MDThomas@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (07/12/85)
From the editorial page of The Washington Post on Monday, July 1, 1985.
"Nights of the Living Dead"
Anyone who visited Columbia, Maryland early this week without knowing what
was afoot might have thought he'd wandered a decade or so into the past rather
than into James Rouse's vision of the future. There were more tie-dyed
clothes than you've seen since around 1969 and enough personnel and
paraphernalia (licit and illicit) for a miniature Woodstock. The Grateful
Dead, a group that is 20 years old this year, was making a two-night stand at
the Merriweather Post Pavilion. But long before it got there, its army of
follower was assembling in the parking lots and fields and carefully tended
forests nearby.
People gathered early in the day for the night's show, hanging out in
tents, cars and spray-painted rattletrap vans. Many were too young to
remember the era in whose honor they had dressed and decorated themselves.
Their hair was too neatly trimmed and they were wearing Nikes. Like the
movies of the 1960s and '70s that tried to portray the young of that time,
they couldn't quite get it right.
Also there, however, were some of the old and legendary breed of the
'60s--long in the tooth and thick in the middle, and in some cases appearing
pretty ravaged and fogged up. Steadfast devotion to the excesses of one's
youth can be wearing. Many looked as if they had been following the
ever-touring Grateful Dead for all of its 20 years and would still be doing so
when the famous group played its first concert on Mars.
The Grateful Dead is an organization that takes music seriously. When the
group learned that two of its concerts conflicted with its tickets for
performances of Wagner's operas in San Francisco, it canceled the concerts.
It has never made any silly, pretentious rock videos--which is to say it has
not made any videos at all--nor has it released a record album in the last
five years. The group just does concerts, which, according to the critics of
such music, is what it does best. One of its chief rewards is to be followed
up and down the coasts and across the heartland by merry caravans in search
of the year 1965.nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (07/13/85)
> It has never made any silly, pretentious rock videos--which is to say > it has not made any videos at all.... Hey, I saw an animated Greatful Dead video years and years ago on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.... -Doug Alan nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)
zben@umd5.UUCP (07/14/85)
In article <4676@mit-eddie.UUCP> nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) writes: >In article ? the above forgot to reference me... >> It has never made any silly, pretentious rock videos--which is to say >> it has not made any videos at all.... > >Hey, I saw an animated Greatful Dead video years and years ago on Don >Kirshner's Rock Concert.... > The Grateful Dead Movie must have been made back in the early '70s. So much for the accuracy of the much-vaunted Washington Post.. (A "Times" Reader in a plain brown wrapper). -- Ben Cranston ...{seismo!umcp-cs,ihnp4!rlgvax}!cvl!umd5!zben zben@umd2.ARPA