Poll: When did you see Grateful Dead live on stage for the first time?

You've Got Another Thing Poll Comin':
When did you see Grateful Dead live on stage (in concert) for the first time:
in the mid/late 1960s, in the early 1970s, ...?

Please, share your stories and memories!



Here's an example:

From here.

 

December '73, Cleveland. I was 11 years old.

 

June 1992, Giants Stadium, 17 years old

 

Oakland Coliseum 1987 (w/ Bob Dylan)

 

Nassau Coliseum Sep 7, 1973. Age: 15 General Admission on the floor. Great Seats and a great first show ever!

 

Did Jerry play the Wolf?

 

I went to a Dylan/Petty and Dead show at RFK in July 1986.

I was there solely for Dylan/Petty - had no interest in the Dead.

I stayed through the intermission and listened to the Dead play one song just so I could say I'd seen them.

After that one song, I hit the Metro and headed home!

 

Boston Music Hall, September 1972. I had just started college, and was on a blind date with a hot blonde. The Dead showed up two hours late for the concert while everyone sat there. The show was such a snooze that my date fell asleep in her seat, and that was it for the night. I saw them one more time at an outdoor venue in the summer.
Although I particularly enjoyed Workingman's Dead and American Beauty, wearing out more than one vinyl copy of each, I never really got them as a live act. I thought they were boring in concert, actually.

 

Capitol Theater, Passaic, NJ was my first Dead Show in 1977. Standing Room tickets - where you stood against the "wall" between the Orchestra section and the Mezzanine/Balcony.

 

4/15/82, Providence Civic Center. First three shows all had a Dew.

LOL, '72 live Dead is hotter than the sun, but one man gathers what another man spills, as Vladimir Nabokov once said.

 

Des Moines 1974.

What I remember mostly is the long second set Playing in the Band.
They started playing it and I recognized it and thought oh cool song.
Then suddenly it was 30 minutes later and they're going into the reprise and it kind of blew my mind
that it was still one song.

 

Rich Stadium Orchard Park NY 7/4/86. Dead played first but most of audience was there for the Dead. Never knew that many people could know the words to so many songs I'd never heard. I was there for Dylan/Petty. Many Deadheads vacated or went to play hacky sack after the Dead played.

 

Sorry to say, only once. Buckeye Lake 1994.

 

'83 MSG. Wasn't impressed.

 

senior in high school.i fell asleep.also saw them four times in 1976( i was working) when they played small theaters.
i think the grateful dead's backstory is way more interesting than their music.

 

Only once: 5/11/79 Billerica Forum

 

I believe that we once had a short discussion about this, but that show contains one of my favorite "jump out of the airplane and worry about the parachutes later" moments from any band in any genre during any century in any universe. During the China Cat--> Rider transition (a very rubbery transition, I might point out), Jerry gets all country twang at 7:40 (Road Trips Vol. 2, No. 3) and shortly thereafter goes completely off the rails, dragging Phil with him. Suddenly at 8:12, Jerry pronounces that he hasn't lost a grip on anything and they crash seamlessly back into the slinky groove and head toward Groovy. Life really doesn't get any better than that.

 

October 18, 1984 - Meadowlands Arena. Saw them another 263 times afterwards.

 

My buddies saw them many times while I was in the service (1969-1972). I never saw them live. I really am not much of a fan, with only one album by them; American Beauty.

 

That one song counts. You did see them.

By the way, with tears in my eyes: I have never seen them live on stage. -
Only on VHS, DVD and YouTube.

 

Jerry Garcia first in Oswego, then a couple of years later the GD proper at the Carrier Dome in 83. Followed by 118 more shows, wouldve hit 125 as I had tickets to 7 Fall95 tour shows that Jer didnt stick around for

 

7/7/89 JFK

 

80-84.
I befriended a Dead Head who turned me onto their music and so we went to see them twice at The Rainbow Theatre. Good gigs!

 

Though I have seen the post-Jerry derivatives a couple times, I have never seen the Good Ol' Grateful Dead live and in person. But I have seen them live and in my head many times---without the assistance (or impediment) of drugs---particularly in '69-'74 and '77, my favorite eras for the band (especially when neither Pigpen, Donna Jean, nor even Mickey are prominently featured, which I realize may be fightin' words for some heads).