The Good Old Grateful Dead Blog

"Seeing The Dead live was not a concert. No, it was an experience.

The venerable jam band of jam bands proved as much when they packed the Gorge Amphitheatre Saturday for the venue’s season opener. About 22,000 Deadheads danced, sang and merrily partied the day away during the marathon of a three-band bill that also included openers The Doobie Brothers and Southern rock architects The Allman Brothers Band.

Really, the tripleheader felt more like a festival than a single concert as each band came packing enough hits in their respective repertoires and the mood, as you probably could have guessed, was rather, ahem, festive if you know what I mean. The substances were free flowing (I was offered drugs 13 times, which is a record high, no pun intended, for my concertgoing career), there was enough tie dye to force an acid flashback out of a sober hippie and there were enough white dudes with dreadlocks on hand to fill a Rusted Root show, or dormitory at The Evergreen State College. Oh yeah, and there was music too and the music was fantastic..."