I’m Pete Bickmore, from eDeadShop. I got mixed up selling licensed dead products in 1996 when I was one of the first vendors allowed to sell inside the show on the 96 Further Fest.
I love the Grateful Dead in all it's frenditions and I love what I do. On this blog I am going to try to write about some of the experiences I had on tour and I hope that you will too. .
I'd love to know when you first dead show was? What swung you over to the dark side? and what that experience was like...please tell about any shows or any bands that you think we'd all like to know about
thanx for taking your time and stay grateful
pb
8 comments
Growing up I loved music and listened all the time. I loved everything from Led Zeppelin to Yes to Charlie Daniels and the Allman brothers to B.B. King and Lionel Hampton but hated the Grateful Dead.
I still remember the summer day that some friends and I got some Thai stick. I think I was 15 at the time and indulged to the point of being uncomfortable. I went home and put on my headphones and wnew fm. They were just finishing introducing a new album they were going to play in its entirety but I missed the name and band. I spent the next hour or so listening to Blues for Allah. I had never heard anything so amazing.
By the time it was over my mind was back in the right spot and I jumped on my bike and rode the few miles to a record store and listened to that album repeatedly. Soon after that a met a guy that shared some cassettes of shows and I was hooked.
My first show was the dead with willie Nelson and nrps at giant stadium. It was general admission so we left the day before at about 4 pm and we ended up spending the night on a road that led up to the parking lot. I never saw so many freaks in one place on so many different drugs. I wandered around just taking it all in. I was up the entire night and the day of the show and most of that night too and had the best time of my life. Since then I have always tried to see as many shows as I can.
It’s amazing to think how much better my life is all because one day I way too stoned and was lucky enough to hear that album.
I went to my first Grateful Dead show on 11/25/1978 at the New Haven Coliseum it was exactly 73 seconds long. I hate to admit it but I was 16 years old and bored in a small town so with no tickets to a sold out show, a bunch of friends and I drove down to New Haven and hung out with the crowd until hundreds of kids started walking right in… I kind of got shoved right theu as door and past security…I lost my friends….I was walking around and it dawned on me that a lot of people appeared to be leaving…the announcement that followed was that the singer was sick and the show was not going to happen. I began looking for my buddies….when I saw a kid jump on something like he found a $100 dollar bill… I dismissed it for a second but then “Click”
A TICKET STUB!!!
…So it didn’t take long before I found one too and stuck it in my pocket and pretty much forgot about it till I got home and put it on my dresser mirror…It was colorful.
Despite the cancellation, news reported the police arrested 19 people before the cancellation and only 16 people after.
A few months later my friends big brother was talking about going to see the dead and I told him this story…He was a huge fan… He had a large tape collection and I was always impressed when he quoted dates and cities of dead songs that were playing. He told me that I should tag along and he just knew I’d get in so I did… it was January 17, 1979, first Grateful Dead show Miracle. I’m going to Ping Mat and ask him to contribute to this blog….I never did thank him for turning me on that night…thanx Mat it sure has been a long strange trip…pb