cannabisnews.com: Grateful for the Deadheads





Grateful for the Deadheads
Posted by CN Staff on August 04, 2002 at 12:29:18 PT
By Marilynn Marchione of Journal Sentinel Staff
Source: Journal Sentinel 
East Troy - The Night of the Living Dead was no horror show. In fact, Saturday's Terrapin Station reunion concert of the living members of the legendary '60s band the Grateful Dead followed script like a fairy-tale.There were no traffic jams around the Alpine Valley Music Amphitheatre, few arrests or complaints from area residents . . . and 35,000 happy, tie-dyed Deadheads. The concert featured its signature party animals, the kind of event that draws women with hairy legs and men with purses.
Megan Wendling, 23, of Pittsfield, Mass., wandered through the crowd wearing a gauzy top, long skirt and a sign that said "Free Hugs." Guys lined up for a turn."The Grateful Dead have been known for going in and giving people hugs," she said of the band that formed long before she was born.Officials were just happy that nobody wound up dead, hurt or mad.Or naked. Walworth County Sheriff David Graves (no Deadhead despite his name) had predicted that hundreds would be skinny-dipping in nearby Lake Geneva and that the two-lane county roads would be choked with rowdy concert-goers.Instead, he got a mellow crowd of mostly aging hippies - many of them raising kids, not hell. They had crochet halter tops, patchwork skirts, granny dresses and dreadlocks, but also cell phones, jobs, cars and mortgages."Everybody's so much older," said Kelly Sineni, 32, of Algonquin, Ill. "I have three kids at home and a husband."Pam Hill, 27, and a friend brought their 5-year-old daughters to the show, making the 17-hour drive with half a dozen friends from Massachusetts."We've been bringing them to festivals since they were 1," she said, as the girls danced, their heads covered in bandannas and their Mardi Gras beads swinging. "I was probably right out of high school when I started going to see the Dead, and I just got into it. Then I had a baby and decided she should go, too." Long-distance traveler  The event was billed as a reunion not just for the band, but for fans, too. And if they gave a prize for whoever had traveled farthest, Kinya and Misako Sato would have to walk away with it.The couple flew to Chicago on Wednesday from Hokkaido, Japan, and drove 300 miles to St. Louis to see one of the original Deads perform. On Saturday, they were dressed in tie-dyed shirts at Alpine Valley for the reunion concert, saying it cost them about 10 months' wages from their jobs in a computer store and as a nurse to afford the trip."There are very nice Japanese Deadheads," Kinya Sato said."Many, many," his wife added.Barbara ("but call me Barbie") Beyer, 37, of St. Charles, Ill., cut an image in a tie-dyed dress stretched taut against her bulging belly, seven months pregnant with her third child."I was pregnant with my first during the last Jerry show before he died in 1995, so I wasn't able to drink then, either," she said, referring to the band's most well-known member, Jerry Garcia.She said she had gone to 35 to 40 Grateful Dead concerts, most of them with her husband."A Dead show was one of our first dates," she said.Concert organizers credited extensive planning, safety precautions and the Internet, which helped them spread the warning that anyone without a ticket would be turned away. That happened to fewer than 200 fans - far fewer than expected."We had a very successful concert event here today," Graves said. "I think we have to credit fans as well as all the planning" for avoiding any problems for area residents."They've been protected properly, and I think the peace has been maintained," he said."We're very happy with the way the afternoon has transpired," said Larry Wethers of Clear Channel Entertainment, the concert's promoter. "It's a very unique event for the music and entertainment industry," and it bodes well for prospects of an East Coast tour in November whose dates were announced tentatively, depending on the outcome of the Alpine Valley show.As of late Saturday afternoon, there were 60 drug citations, all but six of them for possessing minor quantities of marijuana. Eleven people were jailed, six complaints of trespassing were received, and three of loitering.Residents join in  Most residents joined the crowd instead of fighting it.Twelve-year-old Aaron Greetham stood in a bright yellow shirt, waving an equally bright yellow poster-board that said "Jerry lives!" near the corner of County D and Highway 120, about a mile from the theater entrance."We were trying to get business, so I figured I'd get attention," he said, pointing to a table with an umbrella where he and family friends were selling peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, sodas and bottled water.His parents were working the show - mom as a Lake Geneva police officer, dad as a crisis intervention expert."He works with the people who are drunk or on drugs," Aaron explained.But there was blissfully little work to do. Graves quietly sent much of his staff home, long before the opening guitar riffs at 8 p.m. And he's hoping for a repeat at the second sold-out show today.Note: Fans defy expectations with good behavior at legendary Alpine Valley reunion concert.Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Aug. 4, 2002.Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (WI)Author: Marilynn Marchione of the Journal Sentinel StaffPublished: August 4, 2002Copyright: 2002 Milwaukee Journal SentinelContact: jsedit onwis.comWebsite: http://www.jsonline.com/Grateful Deadhttp://www.dead.net/CannabisNews - Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml
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Comment #6 posted by Zero_G on August 05, 2002 at 09:57:19 PT
All fall down
[...]Shipping powders back and forthSinging "black goes south while white comes north"And the whole world full of petty warsSinging "I got mine and you got yours."And the current fashions set the pace.Lose your step, fall out of grace.And the radical he rant and rage,Singing "someone got to turn the page"And the rich man in his summer home,Singing "Just leave well enough alone"But his pants are down, his cover's blownAnd the politicians are throwing stonesSo the kids they dance they shake their bonesCause its all too clear we're on our ownSinging ashes,ashes all fall down, ashes,ashes all fall downPicture a bright blue ball just spinning, spinning freeIt's dizzying, the possibilities.Ashes, Ashes all fall down. Weir/Barlow
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Comment #5 posted by canaman on August 04, 2002 at 20:14:21 PT:
last set 
First set suprised me.... pretty good. Second set starting now!
live webcast the other ones
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Comment #4 posted by canaman on August 04, 2002 at 20:04:00 PT:
the other ones
the living dead live now! Everybody but Jerry ...but with a little imaigination......
the other ones
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Comment #3 posted by culebra on August 04, 2002 at 19:17:36 PT
Geez, Cindy...
a thousand buck! Paranoia will kill ya. I guess its too much to hope that she realizes what an ass she is.
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Comment #2 posted by Sam Adams on August 04, 2002 at 15:24:06 PT
I'd rather be a Deadhead than a Cheesehead anyday
Oh no, the hippies are coming! Whatever happened to "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" (Spock)? What the hell is wrong with our society? Why are a dozen crotchedy old people more important than 40,000 others who want to enjoy the day? 
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Comment #1 posted by CorvallisEric on August 04, 2002 at 14:14:05 PT
Before the show
Thought you might like this little excerpt:
Not everyone was expecting a lovefest.
Cindy Gilbertson, who lives next door to Alpine Valley, said she spent more than $1,000 to build a fence around her property and install a gated screen door before the concert. She expects traffic to be so bad she won't leave the house all weekend.
"It's one of those things where you're a hostage in your own home," she said.
Sheriff Dave Graves said extra deputies will work throughout the weekend.
Gilbertson's neighbor, John MacKenzie, said a sheriff's deputy visited him and warned that deputies might be too busy with the concert to help residents over the weekend. MacKenzie said he just laughed.
"His point was the people were going to come in here and rape and pillage everything. Maybe I'll be eating my words Monday, but it's just overkill. Criminy."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020802/ap_on_en_mu/grateful_dead_reunion_1
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