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Tour Journal Revisited
"Don't Tell Me This Town Ain't Got No Heart"
by Fee ( fee@pobox.com )
Edited by Michael MorrowSuccessful love affairs rarely come by design. Happy accidents, at best. Thus it should seem strange that in a week's span, 2,000 miles from home, I found myself enraptured not once, but twice. For in that week away, I went from casual interest to magnificent infatuation with a both a band and an island, with the Grateful Dead and Manhattan.
An odd combination? Maybe we should end the story here: chalk it up to time and place, those being chaotic, exploratory college days and a trip to a grandiose city I'd never visited before. But a week of strolling the streets of New York and an erratic Dead run at Madison Square Garden tie too closely, fit too well, and have altered both my eyes and ears.
What I discovered that autumn of 1994 was a sense of focused chaos in the air, a playful and sometimes dangerous bounce between unpredictability and orchestration:
The smooth flow from "China Cat Sunflower" into "I Know You Rider" like the outpouring of suits onto Fifth Avenue at lunch time.
The madness of Drums & Space like the careening skateboarder in Battery Park.
Parts in a whole, be they thousands at the Garden singing "Sugar Magnolia" or millions in Manhattan going about their lives as collective New Yorkers.
An off tempo, sour note during "Morning Dew," like a fatal overdose witnessed on First Avenue.
That week in New York turned out to be a trip of a lifetime -- something like the gift of synergy, not always perfect, but the unpredictable rhythm of life echoing all the way. Some left their hearts in San Francisco; I found my soul in New York City.
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