On a sunny, 60-degree spring afternoon, May 8, 1977, a Sunday and Mothers Day, the Grateful Dead were in town — Ithaca, a college enclave on the southern tip of Cayuga Lake in central New York — to perform on the campus of Cornell University. I arrived several days before the show to see the town, recalls Rick Bleier, a Deadhead who would celebrate his 27th birthday on May 8. Ithaca is a beautiful place, great natural beauty, amazing gorges, hills and waterways. The town pulsated with a wonderful Bohemian energy. One could sense the ghostly presence of Richard Fariña in the bars. The Cornell campus was abuzz as well, an excitement that had been building since last semester when Mike McEvoy, a Cornell Concert Commission member who later worked for rock promoter Bill Graham, booked the Dead. It took a lot of arm-twisting over many months, he remembers. A handful of lucky Cornell students wearing red-and-white Cornell Concert Commission jerseys, ancillary security for tonights Dead show inside Barton Hall, the schools archaic athletic facility opened in 1915, strode across the campus commons. They dodged Frisbees being gently tossed their way by sun-loving students in shorts and sandals, many still hung over from last nights side-splitting on-campus performance by Bronx-born comedian Robert Klein. Inspired by the sparkling skies, the Grateful Dead drove around Ithaca that afternoon in minivans, rolling down the windows and good-naturedly hooting and hollering with fans. As the band cruised past the Moosewood Restaurant on North Cayuga Street, inside anxious underclassmen were enjoying Mothers Day lunch with their parents, all hopeful Mom and Dad would be gone by show time so their dresses and collared shirts and ties could be replaced by the tie-dyes and jeans hanging in their dorm rooms. The doors to Barton Hall (capacity 5,000) opened late, forcing people to wait outside for hours as the bright sunshine gave way to blustery conditions, with temperatures plummeting into the low 40s and sleet and rain falling. On a nearby wet, grassy patch, a growing herd of fans were gathering; LSD was being discreetly hawked and bought. Business was brisk. An anonymous Big Red grad, quoted in a 2010 article on CornellChronicle that commemorated the May 8 show, recalled, I sold a lot of acid and bumper stickers [on] an eventful and unforgettable day. When one of the two main gym doors was finally opened, frustrated fans shoved forward. Like clay being forced through the opening of a Play Dough toy, the lava-like flow of bodies was being funneled into a tiny, rectangular opening. Concert-goers at the front of the line were smashed into, and nearly pushed through, a plate-glass window bordering the single open door. As the crowd surged, people were lifted off their feet, as if caught in an ocean undertow, slammed into each other like bowling pins, and bounced off the metal door frames like hockey pucks off goalposts. The general admission event quickly became packed with students and Deadheads, all partying hard. The push to get in as temperatures dropped and show time approached made it impossible for security to adequately search everyone. Fans were able to bring in six-packs of beer, wine sacks and countless other bottles of liquor. The chaos also allowed the ticketless to sneak in. The show began with the standard Minglewood Blues; right off, lead guitarist Jerry Garcia was tearing it up on his Travis Bean TB 500 guitar, which he had been playing onstage with the Dead since the summer of 1976 and had just used to record the bands soon-to-be-released Terrapin Station album. Garcia played the Travis Bean guitar for the Grateful Deads 26-date spring East Coast tour in 1977, including the three-night stretch of May 7 (Boston), 8 (Ithaca) and 9 (Buffalo). (In 2013, the Travis Bean was auctioned for $238,700, outselling Paul McCartney’s 1964 custom Höfner bass at the same auction). Terrapin Station, released in July, 1977, was produced by Keith Olsen, noted for his work on Fleetwood Mac (1975). With the Dead, Olsen was a taskmaster in the studio, forcing them to rehearse endlessly, which had a tremendous impact on their live performances during the spring of 1977. In an incendiary 12-song first set clocking in at just under 90 minutes, the group hit their stride early with Loser,” band lyricist Robert Hunters on-the-road novella “Jack Straw,” and rhythm guitarist Bob Weirs apropos cover of Merle Haggard’s “Mama Tried, after which bassist Phil Lesh commented, Thanks, Mom. Mark Nathanson, then an 18-year-old recent high school grad set to attend Oberlin College in the fall, drove nine hours from Sylvania, Ohio to attend the concert. He recalls, During the intermission, I became really hot, and we were in the coolest spot. I had an Indian embroidered shirt made of white cotton that was drenched. We knew it was a really exceptional show, which definitely contributed to the perception of heat. By the time the houselights went down for the second set, as many as 6,000 people were crammed into the tiny gym, creating a sauna-like environment and forcing the band to perform their Take a Step Back routine to ease the jammed conditions in front of the stage. Even the normally stage-silent Garcia made a plea: All these people in front are getting horribly smashed here. That means all you people in the back have to move back or move back some. As the blithe notes to the set two-opener, Scarlet Begonias, kicked up, a late-arriving Cornell student, who had been studying in the school library for a Monday morning exam now less than ten hours away, cut into the wedge created by those fans kind enough, and wise enough, to actually take a step back. After pulling the tab back on a can of Genesee Cream Ale, the sophomore spied his roommate and handed him a spare beer, declaring, Man, youre not going to believe this, but its snowing like crazy outside. A new song, the reggae-tinged sermon Fire on the Mountain, unknown to many in the crowd (the tune would fail to make the cut for Terrapin Station), segued seamlessly from Scarlet Begonias, an in-concert pairing that would go on to work as well for the Dead as the coupling of Burns with Allen would for television. In their epic one hour-and-twenty-minute second set, the Dead conducted a high-speed chase through just six songs, skipping the drum solo due to drummer Bill Kreutzmanns ailing wrist, the vicissitude adding to the exigency of the set. The band romped through a raucous 23-minute weave of “St. Stephen” > Not Fade Away > St. Stephen and, arguably, all-time versions of both the “Scarlet” > “Fire” couplet and the Garcia guitar elucidation “Morning Dew,” their customary exclamation point on a stellar show. I had seen the Grateful Dead a couple of dozen times prior to this but this time it was clear theyd upped the ante, says Bleier. The band looked amazed. I have a clear-as-yesterday memory of Garcias face as he shook his head and grinned from ear-to-Cheshire-cat-ear. Was May 8, 1977 the best Grateful Dead performance ever ? Heck, some Deadheads believe it wasnt even the best of the three consecutive nights. How did the show attain its legendary status ? First, and unquestionably, it was an instant classic, notes long-time Long Island Deadhead Charlie Rogers. Cornell was the tape youd trade with a neophyte back in the day and say, This is what they sound like on a really great night. May 8 is among the most collected, traded and downloaded concerts by any band ever, says noted Grateful Dead historian Blair Jackson. Thats not hyperbole, either. The original, pristine recordings of this show started circulating among tape collectors very shortly after the concert, and quickly became a favorite of everyone who heard them. The concert was meticulously recorded by, among others, renowned Deadhead taper Jerry Moore, comment Rogers. Add a cool concert poster [designed by graduating Cornell senior Jay Maybrey] that became a must-have collectors item. Then, throw in a few salty tales about the travails of the weather, the problems getting in, and the Animal House-like debauchery going on inside. Top it all off with a killer set list and youve created the legacy of May 8. Dick Latvala, who served as the Deads tape archivist from 1985 until his passing in August, 1999 while also curating the Dicks Picks series of the bands live archival releases, was constantly being asked by Deadheads when the May 8 show would be released. In his graveled voice, Latvalas standard response was, Hell, everybody and his brother asks me that ! Privately, Latvala had his own opinions. Of a May 22, 1977 show in Pembroke Pines, Florida (that closed with Terrapin Station > Morning Dew) two weeks to the day after May 8, he wrote in a journal he made show notations in: 5-22-77 tears apart Ithaca. It rips it to shreds.” As the last notes of the One More Saturday Night encore faded inside Barton Hall, and the houselights rose, the crowd began to spill out through the same lone door that only hours earlier had been the scene of a near-catastrophe. On each side were two neatly piled stacks of garbage -- mostly empty bottles and cans, wine sacks and food wrappers -- that had been slowly building throughout the night and were now being crowned by the last of the exiting. Outside, almost a half-foot of snow lie on the ground, still gracefully falling from the sky, nature affirming that something special had just taken place. We were dazed, glorying in the awe-inspired possibilities, says Bleier. Just a block off-campus was Pops Diner, where we made our way. It was filled to capacity with other hungry but contented Deadheads. __________________________________________________________ The Library of Congress has commissioned Scott W. Allen to write the essay that will accompany the enshrinement of the Grateful Deads concert on May 8, 1977 at Barton Hall into the National Recording Registry. Only 400 recordings are currently preserved by the NRR. This is a more edited (but still rough) version of the essay as the deadline approaches. __________________________________________________________
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 00:19:33 +0000
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