Dead Photo

sailingshoes72

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Cool photos of the Dead! I don't think I've ever seen Garcia with a Guild S-100 before. The time period of the photo looks to be the early 70's. And, it's the first time I've seen Bobby Weir with a Les Paul... or a hollowbody Chet Atkins!

sailingshoes
 

mavuser

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idealassets

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One question does beg to be asked from this concert photo in the street. This would be considering that the Dead did not assemble a collage photo just for effect for the album liner. That is one large crowd, which blocked off many streets in San Francisco in about 1968. So apparently by then the Dead was mainstream enough to actually get a permit, and then they were able to estimate how big of a permit to apply for?

More than likely a police barricade of the streets was required, so through all this the Warlocks had suddenly become the man of the hour among local authorities for this festivity.
 
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idealassets

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In the same year (about 1968) Meatloaf, of later Bat Out of Hell fame, had just relocated to Michigan after a year in San Francisco. They held a similar Saturday night street concert using a flatbed semi for a stage. But in this case the streets were already closed down for the "downtown days" carnival with farris wheel rides, etc.

The first thing that the band mentioned was being around the Grateful Dead in Cal, and then opened with Morning Dew and other psychedelic song favorites. Then many years later (1976) Meatloaf produced the album with Paradise By the Dashboard Light on it, and had apparently laid off their act as being a clone San Francisco genre band.
 
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adorshki

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One question does beg to be asked from this concert photo in the street. This would be considering that the Dead did not assemble a collage photo just for effect for the album liner. That is one large crowd, which blocked off many streets in San Francisco in about 1968. So apparently by then the Dead was mainstream enough to actually get a permit, and then they were able to estimate how big of a permit to apply for?
Nope, "Free Concert" on the back of a flatbed truck, promoted purely through underground newspapers, although local radio stations mentioned it when it started.
At the time the Haight was absolutely stuffed to the gills with wannabe hippies attracted by all the media hype about San Francisco's "Summer Of Love" and the "Hashbury" in general was largely taken over by pedestrian traffic anyway.
SF'S finest were used to the craziness and more than likely looked the other way because it was occurring as part of the activities of the Haight Street Fair and I suspect the Merchants who organized it would have been the "permitees"
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Story here:
https://www.jambase.com/article/grateful-dead-play-free-set-at-haight-street-fair-in-1968
More than likely a police barricade of the streets was required, so through all this the Warlocks had suddenly become the man of the hour among local authorities for this festivity.
Very few people knew the band was ever called the Warlocks at that point(from the usual source):
"The first show under the new name Grateful Dead was in San Jose, California on December 4, 1965, at one of Ken Kesey's Acid Tests." ***
This was more of a "Woodstock" type thing where they just figured they'd throw a little freebie for the neighborhood and nobody realized how many people would show up when the news started leaking.
And while they were definitely local heroes in the Haight I wouldn't call 'em "mainstream" by any stretch, they had no top 40 AM airplay compared the Airplane, underground FM was in its infancy, and they didn't even break the top 100 until "Uncle John's Band" and "Truckin'" in '70.
They were "cult" status for sure, but oh, what a cult......

*** more amusing history trivia:
The Acid Test was actually intended to be a "Welcome Rolling Stones" after-concert party.
They were playing at the San Jose Civic Auditorium. They weren't as big, here, as the Beatles yet.
Kesey and crew assumed the band would get wind of the party somehow, and show up.
They actually thought like that.
But no such luck.
 
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Minnesota Flats

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The Allman Joys:



(Hope OP will see this as a momentary sidebar rather than a thread hijack. Sorry: no Berry Oakley, Guild SF-II or "Tractor" bass in the Allman Joys)
 

sailingshoes72

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Nope, "Free Concert" on the back of a flatbed truck, promoted purely through underground newspapers, although local radio stations mentioned it when it started.

Very cool photo, Al. And a great find in the digital wonderland! It adds perspective to the smaller photo, and explains why the band was "set up" so tightly on stage... not much room on a flatbed truck.

Bill
 

Happy Face

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Very cool photo, Al. And a great find in the digital wonderland! It adds perspective to the smaller photo, and explains why the band was "set up" so tightly on stage... not much room on a flatbed truck.
Bill

Agreed! That Haight Street photo is awesome.

Really enjoying this thread. Thanks!
 

sailingshoes72

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Check out all the folks hanging out on the rooftops in the photo! Looking more closely at the photo and the jambase video, it looks like a tandem trailer with "cattle fencing", to make sure the boys don't fall off the back of the stage. :watermelon:

Psychedic trivia time:

Note the pre-Allman Bros.Band Allman Bros. Band ("Allmen Joy") at the bottom of the theater marquee.

That is not the Allman Joys (of Greg & Duane fame), but another band... the Allmen Joy described at Discogs as "one of San Francisco's '60s ballroom style bands". The Allman Joys became the Hour Glass in LA during the summer of 1967. But, any reason for posting that photo of the band playing at the Seabreeze High School (Daytona Beach, FL) graduation party is a good one! :applause:

Carl Perkins on Sun Records: "Pink Pedal Pushers"

https://youtu.be/GbdggWoeZkc

sailingshoes
 
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