didn't know what the hold up was but we knew if we got caught hiding off campus limits after hours we would be in big trouble.maybe even kicked out of school. We snuck back into a dorm to see if any of our friends had heard from our ride. Apparently, he was running very late and wouldn't be there to pick us up until around 2:30am. We waited in our closets for hours until the time came to sneak out of the dorm (which was a serious offense worthy of the boot in itself). We were shaking like little bunnies as we made our way out of the dorm and finally met our ride.

Of course, our guy was exhausted. He had been driving for 7 or 8 hours and it was almost 3:00am. My friends and I were all 15 or 16 and none of us had a driver's license. We were tired, too, from what had been a long and stressful evening of sneaking around like wanted criminals. I remember swatches of that crazy night. Ben, our driver, was hurting. He had the music cranked up and the windows rolled down to keep himself awake. I know he missed an exit that he wanted to take at one point, so he just stopped the car and drove the wrong way on the highway to get back there with us screaming "What the fuck are you doing!!??" the whole time. At one point, we were getting off an exit that had a sharp turn and we skidded on the wet pavement and rammed the guard rail a little bit. I know that we rear-ended a sign when backing up at one time or another, too. We managed to keep our driver awake, though, and we were approaching Cincinnati by 8am. We pulled over at a rest area and were parked by some other heads. They pulled up a large sack of nugs to show us, and we pulled up our yellow bong to show them. We sat there for awhile and passed some bowls back and forth between the open front seat car windows. After this unexpected little pleasantry, we kept on driving until we finally arrived at our destination.

The Cinci lot scene was out of control. The rain had forced everyone inside this big parking garage, and the place was transformed into 3 floors of tribal ecstasy. This was a completely different realm than the MSG scene of folks milling around here or there. This shit was concentrated. There were long haired freaks everywhere you walked. People whispered "doses, shrooms, buds" with every step. The smells of pot, sweat, and patchouli hung heavily in the air. There were drums being pounded, folks selling clothes on spread out blankets, people yelling and singing, music blaring from many different sets of speakers. We scored some liquid and buds and headed back to our car to hang out. After one bong rip, our one friend turned yellow. Literally turned yellow. He was down for the count and this gave us the first bad vibe of the day. Of course, our youthful excitement could not be completely squashed and we enjoyed hanging out with the freaks most of the day.

Suddenly, some kids we knew from boarding school appeared. The first thing they told us was that our parents had called them asking where we were. Even the yellow guy popped up from his spot lying down in the back of our truck with a look of horror on his face. "What did you tell them??" we asked. "We told them how we were supposed to be meeting up with you guys in Ohio for the Dead show." It hit like a wall of bricks. I had that heart dropping sensation you get on the big hill of a roller coaster, but it didn't stop. We were screwed. And to top it all off, I had just ingested a hit of liquid.

We tried to shake off this intensely bad news with positive talk. "Well, we're here now so we may as well enjoy ourselves," we repeated over and over. It barely started working on us by the time we got to our seats and sat down. How would I be able to enjoy the show with all of this mental baggage I was carrying? People milled in and we chatted with folks. Everyone seemed happy. There was an announcement made over the PA that smoking was not allowed but in the middle of the statement the voice got all high-pitched and alien sounding. A roar went up from the crowd in appreciation of this mind-screwing extra psychedelic touch. I sat there wondering if I had imagined it or if it had really happened. Energy was building and we were starting to get caught up in the moment instead of thinking of our dire situation.

We knew it was only 15 minutes or so until the start of the show as we peered up at the light of the score board. All of the sudden where the large lighted sign usually runs messages like "Have a Coke," a different message ran. It said "Emergency!! John Zinkand, please call your parents. Emergency!!" Our parents had called the venue and had them run our names on the huge indoor signs of the arena. We freaked in every sense of the word, our psychedelic peace of mind shattered. The dude next to us asked, "Is that you guys? Wow, you're like famous!" While mildly amusing, we were in no mood to laugh at his joke. We pondered whether to call them and face the music now, or to wait until after the show. I waited while my friend called. He got back and told me of how we would be missing Louisville the next night because we had to be on a bus home. I was in a state of utter disbelief. I had waited so long for these shows and now it was all falling apart. How could this happen? Well, after some mental wrangling, I decided to say "Fuck it!" If I was going to miss tomorrow night, I was gonna get down tonight, damnit! Then the lights went off and cheers filled the air.

"Let the Good Times Roll" was the mellow opener which eased my mind a bit. Bobby's wails made me smile. "Wang Dang Doodle" was powerful and interesting to me as I had never heard it on any tape. Then the band started "Blow Away" as I was thinking about the trouble I was in. But then I listened to Brent chanting about how love was it and that the rest of the BS could just blow away. He really built up the vocal improvisation section of the song into an emotional fury that everyone in attendance felt. The place swelled with energy and I realized that I was here now and that nothing else mattered. Not one more thought of the deep shit I was in came to mind for the rest of the show. We enjoyed a great second set with gems like "China>Rider," "Eyes of the World," "Looks Like Rain," and a "Box of Rain" encore. I really heard to the music and thoroughly enjoyed the show on many levels. Then the lights came on and reality hit with a vengeance.

Our driver, Ben, asked us if we had his car keys. "No," we told him. We raced back to our original seats (we had moved for the second set for some reason) to look for the keys. Nothing. We weren't going to the show tomorrow night, we were totally busted by our parents and figured we'd probably be kicked out of school, we had to drive home on a bus the next day, and now this. We went back to the parking garage where we sat and looked at the outside of the locked car. I called my parents on a pay phone and let them rip into me. Damn they were pissed. We laid out a plan for the wiring of money for Greyhound tickets the next day. After I got off the phone, we tried to figure out what the hell we were gonna do about our current helping of bad luck. We started calling locksmiths to come make a key for our car, but the cheapest one we could find cost about $175. That was just about all the money all of us had combined, with Ben having a little left over to get to Louisville the next night and then back to college. There was nothing else we could do, so we forked over all of our cash to this weasel in locksmith's clothing.

Ben knew some college friends who were staying at a motel near by, se we made our way over and tried to crash on the floor. Of course, we had never toured before so we had nothing. No blankets, no pillows, no food, no nothing. I remember trying to sleep on the floor with a mean draft hitting me from under the door all night. I woke up every hour or so and shifted off whatever currently numb part of my body I was on. I was balled up with my arms inside my shirt in a futile effort to keep warm. The visions of being kicked out of school and being grounded for life certainly didn't help me sleep well, either.

The next day we had Ben drive us to the bus station. He was not happy about taking driving time out of his day to do it, either. We got to the station just after one of the only two buses heading to our destination had left. The next one boarded in approximately 8 hours. We had no money left and were very hungry, but we also understood that Ben had already hooked us up quite a bit. We asked for 5 bucks for food, but he was down to about 30 dollars and he needed it to get to Louisville and then all the way back to New England. Instead, he gave us each about 60 cents. We drank water from the water fountain and sat around the bus station all day waiting for our bus. We each bought one bag of chips that we gingerly snacked on throughout the day in a valiant effort of conservation. By boarding time, we were exhausted. The ride home was a blur and the events that unfolded upon arrival were not pleasant. We didn't get booted from school, but our lives were not so much fun that summer. Even then I realized that it had all been worth it and that I would have happily gone on the adventure again, given the chance. I had traveled a very rough road, but it lead me to the pure appreciation of music and, for that, I am so very grateful.