Life May Be Sweeter For This, I Don't Know . . .

After a grueling week at work, it's time to toss out a memory from something I used to love to look forward to doing on weekends, or anytime, which was heading out somewhere to see the Grateful Dead play. . . and that is something I did more times than I care to admit. Never had a bad time, on the contrary, every show was just an amazing trip. So here's to ya, Jerry, may you R.I.P.
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Did you ever see a Dead show ? If so, where ? When ? What did you think ? This one was from Paris, 1990, at the Zenith Theatre, where it was easy to get right up to the edge of the stage while Jerry was smiling over Crazy Fingers. If you didn't ever get to a show, have you maybe listened to any of their music, which spanned 30 years from '65 to '95, when Jerry passed on ?
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This piece of graffiti from somewhere in eastern France probably had nothing to do with the Grateful Dead, but it might have. . . you never know. It is, I admit, a fairly amateurish piece of graffiti, as graffiti goes.

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Grateful !

When I look back on the occasions in the past where my life might very easily have come to a sudden end ; the car wrecks, the parachute mishap, and other assorted close calls. . . well, all I can say is : "I'm just grateful to still be here, just getting on, one day at a time, with a few friends and a loving family around, with a camera in hand, and a guitar at hand . . ."
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And being grateful to be alive, versus dead, is a theme that goes well with an Easter weekend, even if I'm not a very religious kind of guy, in the organized religion sense of the word, and it is also a theme that goes extremely well with the music and general philosophy of the Grateful Dead.
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While out this afternoon I bumped into a friend who suggested I take a look at the New York Times website which posted a story about the Grateful Dead yesterday; which you can read here, if you're interested. They are also encouraging readers to submit Grateful Dead related photos to the reader album in progress, which you can see here, there are already hundreds of photos there. . . I couldn't resist uploading a couple myself. . . but as I don't know yet whether they will actually be posted, here are three shots from a Dead show in Paris, France on 27 October, 1990 . . . Jerry, Bob, and Micky . . . It has been said the Dead were not the greatest band to do what they did . . . they were the ONLY band to do what they did !
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Dead Ahead...

If you can find it well below here somewhere there is a photo in shades of green light of the Grateful Dead on stage in the Zenith Theatre, Paris, France in 1990. In case anyone had any doubts as to the veracity of that story (of course I know you didn't !... but then again, the internet is chock full of frauds and trickery of various sorts) here is the ticket stub ; illustrated with quite an assortment of wildlife... well, every Grateful Dead show was a little bit of a circus, a zoo, a menagerie, a carnaval, a magic lantern show, a magical mystery tour, a voyage to the end of the night, an epiphany. . . may you rest in peace Jerry. And may I find you sitting in a roadside cafe playing an acoustic guitar someday in that country, wherever it is that we are all going to visit someday... and may the music be sweet and never stop.

Dead Zenith Pilgrimage

On 27 October 1990, REK and I (see Nuclear Cows and Autumn colors below) happened to be in Paris with tickets in hand to see the Grateful Dead play at the Zenith Theatre. Having travelled trans-Atlantic to see them in Paris was a major highlight in the string of Dead experiences we shared over a few years back there in the distant haze of memory. This photo was taken from the edge of the stage that night while they were playing Crazy Fingers, there was no problem moving around inside the Zenith. Reviews of that show, and the streaming audio of it for that matter, can be found at, along with many thousands of other Dead shows :
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http://www.archive.org/details/gd90-10-27.sbd.braverman.9373.sbefail.shnf

And what a long strange trip it was. We went to the Louvre museum the afternoon before the show, the number of people in tie dyed t-shirts walking around in there was impressive. The next day we went down to Vezelay, which if you've been there, you will remember is another intense experience, a pilgrimage into the past...