September 7, 1981 Concord Pavilion, Concord, CA: Jerry Garcia Band/The Edge/Queen Ida (Jerry For A Dollar)

A ticket stub for the Jerry Garcia Band show at Concord Pavilion on Labor Day 1981. Note the price. It's not because the seat was "Obstructed View"--thanks to radio station KMEL-fm, all seats were $1.00.

The arc of Jerry Garcia's career is now so iconic that it seems inevitable. Not only did the Grateful Dead traverse the firmament from underground outlaws to rock stars, and then to dinosaurs, and finally to legends, but Garcia himself had his own separate journey from "underground upstart" to "great artist" that stands apart from the Dead itself. The decades of a dedicated clump of fans sustaining the Dead and Garcia until the larger culture caught up with them is now a great entertainment story in its own right. Yet the story was not written before it started. All along Garcia made decisions about his career, and the Grateful Dead's, often in the face of some financial risk. In the end, when the long-dated call was exercised, the payoff was huge, but the significant cost of carry often goes unnoticed. Now and again, when we look at Garcia's history, we see brief glimpses of roads not taken. Other futures were possible, but Jerry appears to have rejected them.

On Labor Day, September 7, 1981, the Jerry Garcia Band played the Concord Pavilion, a 9,000-capacity outdoor venue in suburban Concord, just 20 miles East of Berkeley, but far away in cultural terms. The Garcia Band had played the Pavilion before, in a modestly attended show six years earlier (October 17, 1975, with Kingfish and Keith And Donna), but this was different. In the East Bay, the Jerry Garcia Band just played late night shows at the smoky Keystone Berkeley, packing the house for those over 21 and willing to stay up really, really late. But here was Jerry, headlining a big concert in the suburbs, with two other bands. The house was full, mostly with suburban kids and twenty-somethings who hardly knew the Grateful Dead, much less the somewhat exotic Jerry Garcia Band, which only had only released one mostly forgotten album from a few years earlier.

It's no surprise the house was sold out--tickets only cost $1.00, subsidized as a promotion for the local rock station. This was the record biz, where the real money was: the suburbs, FM radio, and being a rock star. Jerry was great at it. But it appears he didn't like it, so he never did anything like this again. This post will take a close look at the surprisingly unique Jerry Garcia Band concert at Concord Pavilion on September 7, 1981.

An ad from the July 31 1981 edition of BAM, for the August 6,7 and 8 JGB shows in the Central Valley area

State Of Play: Jerry Garcia Band, 1981
By 1981, the Grateful Dead had been together for 16 years, and Jerry Garcia had been some kind of solo performer under his name for about 11. The Grateful Dead were an established rock institution, but that wasn't entirely a good thing. The band hardly got airplay any more on FM radio, and their album sales were unimpressive when compared to peers like Steve Miller or Fleetwood Mac. Garcia's solo career was obscure to non-Deadheads, and frankly unknown by lot of heads, too. Garcia was nearly 40, pudgy and bearded. Now sure, Garcia had always been pudgy and bearded, but compared to Stevie Nicks or even Mick Fleetwood, he wasn't that photogenic. The Dead were a popular concert attraction, but lots of people had seen them once or twice, just like having seen Ten Years After or Jefferson Starship, and didn't feel the need to see them again. It didn't seem like the Dead's audience was expanding.

The Grateful Dead had made a huge splash with their month of concerts at The Warfield and Radio City Music Hall in October, 1980, and they would release two live double albums and a video from it. Yet neither of the live albums (Dead Reckoning and Dead Set) were any kind of success, and by mid-1981, the band had even given up playing acoustic. It was hard not to think the Dead were falling back into the status quo of being an aging, popular rock band who were just playing to the faithful. Although the group did well on the road, they barely kept pace with the huge expenses their own style of touring required. Truth be told, in 1981, the Grateful Dead were just making a living.

Jerry Garcia, meanwhile, had taken what he considered his most serious stab at being a solo artist with his 1978 Jerry Garcia Band album, Cats Under The Stars. Despite the excellent original material, along with heavy touring and some East Coast radio broadcasts, the record absolutely bombed. In 1978, rock radio was bisecting towards either slickly-produced "Arena Rock," such as Journey and REO Speedwagon or faster, poppier "New Wave" groups like Blondie and Talking Heads. The Garcia Band was neither, and FM radio ignored them accordingly. Garcia admitted that he was pretty depressed by the failure of Cats, and even temporarily discontinued the Garcia Band, getting his side gig on instead with John Kahn's funky Reconstruction band.

By 1981, however, Garcia seems to have been back in the saddle. Ozzie Ahlers had left the reformed Jerry Garcia Band in 1980, replaced by organist Melvin Seals. Seals was soon joined by pianist Jimmy Warren, and the five-piece JGB gigged steadily. In the Bay Area, the Garcia Band mostly played the three Keystone clubs, although they occasionally played a small hall in towns without Keystones. It was quite surprising, then, when the Garcia Band played a high profile show at the Warfield (on June 26, 1981) with Phil Lesh on bass, only to introduce two new female backup singers. John Kahn nonetheless retained his bass role, and the new, seven-piece Garcia Band continued to play the Keystones and smaller halls when the Dead were not playing.

What we now know is that the Grateful Dead organization was not in good financial shape. Notwithstanding Garcia's desire to play constantly, cash was in short supply. Around this time, Garcia developed a distinct interest in producing a movie, and had bought the rights to Kurt Vonnegut's Sirens Of Titan. Since movie production costs money, regular Garcia Band gigs seem to have been the engine to get that cash. What we also know now is that Garcia and Kahn were going to record a new Garcia Band album in the Fall, with none other than the great Ron Tutt returning to the drum chair. Daoud Shaw, formerly of Van Morrison's band and a fine drummer himself, had been holding down the drum chair since January of 1981.

On September 7, 1981, pretty much no one knew any of this. What we knew was that the Jerry Garcia Band was playing a big outdoor concert in suburban Concord with two other bands. It wasn't at a Keystone, so you didn't need ID or to stay out late, and it was an easy ticket so you could bring your roommate or your girlfriend or whoever you wanted. And it was a $1.00. If Jerry had played an outdoor place like SPAC for a $1.00 in 1981, how many people would have come? It's a serious question. In any case, in Concord, the answer was about 9,000, which was the approximate capacity of Concord Pavilion. Most of the people there weren't Deadheads, particularly up on the grass, where it was General Admission. I'm not guessing--I was there, too.

KMEL 106.1 ("The Camel")
The explosive growth of the record industry from the 1950s through the 1980s had to do with radio. Put simply, bands that got their music played on the radio sold tons of singles and albums and made lots of money. Generally speaking, bands that got played on the radio had better concert attendance, too. The rise of the Grateful Dead from cult act to concert stars came when FM rock radio, which had begun in San Francisco in 1967, went nationwide by 1970. High school and college age fans tuned in their FM stereos and heard songs like "Uncle John's Band" and "Truckin'" and went to check out the Dead when they came to their college. Sure, Dead concerts were something else entirely, but without radio to prime the pump, fans would never have heard of the band in the first place. By 1981, the Grateful Dead were almost never played on rock radio.

From 1968 onwards, the trendsetter for FM rock radio was San Francisco's KSAN. The Dead were close to the station, and had broadcast live over the air many times, adding to the reputations of both the band and the radio station. Garcia had done the same with some of his own bands. By 1980, however, KSAN's hippie rock format was aging out of its own demographic, since hippies didn't like "New Wave" music but old hippie bands weren't cool. Much further down the dial, well-funded rival KMEL (106.1) started pushing more mainstream "album oriented rock" (AOR) in 1977. In 1980, KMEL started broadcasting with very few ads, making them much more appealing to listen to, regardless of the actual music played. KSAN, to the shock of old hippies--who, admittedly, were hardly listening to it anymore--switched to country music. KMEL now ruled the Bay Area rock airwaves.

KMEL had a huge, powerful 69,000 watt signal that covered the entire Bay Area. In particular, as the commuter footprint of the Bay Area expanded, KMEL could be heard clearly in every car, workplace or coffee shop in every suburb. KMEL dominated the 18-34 demographic, so there were plenty of national ads for fast food, car insurance and designer jeans. Any band that wanted to make it in the Bay Area wanted to get played on KMEL, but with its tight formats, they didn't play a wide variety of music. Given the mandatory AOR menu of Zep/Mac/Journey, there wasn't much room for new releases.

The Concord Pavilion, Concord, CA. View of the stage from the grass bowl.

Contra Costa County and Concord Pavilion
Contra Costa County was on the opposite side of the Berkeley Hills, and the various towns were 10 to 25 miles from Berkeley. This made them about 30 to 50 miles from San Francisco, depending on the commute. In 1937, the new Caldecott Tunnel allowed easy driving access from Berkeley to Contra Costa, but it was a modest road, with two lanes both way leading to and from Ashby Avenue. Most of the Contra Costa towns were fairly rural, and indeed in the main town of Walnut Creek, their were walnut groves until at least the 1970s.

By the 1960s, however, Contra Costa increasingly became a "bedroom community" for commuters to Oakland and San Francisco. In 1964, the Caldecott Tunnel was upgraded to include two more lanes (for a total of six, two of which could be rotated to accommodate the commute). By 1969, Oakland's Grove/Shafter freeway was connected to the Caldecott, so Contra Costa commuters could go from the county all the way to the Bay Bridge by freeway, and all the corresponding towns expanded.

There had been plenty of teenagers in Contra Cost in the 1960s, and they certainly loved rock music, but they all had to look longingly at Berkeley or San Francisco. Even people from Contra Costa itself dismissed the county as the culturally unhip country cousin of Alameda County, wryly referring to the Caldecott as "The Culture Tunnel." By the 1970s, however, with Conta Costa towns expanding in all directions, the County took some steps to bring culture to them. Concord was the main city in Contra Costa, east of towns like Walnut Creek and Pleasant Hill, but with plenty of open space up in the foothills. In 1975, the Concord Pavilion opened, mainly to provide a permanent home for the Concord Symphony, and also to provide a venue so that the locals did not have to go through the Caldecott for anything fun.

The Concord Pavilion was modeled after venues like Tanglewood (in Lenox, MA) or the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), which were the summer homes of the Boston and New York Symphonies. The venue was semi-circular, with reserved, covered seats near the stage and a huge, grass bowl behind it. Variations on this design became common for rock venues in the 1980s when "sheds" like Shoreline Amphitheater were built, but Concord Pavilion was the first such venue in the Bay Area,

Concord Pavilion was open from about May through October every year. There was a wide variety of shows, including symphonies, musicals, and old TV star showcases. There were also a few rock concerts. However, since Bill Graham did not initially book the Pavilion, the acts were pretty unhip. Graham apparently considered Contra Costa outside his range. A competing promoter had opened the little-known Concord Coliseum in 1967, but despite some good acts it folded. There had been that JGB/Kingfish/Keith And Donna show (October 17, 1975), but it was on a cold, windy night and while the seats were filled, the grass was empty. Concord had teenagers, but they didn't know or care about the Grateful Dead.

Around 1977, Bill Graham started booking at least some shows at Concord Pavilion. I saw Jeff Beck there in 1977, and while he was electrifying (of course), it was clear that the venue hadn't really been designed for rock. The seats were far from the stage and the covered roof and the wind did weird things to the sound. Nonetheless, it was easy to get to Concord Pavilion, easy to park and bathrooms and concessions were easily available. In any case, more and more families moved to Contra Costa, so there were more incipient young rock and rollers there every year.

The double-live album Dead Set was released on Arista Rcords on August 26, 1981. It had been recorded in Fall 1980 at the Warfield Theater and Radio City Music Hall

September 7, 1981 Concord Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord, CA: Jerry Garcia Band/The Edge/Queen Ida And Her Bon Ton Zydeco Band
The promotional structure of the Concord JGB show reflects a unique moment in time. The biggest rock station in the Bay Area, very well-funded, had a big party celebrating itself. In effect, the concert was free, but the need to have a $1.00 ticket allowed for crowd control (mind you, BASS charged their usual service fee on top of the buck). KMEL must have paid the performance fees for the bands, and the venue made its money selling popcorn and beer. It was the last three-day weekend of Summer, and lots of teenagers and young adults were looking for a blowout, so KMEL hired Jerry Garcia to provide it.

Why would KMEL hire a musician that they hardly, if ever, played on the radio for their own party? In the cosmology of the time, playing a gig like this was a sign that you were past your prime, a death knell for any working rock band. At the same time, KMEL needed a big enough act that rock fans would feel like they were getting something "special," and Garcia was a bona fide rock star, even to people who hardly knew his music. This was KMEL's way of showing people that they were big-time, that they could get a real rock star to play their party. Although I no longer specifically recall, I believe KMEL djs whipped up the crowd between sets, and one probably introduced the Jerry Garcia Band.

FM rock stations like KMEL filled a lucrative but narrow niche. Most rock fans listened to FM radio in the car, and sometimes at work or around the house, but "real" listening took place by listening to records (yes, vinyl ones) on the home stereo. More and more cars had cassette decks, too, so radio wasn't guaranteed every rock fan on the road. Auto sound systems were better and better, so a massive signal insured great reception, crucial for a rock fan with good speakers in their car. FM rock was corporately owned and nationally programmed, so Led Zeppelin and Journey were the order of the day whether it was Northern California, South Florida or Chicagoland. KMEL didn't want to be "Cutting Edge"; that was for Berkeley and college radio. AOR stations wanted to appeal to the broadest swath of the 18-34 consumer, so "Fun But Mainstream" was on tap. The thinking was, if a young man was out on a date in his orange TransAm, he could put on KMEL and his prospective girlfriend wouldn't say "what is this noise?"

You may think that the 1981 Jerry Garcia Band would have been a terrible choice for a party featuring a cross-section of 18-to-34-year old suburban rock fans, and you would have been completely wrong. The Garcia Band rocked the house. Now, don't forget that in those days, the JGB was basically a bar band, The crowd didn't "know" Jerry Garcia's music, but he played 4 Motown songs, 3 by Dylan or The Band, a Jimmy Cliff classic and a Beatles tune (setlist below).  Most rock fans were going to recognize something. The few thousand reserved seats around the stage were mostly filled with more serious heads who had jumped on tickets immediately. I do know of one Deadhead who drove up from Santa Cruz. Ok, I don't actually know him, but he took my future wife to the show on a date (we would not meet for another year, and I should add that she was distinctly unimpressed by the show). But up in the General Admission area, on the grass, where I was, it was mostly just locals out for fun. Not Dead-hostile, by any means, but just generally looking to have a fun, rockin' afternoon.

Sure, Garcia and Melvin Seals took his usual long guitar solos, but almost every band took long solos in those days. The tempos were more laid back than most arena bands, but it was a sunny afternoon and no one was in a hurry. If you listen to the opening track, you can tell that Jerry has kicked off "The Way You Do The Things You Do" at a pretty lively pace, for him. He knew that it wasn't the Keystone. Anyway, if you were there for the party, you could leave your seat for "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," go to the bathroom, find your roommate, then get a hot dog, and still get back to your seat before it was over. I don't think many people "got on the bus," but it was only a buck, so the expectations weren't high.

From a Deadhead perspective, there were a number of interesting factors. I have written at some length about the previous time I had seen the Jerry Garcia Band, appearing at The Warfield Theater in San Francisco on June 26, 1981, with Phil Lesh on bass and two new female singers. I had heard about a few Keystone shows since then, so I knew that Kahn had returned. When the band came on stage at Concord, however, Bill Kreutzmann was sitting in the drum chair. No explanation came from the stage, because none ever did. In fact Billy only covered the kit for this show and three Keystone shows (Sep 18-20), just keeping it warm for Ron Tutt. Yet it was something to contemplate during the show, even if ultimately Bill was just passing through.

The female singers wore sort-of matching outfits and left the stage when the solos started. From up high, you could see them sitting backstage. Information about the Garcia Band was so difficult to come by that I don't think I had even learned their names. Even if I had, I doubt I would have realized that Essra Mohawk had left, and Julie Stafford now shared the gig with Liz Stires. Mohawk and former drummer Daoud Shaw were married, and had apparently known it was a temporary gig. With Tutt coming, Shaw had moved on, and Mohawk went with him. Somehow I pieced this together over the next few months, but there was literally no one to ask. I'm not even sure how I figured it out--a combination of BAM Magazine, Relix and Joel Selvin's column, probably.

Another thing set the Concord Garcia show apart: there were three bands on the bill. In almost all Garcia Band settings, any opening acts were either solo acoustic or a band from the Grateful Dead family, like Comfort or Kingfish. Yet here was Garcia headlining the big venue, and two other electric bands played full sets. Second on the bill was The Edge, a promising Bay Area club band featuring ex-JGB keyboard player Ozzie Ahlers and Lorin Rowan (Peter's younger brother, from the ill-fated CBS Rowan Brothers album). Ahlers joined the short list of former members of a Garcia ensemble who opened for the Garcia Band. They played enjoyable reggae-rock, if nothing exceptional. Opening the show was Queen Ida And Her Bon Ton Zydeco Band, who played a lively set of zydeco music, a style largely unknown in the Bay Area at the time.

Both of the opening acts were good, and appropriate to a Garcia Band show, but they weren't going to get played on KMEL. The bands may have had some independently released material, but The Edge was too unknown and Queen Ida too "ethnic." How they got on the bill is anyone's guess, but then one of the co-sponsors of the concert was BAM (Bay Area Music) Magazine, a free biweekly music magazine, back when free meant "everyone reads it." BAM favored mainstream Bay Area bands like the Doobie Brothers, of course, but they tried to cover everything, and BAM was always supportive of the Grateful Dead. Did I mention that Blair Jackson was a chief editor of BAM? As a co-sponsor, BAM would have helped publicize the show--KMEL couldn't exactly advertise it on competing stations--and the editors may have put in a good word for some appropriate bands.

Jerry Garcia Band, Concord Pavilion, Concord, CA; September 7, 1981
I: The Way You Do The Things You Do, Knockin' On Heaven's Door, Roadrunner, Sugaree
II: The Harder They Come, Mississippi Moon, Second That Emotion, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, Dear Prudence, Tangled Up In Blue
E: How Sweet It Is

On Labor Day, 1981, about 9,000 Bay Area rock fans paid just $1.00 to hear the Jerry Garcia Band and two other fine local bands fill the afternoon with music. Bill Kreutzmann made a surprise guest appearance and we all got home before dark. It never happened again,


Alternatives To Known History
The Grateful Dead had an intricate, if contested, relationship with record companies. In contrast, the Jerry Garcia Band pretty much had almost no connection to the record company promotion side of the music industry. The Dead, though iconoclasts, used record company promotional muscle to arrange live broadcasts all over the country, and counted on their companies to stuff the bins of Tower Records with their releases. Save for the single attempt with Cats Under The Stars in 1978, the Jerry Garcia Band did no such thing. Save for Cats, there wasn't even a commercial Jerry Garcia Band release until 1990.

With no releases to promote, Jerry Garcia was mostly exempt from the peripheral demands of being a late 20th century Classic Rock rock star. Throughout its existence, the Garcia Band either played local joints--first the Keystones, and later The Warfield--and sometimes toured the East and Midwest. They came to town, played their music, got paid and traveled on. No local dj introduced the band, Garcia didn't have to submit to radio station interviews, or privileged advertisers who got backstage passes to "hang out" with the headliner. Steve Parish controlled the backstage, so Jerry could spend his time playing his guitar or hanging with any friends in town. Come showtime, the Garcia Band played whatever they wanted, Parish took the cash and the little circus moved on to the next gig.

One whiff that suggests that the Concord show was part of the "regular" music business lies in a little known interview from that afternoon. Garcia was interviewed at length for a then obscure outfit called "MTV News," The unseen interviewer reads out some sincere but traditional questions that Garcia must have heard hundreds of times. Garcia, always gracious, does not sneer at the interviewer and gives frank, interesting answers, but it doesn't seem like his heart is in it. The proximate cause of the interview seems to be that the Grateful Dead had just released a live album (Dead Set) two weeks earlier (August 26 '81) and Garcia's interview is an earnest, if fruitless attempt to attract some attention to the record. If the Concord show hadn't been sponsored by KMEL, and perhaps with a nudge from Arista, Garcia probably wouldn't have submitted to such an interview from a naif he didn't know, what with Blair Jackson (and probably BAM staff writer David Gans) likely already sitting backstage. But that's how things went in the music biz--the biggest dogs get the treats, even if they have no other claims to them,

The 1981 Labor Day JGB concert was a rare instance where Garcia could have crossed over. A nice payday, maybe get some promotion for the Dead album and make some new fans. We know the idea of "going mainstream" was at least crossing Garcia's mind. He would be recording a new Garcia Band album with none other than Ron Tutt in the coming months, and he wanted to make a movie, so maybe a profitable Garcia Band wasn't a bad idea. Submit to a few interviews, tolerate some jerks backstage--how hard was that? What if Garcia was willing to play, say, The Singer Bowl in Queens for a $1.00, promoted by Arista and a local FM station? How many East Coast heads would have done "Jer For A Buck?" What if the Jerry Garcia Band had toured sheds like everyone else in the 1980s, sharing headline bills with kindred spirits like Willie Nelson or Crosby, Stills and Nash? A lot of money would get made, and maybe also a movie based on a Kurt Vonnegut novel, scripted by Tom Davis.

Garcia seems to have gazed into the abyss, and it must have gazed back at him. But he didn't leap. The Garcia Band album floundered, ultimately released as the tepid Run For The Roses a year later, With very few exceptions, the Garcia Band mostly played the big sheds and arenas with no support other than familiar backstage faces like Bob Weir. The Garcia Band edifice was entirely self-built, self-financed and self-sustaining, No dj announced their arrival on stage, and no radio station ads hawking their new albums inundated the FM airwaves for each tour.  The Garcia Band had not played live on FM since '78, and save for one oddball final broadcast in San Jose in 1982, the Garcia Band would never again broadcast live, leaving that franchise to the Grateful Dead.

The Concord Labor Day gig was just a gig, and Garcia and Kahn probably forgot it soon after it happened. Still, it was a moment when Garcia's history could have taken a different, more profitable turn, if at the expense of some independence. Garcia looked, and took a sniff, and passed. The Jerry Garcia Band kept on its own self-guided path, for good or ill, for the balance of its existence.

Some tracks on Jerry Garcia's Run For The Roses album had been recorded with Ron Tutt and the Jerry Garcia Band in the Fall of 1981. The album was finally released in the Fall of 1982, and also included some tracks left off Jerry Garcia's 8 year old solo album (known as Compliments Of Garcia).

Coda
The Jerry Garcia Band moved on, maintaining their insular track. KMEL-fm was the dominant rock station in the Bay Area for a few more years, until The Camel was in turn upended by KFOG. Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead, meanwhile, just continued their contrarian path. Only a few days after the Concord show, the Grateful Dead played some stunning shows at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley (Sep 11-13 '81), establishing a key venue for the band throughout the 1980s. The Jerry Garcia Band then played three nights at the Keystones (Sep 18-20), with Billy K still holding down the drum chair. With a new double-lp live album just released, the Dead made the inexplicable decision to tour Europe instead of the States. The story, as retailed by Rock Scully, has it that they filled in for a canceled Who tour, and Pete Townshend made sure that "his guy" would meet Jerry (or Rock) before every show, to provide unnamed services. In any case, the Dead played Stabler Arena in Bethlehem, PA (Sep 25 '81) to warm up, then Buffalo (Sep 26 '81) and then a big show at Capitol Center in Landover, MD (Sep '27 '81), which probably funded the whole trip.

The European tour opened in Edinburgh, Scotland on September 30, 1981. It's not clear whether Jerry took the High Road or the Low Road, or who got to Scotland afore ye. Thus the Grateful Dead toured Europe, instead of the States, which doesn't seemed to have helped sales of Dead Set. Meanwhile, the sessions that would lead to Run For The Roses were recorded with Ron Tutt at Club Front throughout the Fall of 1981. The JGB tour with Tutt was kicked off with two Keystone dates (Oct 25 and 27 '81) and then went east starting on Halloween at the Tower Theater in Philadelphia. Garcialand retained its equilibrium--no FM djs, no unwelcome backstage guests, no meaningful interaction with the late 20th century music industry.

September 6, 1982 Concord Pavilion, 2000 Kirker Pass Road, Concord, CA: The Tubes
The very next Labor Day, on September 6, 1982, KMEL had another party with another aging rock band, this time The Tubes. My college roommate and I went to the show, and paid our dollar. It was a magical summer, with a great pennant run by the San Francisco Giants and manager Frank Robinson (shout out if you recall the 10-game stretch where Joe Morgan played third base and Darrel Evans played shortstop). We listened to the Giants all the way to Concord that day, and then saw The Tubes. I had seen The Tubes in their prime in 1975, and the 1982 iteration wasn't as epic, but they were still great. Yet it was all downhill for The Tubes from there. Who thought that Vince Welnick would end up as the Dead's keyboard player? I didn't.

The Concord Pavilion show on September 7, 1981 was a foot in cold water, a glimpse of a foreign land left unexplored. Pay a buck, let Jerry rock the house. OK with everyone there, except, apparently, Jerry. As the song goes, Gotta Travel On.

The Fox Warfield and The Warfield Theater, 982 Market Street, San Francisco, CA (Jerry's House)

The 1981 Grateful Dead double-lp Reckoning, recorded at the Warfield Theater and Radio City Music Hall in September and October 1980

For fans and scholars of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, the Warfield Theater in San Francisco has to loom large. The 2300-capacity theater, built in 1922 at 982 Market Street, was first bought to Deadhead attention when the band played an historic 15-date engagement in September and October of 1980. About a decade later, when the Dead had finally outgrown the little theater, it became the home base of the Jerry Garcia Band. In the end, there were a couple of dozen Dead shows, and Garcia played there around 100 times himself, apart from the Dead. Throughout the entire period and right up through today, The Warfield has been a premier music venue in San Francisco, and the list of performers who have played there is like a rock history tutorial. Yet the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia were fundamental in establishing The Warfield as a rock Signpost in San Francisco.

The Warfield was a premier rock concert venue in San Francisco from late 1979 onwards. It was a beautiful old theater, with wonderful acoustics, and over time more and more rock fans were willing to pay premium prices at the Warfield instead of a lesser price at a giant arena. You could probably write a book about the rock history of the Warfield, and it would be a good overview of late 20th century rock music. Merely from the perspective of the Grateful Dead, after Jerry Garcia moved forward in 1995, the Warfield became the home base of Phil Lesh And Friends, and there were numerous intimate, fantastic performances for those ensembles as well, making the Warfield a Deadhead nexus for 25 years.

In many ways, the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia were instrumental in making the Warfield a viable venue at the end of the century. In that respect, it was a modern replay of an old 60s story, where the Dead were among the first to try out new venues. The Warfield story is different because the Dead were already established when they first played the Warfield, but it is no less interesting for that. This post will look at the history of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead at the Warfield Theater.

The Fox-Warfield Theater around 1964. "Black Sabbath" was a Boris Karloff movie (Ozzy Osbourne was a child living in Birmingham). The Fox-Warfield sign was on the marquee into the early 1980s, long after Fox had sold their interest,

Loew's Warfield
The Warfield was one of the great Market Street movie palaces in San Francisco. It first opened on May 13, 1922. The theater was built by Vaudeville promoter Marcus Loew (1866-1938), and the theater was named after David Warfield, one of his best friends, and an original investor in what would become the MGM-Loews empire (of course, for the complete story, as always, you have to go to JerryGarciasBrokendownPalaces). The Loew's Warfield originally presented Vaudeville along with movies and theatrical productions. There may also have been a speakeasy associated with the theater in the 1930s. When Vaudeville died out, the Warfield mostly showed movies, but live performances returned in the 1940s.

Since there were live performances at the Warfield in the 1940s, they must have hired plenty of musicians. It is at least plausible that saxophonist Jose Garcia, Jerry's father, may have performed at the Warfield. He gave up music after his kids were born--exactly when isn't clear--but he could still have played the Warfield before he gave it up. Nonetheless. at the very least Jose Garcia would have known that the Warfield was one of the principal entertainment venues in San Francisco, and in some alternate Philip K. Dick universe it would have made him proud to know that his son ended up the king of the venue.

The Warfield, under various names, continued as a movie palace. By the 1960s, the theater was known as the Fox-Warfield, a name it would keep for some time. The theater went through various owners, and the theater chain National General refurbished the theater in 1969. The theater re-opened in 1970 with a guest appearance by Mae West, promoting her film Sextette. Throughout the 70s, the film mostly showed second-run fare. National General seems to have sold the Warfield to Mann Theaters, and by the end of the 70s it was owned by one Mike Thomas, who ultimately sold it to Bill Graham. In 1979, the theater was still known as the Fox-Warfield, and that was what was on the marquee, even though I think there was no longer any connection to a Fox Pictures entity. If you bought a ticket at BASS (a Ticketmaster forerunner), it said "Warfield Theater," but informally the place was called the Fox-Warfield or The Warfield, If you lived in San Francisco or had been to the theater, you called it "Fox-Warfield" to casually indicate that you knew what was on the marquee (a very San Francisco thing).

Bob Dylan's controversial 1979 album Slow Train Coming

Warfield Theater Rock and Roll Highlights 1979-95
November 1-16, 1979: Bob Dylan (14 shows)
The first rock shows at the Fox-Warfield were very dramatic: 14 concerts by Bob Dylan over a period of 16 days. Dylan was still a legendary figure in rock at the time, and although he had toured somewhat during the 1970s, he was not the perpetual road dog that he would become a decade later. When Dylan played live, he either played in huge arenas or made some sort of quasi-stealth appearance. The Fox-Warfield shows were a complete break not only for Bob Dylan, but for major rock acts in general. Here was a major headline act playing for two weeks at a small theater, when two nights at a basketball arena would have sold more tickets. The shows were a major event, and a major coup for Bill Graham, and they sold out instantly. Of course, no one knew what Dylan would play--he was Dylan, after all.

On August 20, 1979, Dylan had released his most controversial album, Slow Train Coming. All of the songs emphasized his new-found Christian faith, a startling development for a nice Jewish boy from Hibbing, Minnesota. On October 18, 1979, Dylan had performed three songs from the album on Saturday Night Live with his new band. Still, performing songs off your new album was what people did on SNL, and anyway, he was Dylan. His new band was small, but they were disciplined session pros (Fred Tackett-guitar, Bill Smith-keyboards, Tim Drummond-bass and Jim Keltner-drums) supported by three gospel-style backup singers.

Opinions varied about Slow Train Coming, although few Dylan followers were unreserved fans of it. However, what no one expected at the Fox-Warfield shows was that Dylan would do nothing but his new "Christian" songs, with nary an old tune to be found. Dylan's choice of material in concert was always a fraught subject, not least because he has so much great material, but the idea of him performing no old material whatsoever was not appealing. All of the songs were either from Slow Train Coming or new, unreleased material, much of which would turn up on Dylan's next album, Saved. No one was happy, except, apparently for Bob Dylan, who found himself once again in the center of a musical controversy.

Reviews were scathing. Even despite their being no Stubhub equivalent, people who had bought tickets for multiple nights could not dump their tickets fast enough. I saw one of the later shows, and while there were some enthusiastic fans, for the most part the crowd was grim and silent, with a lot of frustrated hostility directed towards Dylan. Bob, of course, fed off that hostility and played his new songs with great intensity. All in all, it was a very strange concert experience.

The one unequivocal winner in the strange equation was the Fox-Warfield. There were comfortable seats both upstairs and down, the sight lines were great from everywhere and the sound was tremendous. Although the Tenderloin neighborhood was unpleasantly seedy, the Fox-Warfield was accessible by both BART (at the Powell Street station) and numerous city buses. Bill Graham Presents immediately started booking shows at the Fox-Warfield, and it was an instantly popular venue. For acts on the rise, it was far better to see them headline a full show at the Warfield than second on the bill at the Oakland Coliseum. I saw The Clash at the Fox-Warfield, for example (March 2, 1980), on the London Calling tour, and it was an all-time show, even for an old hippie like me (for a complete list of Warfield bookings between 1979 and 1980 see the Appendix below).

March 25, 1980: Bay Area Music Awards ("Bammies")
Bay Area Music Magazine, or "BAM," was a free bi-weekly music publication in the Bay Area, which started in 1976. It played a huge role in publicizing Bay Area music, both for national bands from the region, like the Grateful Dead, and for more local acts. BAM also played a formative role in the career of many journalists, notably Blair Jackson and David Gans.

In 1978, Dennis Erokan, the publisher of BAM, decided to have a Grammy-like "Bay Area Music Awards," which was dubbed The Bammies, to publicize both the paper and the music. The "award" was a straight-up popularity contest, and the event was just a big party, but everyone had a good time. In 1980, one of the first years, the party was held at The Fox-Warfield. Although no members of the Dead performed (Garcia and others would play in later years), Garcia was definitely present in 1980. He probably won "best guitarist" that year, as he did most years.

The significance of this event was that Garcia had definitely been to the Fox-Warfield prior to the Dead's lengthy residency later in the year. I don't think it was that big a deal, but if Richard Loren had been running the idea by Garcia, he could have said "you know, the place where that awards show was held." Garcia would have at least had an idea of what he was agreeing to.

The 1981 Grateful Dead double-lp Dead Set, recorded at the Warfield Theater and Radio City Music Hall in September and October 1980

September 25-October 14, 1980: Grateful Dead (15 shows)
For any Deadheads who hadn't attended the Dylan shows at the Fox-Warfield, or hadn't even been aware of it, the Fox-Warfield Theater suddenly loomed large. Bill Graham Presents announced a 15-show run by the Grateful Dead, from September 25 through October 14 of 1980. The 15 shows were significant, too, since it was one more than Dylan, a fact pointed out in the local press.

For the previous few years, the Dead had only played larger, general admission venues, namely Winterland, the Oakland Auditorium and Oakland Coliseum Arena. Those Deadheads from elsewhere, who had moved to the Bay Area--and there were more and more of them--were generally used to seeing the Grateful Dead in larger arenas or small stadiums. The only time in the prior decade that the Dead had regularly played small theaters had been the Summer '76 tour where they re-introduced themselves to touring.  The Dead had played the 2200-seat Orpheum in San Francisco for six nights, but fifteen nights was another order of magnitude.

As if this wasn't enough, the idea of playing almost every night for three weeks made the idea of traveling to see the Dead in San Francisco very appealing. I don't know how many people actually got to to do that, but the Fox-Warfield shows were definitely something that got Deadheads all over the country thinking about it.  Shortly afterwards, the 9 shows at Radio City Music Hall at the end of October were announced, and it was a Brave New World indeed for the Grateful Dead.

Tickets for the 15-night Fox-Warfield run were only available by mail order. We all requested everything we could afford. I no longer remember the parameters. I think we ended up with tickets for nine shows. It was a completely different experience to not only know I would be attending numerous nights, but to have an actual reserved seat. I realize now that there had been occasional shows around the country at smaller, reserved seat theaters (like at the Richmond Mosque on May 25, 1977), but those had seemed be one-off events.

I was fortunate enough to attend the first Dead show at the Fox-Warfield on September 25, 1980. and it was magical indeed. We had heard faint rumors that the Dead might play acoustic, but I had written that off as wishful thinking. Yet lo and behold--when we walked into the gleaming Fox-Warfield and got to our seats on the lower balcony, there was the now-familiar stools for Bob and Jerry, grand piano for Brent and limited drum kits for Bill and Mickey. It was really going to happen. Of course, my friend and I spent our time guessing what song would come first (I went for "Dark Hollow," my friend for "Uncle John's Band"), but it was a burst of undiluted magic when "Bird Song" lit up the theater.

The 15 Dead shows at the Fox-Warfield were indeed magical, even for veteran Bay Area fans who had seen numerous Dead shows. Each show was three full sets, starting shortly after 8:00pm and going until well after 1:00 AM. The sound was perfect, and the relaxed vibe of sitting in an assigned seat, pretty much a new experience for Bay Area fans, meant that we could really focus on the details of the music instead of hassling with knuckleheads. The Dead played an astonishing wide variety of electric and acoustic songs throughout the run, and special moments were too plentiful to even count. Even if the Dead and Garcia had never played the Fox-Warfield again, the 1980 run alone permanently inscribed the venue as a legendary stop in the Dead's touring history. The albums Reckoning and Dead Set made sure that the rest of Deadhead nation knew about the Warfield as well.

Bob Dylan's unloved 1980 album Saved

November 9-22, 1980: Bob Dylan (12 shows)

The Fox-Warfield had had numerous great shows throughout 1980, culminating with the Dead's long run (see the Appendix below). Bill Graham surprised everyone with Bob Dylan's return for a 12-show engagement, seemingly to "make up" for the Gospel Debacle of the year before. Tickets did not move quickly. Remarkably, there were ads on the leading rock station, KSAN-fm, with Bill Graham himself talking over a rehearsal tape of Bob Dylan and his band performing (as I recall) "Blowin' In The Wind'." Bill assured listeners that Bob had assured him that he was rehearsing his old material. The implicit pitch was that it wasn't going to be an "all-gospel" Dylan show, all in all a very strange pitch for a radio ad. Still, the shows did not sell out.

Come the first few Dylan shows, and the reviews were not positive. Dylan, using the same band, did indeed perform about five old numbers out of 17 or so songs (on the first show, they were "Like A Rolling Stone," 'Girl From The North Country," "Just Like A Woman," "Senor" and "Blowin' In The Wind") but the balance was all of his new "Christian" material. Even the older songs were oddly re-arranged, in typical Dylan fashion, and didn't evoke classic Bob. No one was really pleased. There wasn't a rush to buy the remaining tickets for the other Dylan shows at the Fox-Warfield.

November 16, 1980: Bob Dylan plus Jerry Garcia
Bill Graham had his own remedy for Dylan shows that weren't selling out: invent some drama. Graham used his clout to get musicians to make guest appearances at the shows. Carlos Santana made a guest appearance on November 13, followed by Mike Bloomfield on November 15. For the seventh concert, the surprise guest was Jerry Garcia, who played electric guitar on 12 of the 22 songs, including "Simple Twist Of Fate." Garcia and Dylan had met previiously, but this was the first time they had played together on stage.

May 22 1981: No Nukes Benefit--Garcia, Weir, Hart and Kreutzmann/others
On April 25, 1981, 4 members of the Grateful Dead and John Kahn had played acoustically at a SEVA Benefit at Berkeley Community Theater. The significance of this event was that it triggered the pattern of Garcia playing benefits as an acoustic act, a far simpler process than arranging an entire electric performance with mountains of gear. The SEVA Benefit was followed by a similar anti-nuclear power benefit at the Fox-Warfield a month later. The headline act--introduced by Wavy Gravy as "Captain Jerry Bob KreutzHart"--was an acoustic performance by Garcia, Weir, Hart, Kreutzmann,Brent Mydland and John Kahn. Phil Lesh did not play either benefit, because apparently no one asked him.

Most of the people in the Fox-Warfield crowd in 1981 had probably seen at least one show from the Dead's long stand in the Fall, and it was great to hear some of the same material again in the same venue. Little did we know that this would be essentially the last performance of the "Acoustic Grateful Dead," save for a single benefit in 1994.

June 26 1981: Jerry Garcia Band/High Noon/(Mike Henderson)
The Jerry Garcia Band played a very surprising show at the Fox-Warfield the next month. I happen to think this was a critical show in Jerry Garcia Band history, and it would take me several thousand words to explain, so I won't do it here (but I have done it elsewhere--warning: this ain't short). A few key points to ponder:

• Phil Lesh appeared as the bass player, and was even advertised as such. He also played the night before, in Santa Cruz. No explanation was given, prior to, during or after the show. For all we knew, he was permanently replacing John Kahn, although that turned out not to be the case
• This weekend of shows at Santa Cruz and the Fox-Warfield (and a stealth warmup in Salinas) were the debut of background vocalists in the Jerry Garcia Band, which would be a continuous feature of the JGB thereafter (save for a few transitional dates in 1982). The singers were not introduced from the stage.
• The Jerry Garcia Band had consistently played for Bobby Corona at The Stone in San Francisco, and only played for Bill Graham Presents outside of cities where the Keystone Family operated (Berkeley, Palo Alto and San Francisco). The June 1981 show was about the only exception to this rule.

Much to the dismay of the crowd, the Jerry Garcia Band did not come on stage until midnight. Apparently someone in High Noon was late, so regular Keystone opener Mike Henderson, not advertised, played a solo blues set from about 8;00-9:00. High Noon played from about 9:30-11:00, but the crowd was very restless by the time the curtain was raised on the Garcia Band. Yet with the unexpected tableaux of the full band with Liz Stires and Essra Mohawk singing, and Phil Lesh on bass, performing a slow, stunning version "I'll Take A Melody," Garcia won over the crowd within minutes, and all complaints about lateness evaporated. The show did not end until after 2:30 am, very rare for the Fox-Warfield.

February 16-17, 1982: Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead returned to the Fox-Warfield in February of 1982. These were the first two shows of 1982, warm-up shows on a Tuesday and Wednesday before two weekend nights at Golden Hall in San Diego (Feb 19-20) and a big Sunday night show (Feb 20) at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion. At this time, the Dead's home base was Oakland Auditorium, but the Fox-Warfield offered a complete contrast. The delicate clarity of the Fox-Warfield was a wonderful counterpoint to the rocking intensity of The Aud.

March 29-31 1983: Grateful Dead Rex Benefits
The Grateful Dead returned to the Fox-Warfield for three shows in March of 1983. These shows were significant for any number of reasons. The most prominent reason was that these three shows were the first benefits for the newly-formed Rex Foundation. The Grateful Dead had always done plenty of benefits, but as concert receipts became bigger and they had more and more friends, it had become an issue as to who they would play for and how money would be distributed. Garcia partially dealt with that by playing acoustically at benefits of his own choosing, but it still left a problem with Grateful Dead Benefit shows.

After 1983, the Rex Foundation solved that problem. The Grateful Dead raised money for their own Rex Foundation, named after late roadie Rex Jackson, and the Foundation board decided how to donate that money. Gifts of $10,000 or so could be given to numerous organizations and projects, without a benefit having to be assigned to a specific cause (McNally p. 547)

The other significant development of the March shows was the debut of the Grateful Dead's new mail order ticket service. It had been done before, of course, particularly at the 1980 Warfield shows. Starting in 1983, however, Deadheads could get tickets by mail for almost all Dead shows. This innovation remained in place for the balance of the Grateful Dead's touring history. The relatively small scale Warfield shows, with only about 6900 tickets available, was a good dry run for the ticket service.

If I recall correctly, all of the tickets for the Fox-Warfield were only available by mail order. When the Dead went on tour, the more typical arrangement was that a percentage of tickets were sold by mail order--I think about half--and the rest were sold locally. This arrangement served a couple of critical functions. First of all, it made it possible for Deadheads all over to get tickets for almost any Dead show anywhere in the country. At the same time, tickets were available locally, to insure that the band could draw on fans in any given region. This was important for building an audience. Also, the money that the Dead got from ticket sales, months in advance of the actual shows, served as the financing for the tours themselves, rather than depending on promoter's advances. In effect, Deadheads were "Crowdfunding" Dead tours prior to the invention of the internet.

A 21st century photo of The Warfield's interior

The Fox-Warfield Theater Becomes "The Warfield"
After the 1983 Rex Benefit shows, the Grateful Dead never played the Warfield again. Jerry Garcia only played there a few more times in the 1980s, although eventually it replaced the Keystones as the permanent home base of the Jerry Garcia Band. Yet everyone forgets these facts, lost in a dreamy reverie of the truly historic connection between the Dead, Bill Graham, Jerry Garcia and 982 Market Street. In fact, the Warfield had a peculiar history in the 1980s, including two remodels, and they have been crucial to the story, and all but written out of the history.

In the Spring of 1983, the rock concert business in San Francisco was booming, as it was nationwide. Bill Graham Presents dominated the Bay Area scene, booking not only major arenas like the Oakland Coliseum Arena and the Cow Palace, but also controlling smaller venues like the Fox-Warfield and clubs like The Old Waldorf and Wolfgang's. The rock audience now ranged from teenagers to middle-aged adults, and many people with good jobs and kids were more than willing to pay a premium for a seated show that started at 8:00 and was over before midnight, so the Fox-Warfield fit that cohort perfectly.

Thus it was a complete surprise when Bill Graham leased out the Fox-Warfield to an apparently wealthy Polish brother-and-sister duo, who planned to remake the Warfield into a "high-end" disco. Their reasoning, apparently, was that San Francisco had no such place, and thus the market was ripe. Anyone who knew the Bay Area knew this was a fool's errand. Consider a few facts that separated San Francisco (then and now) from other entertainment capitals like New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere:

• 982 Market Street was in a dangerously seedy, crack-infested area. Rich people did not want to be wandering Market Street well after midnight. I'd been out on that street, and it wasn't pleasant
• Bars in SF close at 2:00am, not 4:00am like in New York. That meant said rich people were going to be out on those streets a lot earlier than in New York
• San Francisco, even in the Summer, is windy and really cold at night. If you were out on Market Street at 2:01 am in high heels and a crop top, you would freeze to death
• There are no cabs at night in San Francisco. It's not New York or Chicago. BART stopped at midnight. If you were too high to drive, you'd never get home, which is why you would freeze
• There has always been money in San Francisco, since 1849. However, San Franciscans style themselves as quasi-European (laugh at us if you want), and flashing it was never in vogue. Lots of wealthy San Franciscans liked going out, but if you wanted to admit that you only wanted to consort with the Special People instead of just going to a dive bar, you had to move to LA. The current Google-types who wear their jeans despite their million dollar stock options are just part of a hundred-plus years of SF tradition

The idea of dropping a million dollars in renovation to make the old Fox-Warfield into an exclusive high end disco that was only open on Saturday nights was madness. Bill Graham didn't need my help to figure this out. So he let the Warfield be turned into a disco, while keeping the master lease for himself.

The new Polish operators of the theater changed the name from the Warfield Theater to "The Warfield." Of course, only trainspotters like me had ever called it the Fox-Warfield, and even I referred to it in conversation as The Warfield, so it wasn't much of a change. But the official name change wasn't until the disco was in place in mid-1983. The big renovation was to tear all the seats out of the main floor, to provide room for dance floor instead. That had to have been expensive, and Graham didn't pay for it, his tenants did.

The Warfield re-opened as a disco in mid-1983, I don't know exactly when. It bombed almost immediately. Among the many things operating against it, besides the practical ones I mentioned above, was the fact that the idea was striving to make San Francisco "like other cities." People who live the Bay Area, even if they moved there last Tuesday, find that distasteful. All sorts of crazy ideas can be viable in the Bay Area--Acid Tests and home computers come to mind--as long as the locals are convinced that no one else is doing it. Once SF is supposed to emulate other cities, the door slams shut. The Warfield only lasted a few months in its disco incarnation. The Polish siblings gave up their lease, and Graham had his building back.

The timeline is a bit obscure here, although it has little do with the Grateful Dead. Continuous rock shows at the Fox-Warfield seem to end around June 1983 (June 7 Stray Cats/Mojo). There are no BGP shows until later in the year, and then save for one disco-oriented summer show (Peter Allen Aug 27), BGP seemed to return in force in the Fall (Little River Band October 14 '83). I think that Graham had rented the venue back from his bankrupt tenants, and was still working on revising the venue. Shows were intermittent until the Spring of 1984. The Warfield's peculiar status, by the way, helps explain why the Grateful Dead had played Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium in October 1983 and April 1984, as The Warfield (as it was now known) wasn't really available.

By mid-1984, The Warfield had returned to the regular mix of BGP venues, and artists both popular and important continued to play there regularly. The tone of the venue had changed a little bit, however. When the Dead had first played there, the fully seated Warfield encouraged a reverential audience. By 1984, however, with no seats on the ground floor, the feel of the place was far rowdier. This wasn't all bad, by any means, but it was different. Certainly, for people like me, who still generally preferred a reserved seat, that option still existed in The Warfield balcony, and that set the venue apart from other clubs, where if you weren't willing to stand all night, you weren't going to see and hear the band very well. The Warfield could appeal to two audiences for the same act: the one that wanted to drink and dance close to the stage, as well as the one that wanted a reserved seat to contemplate the show undisturbed.

update
A Commenter says I have the timeline incorrect, and the Warfield was remodeled in 1988, not 1983. He very well may be right. The story is the same even if the date is wrong, however

DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS: The conversion of the Warfield, from full theater seating to open-floor GA downstairs and fixed seats upstairs, was much later than the 1983 date cited here. The takeover and conversion of the building by the wealthy brother-sister team for that ill-fated disco project was one and the same as the 1988 renovation mentioned later. I attended and/or worked many fully reserved-seat shows in the old theater configuration up to the time the venue was closed for the overhaul in September of '88. Also, Joe Satriani on 12/28/88 was not the first show back in the converted space. The reopening was a 10th Anniversary celebration for the Punch Line comedy club on November 9th. The first show I saw in that configuration was an amazing performance by Prince, at two o'clock in the morning of 11/11, after his regularly scheduled gig at the Oakland Coliseum

Jane Dornacker as the leader of Leila and The Snakes (Pearl Harbor is center)

November 22 1986  Kantner Balin Casady Band/Todd Rundgren/The Tubes/Garcia, Weir and Hart Jane Dornacker Benefit
Up until the early 1980s, although the Dead were huge on the East Coast, they could still play relatively small places in the Bay Area like the Fox-Warfield or Marin Vets with a minimum of fuss. By the mid-1980s, this wasn't really possible. Although explicit Deadhead census data isn't available, I am convinced that the massive influx of Deadheads from the East into the Bay Area in the mid-80s meant that local Dead shows were no longer treated casually. After Garcia's coma, there was no chance for a Grateful Dead show in a small venue, even in the Bay Area.

Jerry Garcia did return to the Warfield in 1986, however, albeit under sad circumstances. Jane Dornacker had become a popular radio personality on KFRC-am, reporting traffic from a helicopter. She had moved on to big success with WNBC in New York (660-am, now WFAN), reporting traffic. Sadly, she had died in a helicopter accident on October 22. 1986. Even more tragically, her husband had recently died, orphaning their 16-year old daughter.

However, not only was Jane Dornacker a popular and beloved media figure in the Bay Area, she had deep roots both in the 60s underground and the 70s New Wave scene. Way back when she was a San Francisco State student in 1966, she had appeared with the excellent but unfortunately named Final Solution, as Earth Mother and The Final Solution.Ultimately she married the band's bass player, Bob Knickerbocker. So all of the San Francisco underground had known her from way back in the 60s.

As if that wasn't enough, Dornacker was a comedienne, songwriter, actress and singer in the 1970s. She fronted a band called Leila And The Snakes (Jane was Leila, Pearl Harbor was one of The Snakes), she co-wrote a classic Tubes song ("Don't Touch Me There") and she even appeared in the movie The Right Stuff. So when Dornacker died, she wasn't just a Bay Area media figure, she was an old friend of many from way back. So the hastily-organized benefit had a stellar cast indeed.

Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir played an acoustic set, helped out by Mickey Hart. The prevailing version of the Airplane crew (with Paul Kantner, Marty Balin and Jack Casady) also played along with Todd Rundgren and The Tubes. All of them had social and professional connections to Dornacker. Vince Welnick was not only in The Tubes, he was probably in Todd Rundgren's backing band for the show, as well.

The Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band's album Almost Acoustic was recorded at The Warfield and Los Angeles Wiltern Theater in Fall 1987

November 27-29, 1987: Jerry Garcia Band/Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band
The Jerry Garcia Band finally returned to The Warfield at the end of November 1987. In October, Bill Graham had put on a remarkable two weeks of shows with Jerry Garcia at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on Broadway in New York. The shows featured an opening set by the newly-congregated Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band, followed by a lengthy set by the full electric band. The billing was duplicated with three shows at The Warfield, followed by three shows at the similar Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles. Part of the reason for these bookings was to record the shows for albums, since for various reasons that was prohibitively expensive to do on Broadway.

I saw one of the November Warfield shows, and it was a wonderful setting. The Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band would have been somewhat overwhelmed at a rowdier place like the Kaiser Convention Center, but The Warfield was perfect for them. The open floor of The Warfield still lent a lively air to the electric set.

December 17, 1987: Joan Baez Christmas Concert/Garcia, Weir and Kahn
The Warfield was the site of another benefit, hosted by Joan Baez. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and John Kahn were the configuration for this outing, joined by Baez for the last three numbers. Since Garcia never actually rehearsed for these events, it didn't matter precisely who was on stage, as long as they were willing to wing it with Jerry.

Feb 6 1988: Jerry Garcia Band
Mar 4-5 1988: Jerry Garcia Band
The modern era of the Jerry Garcia Band at The Warfield began in 1988. By this time, all of the Keystone clubs had closed, and in any case Garcia had become too big for them. The Jerry Garcia Band played a Warfield show in February and two in March. These weren't special events, tied to recording or anything else--just JGB gigs for his regular patrons. The March 5 show featured the truly unanticipated appearance of Howard Wales, for the first time in 17 years, letting it rip for a long version of "Don't Let Go."

The new configuration of The Warfield fit the latterday Garcia Band audience pretty well. Downstairs was an open floor and an accessible bar, more expansive than the Keystone Berkeley, but not too far from it. Upstairs was reserved seats, for the more restfully minded. Thus the basic spectrum of Garcia Band fans was covered by a single venue.

Orpheum Redux
Once again, however, Bill Graham Presents took time out to remodel The Warfield. BGP held no rock shows at the Warfield between March 31, 1988 and December 28, 1988. In the intervening time, Graham used the Orpheum Theater for a few shows, and the Jerry Garcia Band played there seven times (May 7 and Dec 2-3 '88, and Jan 27-28, Mar 3-4 '89). More intriguingly, however, Graham booked a show for the Jerry Garcia Band at the old Fillmore on May 6 '88, which he had recently taken control of. It might seem that the Fillmore Auditorium ought to have become the home of the Jerry Garcia Band, but that was not the case. Subsequent shows were booked at the Orpheum, and the JGB returned permanently to The Warfield at the end of 1989.

The key issue for the home base of the Jerry Garcia Band was not the history, nor the sightlines, nor the sound, but the bar. Garcia's successful tenure at Keystone Berkeley was based on the endless amounts of beer that were sold there. Garcia fans showed up early and hung out, and Garcia came on late, took a long break and played even later. All that equaled massive beer sales. The Fillmore, lovely and acoustically excellent as it was, wasn't conducive to beer sales. The main Fillmore bar was at the back of the house, upstairs and away from the floor. There was even a stage in the bar, for bands to play while the other bands were playing on the main stage. The Fillmore bar mainly sold drinks to people who didn't want to hear the band that was currently on the stage, completely the opposite of the Garcia fans interests. The physical setup of the downstairs at The Warfield was all about selling drinks, and the remodel improved that facility, although I don't know the specifics. After 1989, The Warfield had completely moved from a "concert venue" to a "nightclub," even though there were still reserved seats upstairs. [update: as mentioned above, a Commenter suggests that The Warfield became a disco in 1988, not 1983 and there was only one remodel)

1991's long-awaited live Jerry Garcia Band double cd was recorded at The Warfield in 1990

Jerry Garcia At The Warfield, 892 Market Street, San Francisco, CA
BIll Graham Presents returned to The Warfield, newly remodeled, on December 28, 1988, with a show featuring guitarist Joe Satriani. There were intermittent shows throughout the year, but BGP didn't use the venue that much. After a few more shows at the Orpheum, the Jerry Garcia Band returned to The Warfield with two shows in December 1989. By this time, the downstairs was scientifically designed to sell the maximum amount of drinks to patrons. This wasn't a negative--if you were downstairs hanging out with your friends or watching the band, you didn't want to navigate to the back of the house and stand in a line to get a drink. The new configuration had a lower level dance floor near the stage, but most of the main floor had long tables and attentive waitresses. It wasn't hard to catch their eye and get a drink, so it made the Warfield a very pleasant place to hang out. The upstairs reserved seats had their own separate bar on the mezzanine. A Garcia show, including all the set breaks, went on for many hours, and The Warfield was now even better equipped than the Keystone Berkeley to sell as many drinks as the patrons wanted to buy.

Jerry Garcia played the Warfield in its various incarnations, by my count, a total of 100 times, and 123 if you include Grateful Dead shows (21) and Dylan guest appearances (see JGBP for a complete list). 91 of those shows were in the remodeled Warfield, from December 1, 1989 through the final JGB booking on April 21-23, 1995. Highlights were too many to count. Almost all of the acoustic shows with David Grisman and Jerry Garcia were at The Warfield (13 shows). I was lucky enough to see a few, and I can assure you that if Graham bought them to Broadway, it would have been like Cats or Wicked, and would never have closed. Garcia made another guest appearance at The Warfield with Bob Dylan, as well, in May 5, 1992 ("Cat's In The Well" and "Idiot Wind")

The Warfield was a great concert venue in its 90s incarnation, and no doubt remains so. The neighborhood was still seedy, but it didn't get worse, and there was a BART stop (New Yorkers or Londoners take subway stops for granted, but San Francisco isn't like that). It was nice to have a waitress bring you your drink of choice instead of having to fight your way to the bar, just for a Miller Lite. I have to think that the Garcia shows were the most profitable at The Warfield. As Deadheads got older, and had relatively more money, a night with Jerry was a night to hang out for hours with friends and buy some cold drinks. With the Keystone family gone and Garcia's health in decline, pretty much the only way to see the Garcia Band the last few years was at the Warfield. In that respect, it was almost like seeing The Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans--the real thing on a hometown turf that was deeply rooted in its own history.

And, following the theme of a building whose performers were part of the history itself, after Jerry Garcia moved forward in 1995, the Warfield became the home base of Phil Lesh And Friends, and there were dozens more great performances. Many of the Phil Lesh shows at The Warfield were one-time only bookings, such as with Trey Anastasio and Paige McConnell of Phish, so current fans have an equally rich memory of great shows there. Finally, in 2006, the venue was sold to a non-BGP entity, but Phil And Friends played the final show, appropriately enough. Guitarist Larry Campbell wrote the beautiful "Waltz For The Warfield," and it is a fitting tribute to the old girl--which, I should add, remains a popular venue to this day.

London called, The Clash answered. You shoulda been there

Appendix: Warfield Rock Shows Nov 79-Sept 80 (Between Dylan and the Dead)
November 1-16 Bob Dylan (14 shows)

November 28, 1979 The Police/Pearl Harbor and The Explosions (Wednesday)
This show was moved from the Berkeley Community Theater, which is surprising, considering that BCT was much larger than the Warfield (3500 vs 2300). That means The Police would not have sold as many tickets as expected, and that their world domination was yet to come.

November 29-30, 1979 Bonnie Raitt/Norton Buffalo (Thursday-Friday)
Norton Buffalo was probably a member of Bonnie Raitt's band at the time, and his own band opened the show.

December 15 Karla Bonoff/Steve Forbert (Saturday)
Karla Bonoff was better known as a songwriter (with songs like "Someone To Lay Down Beside Me," made popular by Linda Rondstadt) at the time than as a performer.

January 11, 1980 Linda Ronstadt/Joan Baez/Hoyt Axton Benefit for Cambodian Boat People (Friday)
This benefit was tied to a similar, larger event at the Oakland Coliseum Arena two days later, headlined by the Grateful Dead and The Beach Boys. I think Bill Graham and Joan Baez were hoping to put together a charity album.

January 19, 1980 James Taylor/Karla Bonoff  (Saturday early and late shows) 
James Taylor was huge, and could have played the Oakland Coliseum Arena, but here he was (playing double shows) at the Fox-Warfield. In many ways, this was parallel to what Bob Dylan was doing, providing a special event for serious fans.

January 25, 1980 Van Morrison (Friday)
Van Morrison was a most-of-the-year Bay Area resident who commonly appeared in Bay Area nightclubs, but his fans were far more likely to pay up to see him in a theater than to pay less to see him in big arena.

January 26, 1980 Lee Ritenour/Tower Of Power (Saturday)

February 17, 1980 The Specials (Sunday)
The Specials (aka Specials UK) were a popular Ska revival band, an offshoot of the "New Wave" music coming out of England. They were very popular in England, far less so in the States. No one remembers them now.

February 22, 1980 Jefferson Starship/Stoneground (Friday)
Jefferson Starship sold far more records than the Grateful Dead, but by now they were only a modest concert attraction in the Bay Area.

February 24, 1980 Weather Report (Sunday)
Weather Report had played Berkeley Community Theater the previous night (Saturday Feb 23).

March 1-2, 1980 Clash/Lee Dorsey/Mikey Dread (Saturday-Sunday)
I saw the March 2 show. The Clash in their London Calling prime, with Mickey Gallagher on keyboards along with the core four. I'm glad to have been there.

March 8, 1980 Gary Numan and Tubeway Army/Nash The Slash (Saturday)
Gary Numan was another New Wave act, with sort of an early electronica type of sound.

March 15, 1980 The Jam/The Beat (Saturday)
I'm pretty sure that "The Beat" was not the group later known as The English Beat. Raise your hand if you recall San Francisco's The Paul Collins Beat (as they were called in England, since there was both a UK and US band named The Beat).

March 23, 1980 J Geils Band/3-D (Sunday)
The J. Geils Band were like the Dead in many ways, a veteran touring act with a loyal live following, but an indifferent recording history at the time. Their new EMI album Love Stinks was the beginning of the group's rise to 80s arena and MTV stardom. The Fox-Warfield show was a Sunday night, but the night before J Geils had headlined the Oakland Coliseum Arena. And on the Friday night (March 21), Geils had headlined Pauley Pavilion at UCLA, so a show at the Fox-Warfield was a definite treat for their fans.

March 25, 1980 Bammies (Tuesday)

March 26, 1980 Graham Nash/Leah Kunkel (Wednesday)
Graham Nash, though a legend, was not a big draw on his own. Leah Kunkel was a pretty good singer. Her father (Russ Kunkel) was one of LA's great session drummers.

March 28-30, 1980 Jane Olivor (Friday-Sunday)

April 5, 1980 Iggy Pop/Mi-Sex (Saturday)
There's only one Iggy. From this entire year, only Iggy and Bonnie Raitt are still standing tall, still touring and pretty much doing what they always have done. Think about it, but not too hard.

April 12, 1980 Ramones/No Sisters (Saturday)
America wasn't ready for The Ramones when they surfaced in the mid-70s, but they were ready now. Sing it with me: "Rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock and roll high school."

April 16, 1980 Boomtown Rats/The Pretenders (Wednesday)
Bob Geldof and The Boomtown Rats had released their fourth album on Columbia. "I Don't Like Mondays" was their big hit, from July '79. The Pretenders debut album had been released on Sire in January, although some singles had been released earlier. "Brass In Pocket" was released in November '79. An eyewitness reported that The Pretenders, though oozing talent and charisma, were still new to performing and had a very shaky presentation.

April 26, 1980 Triumph/Van Wilks (Saturday)

May 25, 1980 Pat Travers/Def Leppard (Sunday)
Hard rocking guitarist Pat Travers big song on radio was "Snortin' Whisky (and Drinking Cocaine)." Hard to make this stuff up. Def Leppard, part of The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, had just released their first album on Mercury Records, On Through The Night.

May 27, 1980 Ian Hunter/Motion Pictures (Tuesday)
Ian Hunter had left Mott The Hoople some years earlier, and was now touring with Mick Ronson. His previous studio album, 1979's You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic, had been recorded with Ronson and the E Street Band, and featured the great song "Cleveland Rocks." His live album, Welcome To The Club, had just been released in March of 1980.

June 19, 1980 Judas Priest/Ray Gomez (Thursday)
Judas Priest was another British heavy metal band. They had been around for some years, but they finally broke through in America with their 1980 Columbia album British Steel.

June 22-23, 1980 Peter Gabriel/Random Hold (Sunday-Monday)
Peter Gabriel had just released his third solo album entitled Peter Gabriel. Throughout this year. the Warfield featured a lot of acts in the prime of their career, across a wide spectrum of tastes.

July 16-17, 1980 Rossington-Collins Band/Ronin (Wednesday-Thursday)
Rossington-Collins Band was formed from the survivors of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ronin featured Waddy Wachtel and other LA session heavyweights.

July 24, 1980 Flash Cadillac/Benny And The Jets (Thursday)
Both of these groups were local cover bands. I don't know if this was some sort of special event, as it's very atypical. Bookings in this stretch included the Cuevas/Hearns fight and a touring production of "Aint Misbehavin"

August 15, 1980 Magazine/Pere Ubu (Friday)
Magazine and Pere Ubu were the hippest of the hip underground record collector alternative New Wave bands imaginable. I would have spent the show at the bar, but that's just me.

August 16, 1980 Devo (Saturday)
Devo was hip at the time.

August 23, 1980 Eddie Money/Tommy Tutone (Saturday)
Eddie Money, a former Bay Area club act, was on his third album (Playing For Keeps), but he had already peaked. Tommy Tutone was a local band on the rise, but they had not yet released their one big hit (1981's "867-5309/Jenny").

September 3, 1980 Christopher Cross/Toons (Wednesday)
Christopher Cross was a hugely successful pop singer, with singles like "Ride Like The Wind," and "Sailing."

September 25-October 14, 1980 Grateful Dead (15 shows)

October 16-17, 1980 B-52s/Ricky Jay (Thursday-Friday)
The B-52s were always riotous fun in concert. Ricky Jay was a magician.

October 23-24, 1980 Talking Heads/English Beat (Thursday-Friday)
The Talking Heads were still touring as a 4-piece at this time.

November 6, 1980 Gary Numan/Gary Myrick (Thursday)

November 7, 1980 Randy Hansen/Head East (Friday)
Randy Hansen was basically a Hendrix imitator, despite being white and right-handed.

November 9-22, 1980 Bob Dylan (12 shows)
There were guest appearances by Carlos Santana (Nov 13), Mike Bloomfield (Nov 15), Jerry Garcia (Nov 16) and Maria Muldaur (Nov 22).

Jerry Garcia, The Top Of The Tangent, 117 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 1963-64 (Lost And Found)

Very likely the first ad for Jerry Garcia by name in any publication. Newly married Jerry and Sara Garcia open for Mike Cooney at The Top Of The Tangent on Friday and Saturday, May 3 and 4, 1963. From the Stanford Daily, Friday, May 3, 1963

In January 1961, Jerry Garcia was booted out of the US Army and relocated to the Palo Alto area. He hung out with various ne'er-do-wells, and after a while Garcia fell in with Robert Hunter, David Nelson and a few others. They were aspiring folk musicians, but there were hardly any places to play beyond the Stanford campus. By 1962 there were a few places on the Peninsula, but still none in Palo Alto. This changed in January 1963, when two bored doctors started to run a weekly folk club at a deli at 117 University Avenue called The Tangent. The music was presented in a room above the restaurant. The Top Of The Tangent held about 75 people, and they had shows on Friday and Saturday, along with a "Hoot Night" on Wednesdays. Jerry Garcia and his fellow aspiring Peninsula Folkies had a headquarters, and thus The Top Of The Tangent looms large in Grateful Dead history.

Early performances at The Top Of The Tangent have regularly been described in interviews by Jerry Garcia and others since the earliest days. Remarkably enough, relatively soon after trading Grateful Dead tapes became widespread, a few tapes of Garcia's aggregations playing at The Tangent turned up as well. Nonetheless, although the importance of The Top Of The Tangent was widely known, the venue itself remains clouded in myth.  Stanford University is Stanford, however, and while they digitized the archives of the student newspaper some years ago, it appears they have been recently upgraded. Suddenly the story of Jerry Garcia at The Top Of The Tangent comes into clearer focus. This post will take our newly-found information about Jerry Garcia and his friends at the Tangent and try and link it to other threads in Grateful Dead history.

The first ad in the Stanford Daily for The Top Of The Tangent, at 117 University, in the Friday, January 25, 1963 edition. "The Circle" was right across from the train station, and all locals and students would have recognized the location. Although The Tangent itself, a deli and later a pizza parlor, had been open for some time, the upstairs room had only opened as folk club that month.

Palo Alto, Stanford and Folk Music In The Early 60s
The city of Palo Alto was founded in 1875 on empty land to accommodate the forthcoming Stanford University, and the city and the campus have been intricately connected since the University opened in 1892. It is ironic, then, that downtown Palo Alto was quite far from the center of campus, and all but the sturdiest of undergraduates could not walk from school to the downtown area. As a result, by the mid-20th century, Palo Alto's downtown was far less of a university town than cities like Berkeley, Princeton or Chapel Hill.

However, one of the world's first shopping malls, the Stanford Shopping Center, had opened in 1955, triangulated between the Stanford campus and the downtowns of Palo Alto and Menlo Park. Businesses in downtown Palo Alto had suffered, and rents were cheap, so at least there was room for new ventures. McNally tells the story:

[Top Of] The Tangent started as an amusement for two bored young doctors, but it became, for two years, the home of folk music on the Peninsula. Stu Goldstein and David Schoenstadt were Stanford Hospital residents who knew nothing about folk music, but Max and Bertha Feldman's Palo Alto deli had a room upstairs, and it occurred to Stu and David to open a club there, using Pete Seeger's songbook, How To Make A Hootenanny, as their blueprint. They opened in January 1963, with open hoots on Wednesdays, and the winners playing weekends. The charge was a dollar fifty, and the performers got five or ten dollars. It quickly became Garcia's new musical home, [Garcia:], "a little community...a sweet scene." [p47]

In the early 60s, folk music appealed to college students. It's true, some non-college students liked folk music, too, but even those tended to be the sort of kids who were smart enough to consider college, but weren't particularly academically oriented. As far as commercial propositions went, then, if you were trying to make a dollar off folk music, there had to be college students nearby. So it's no surprise that the doctors chose a place that was at the end of University Avenue that was nearest to Stanford University. 117 University, at "The Circle," was at the foot of University Avenue, downtown Palo Alto's main street, and right across from the Southern Pacific Train Station.

The train station wasn't irrelevant either. Stanford, of course, had been founded by SP railroad magnate Leland Stanford, and the Palo Alto train station had been built to accommodate the university. Stanford students were always allowed to ride the SP trains for free, so Stanford always had a distinctly San Francisco orientation, since the students could get there so easily (to my knowledge, although the corporate parent of the SP Railroad was swallowed up sometime ago by the DRGW, Stanford students still ride the local trains [CalTrain] for free). The fact that the Tangent was in easy walking distance to the train station made it uniquely attractive to Stanford students.

The Stanford Daily was the campus newspaper. Since Stanford's central campus was at least a mile from downtown, the Daily was probably a primary source of information for the students. The Palo Alto Times was the town's daily paper, but it was a fairly stuffy publication, pretty good with state and national news but not exactly forward looking. It wouldn't have appealed to students, who had little contact with the town of Palo Alto anyway. The reputation of Stanford students, rightly or wrongly, was that they all preferred to go to San Francisco. Leaving aside how many of them had access to cars, if you were a student who was going to walk a mile to downtown Palo Alto, and you could stop halfway, at the train station, and go to San Francisco for free, what would you do?

The Daily appeared five days a week during the schoolyear, and one day a week when school was out. There was a certain amount of general news, mostly of the sort interesting to college students, and plenty of Stanford sports and reviews and previews of local events. The Daily was available on campus, and possibly a little bit around Palo Alto, but it was the best way to let Stanford students know what was up. So it's no surprise that Top Of The Tangent had a regular Friday advertisement, and that the Friday performance listings regularly described upcoming Tangent shows.

The Westport Singers, with Butch Waller and Herb Pedersen, and Janice Joplin, seem to have been the first performers advertised by name at the Top Of The Tangent, in the April 5, 1963 Stanford Daily. 

Jerry Garcia's official debut at Top Of The Tangent appears to have been on February 22, 1963, with The Wildwood Boys. I assume that The Wildwood Boys had demonstrated their prowess at an earlier Wednesday hoot night, but since we have tapes from both Friday (Feb 22) and Saturday (Feb 23), they appear to have been booked for the weekend. On the first night, the Wildwood Boys were just Garcia, Hunter and Nelson, but on Saturday, they were joined (more likely rejoined) by bassist Norm Van Maastricht. There was no Friday edition of the Stanford Daily, because school was closed for Winter break. In any case, up until April, the ads for Top Of The Tangent just advertised  "Folk Singing." The first ad I found with performers' names was on April 5, 1963.

Presciently enough, the performers on the weekend of April 5 and 6 were The Westport Singers and one Janice Joplin. Both acts had probably succeeded at hoot night, since they were otherwise unknown. The Westport Singers, who I think played a kind of old-timey/bluegrass hybrid, were from the Berkeley area. Banjo player Herb Pedersen was the hot young player in Berkeley, and when he first met Garcia, Palo Alto's hot banjo-man, they apparently circled each other like wary gunfighters. They soon became friends, however, and Pedersen ended up joining Old And In The Way when it reformed after 1995. As for Butch Waller, still the leader of the great bluegrass band High Country, his place in Grateful Dead history was assured on May 1, 1965, when he joined in on Jerry Garcia's first acid trip.

And as for blues singer Janice Joplin, from Port Arthur, TX, her most famous appearance at the Tangent was the time she didn't show up, per McNally. It may have been this occasion. When she didn't make it, her accompanist, guitarist Jerry Kaukonen, allowed that he could play a little blues. It turned out that, indeed, he could, and he became a regular at Top Of The Tangent himself.

The Top Of The Tangent did not advertise every single Friday in the Daily, but they seem to have had an ad most of the time. As you can see, the layout and size of the ad were always identical, and the text of the performers would change each week. This was typical of the way repeat advertising was handled by newspapers at the time. Given the ancient nature of these performances, what seems remarkable at a distance is that actually we have tapes of any Jerry Garcia performances at the Tangent, much less several of them. Reading the Daily, however, the explanation becomes clear: in 1963 and 1964, everyone who played weekends at The Tangent was probably broadcast on the radio.

Stanford had its own radio station, KZSU, broadcasting  on 880-am. FM broadcasts on KZSU began in the spring of 1964, with the commercials deleted, from a 10-watt transmitter on 90.1 fm (and still are today, although with 500 watts). However, KZSU-am was only audible in the Stanford dorms. Still, in the early 60s, KZSU-am probably got a good hearing on campus, as most students lived in those dorms. The Daily posted the nightly KZSU schedule, and there was a regular folk music show at 9:00pm on Friday nights, called The Flinthill Special, sponsored and run by The Top Of The Tangent. Throughout  1963 and '64, the 9:00pm Flinthill Special folk show was advertised as live music from the Top Of The Tangent. I doubt it was truly live--my assumption is that the shows were taped each week, and highlights were broadcast the next week--but it meant that Stanford students got a taste of live folk music every week.

In 1963, the host of the live folk show from the Tangent was Ted Clare, and in 1964 it was Phil DeGuere. Ted Claire was a Stanford student who was friends with Rodney Albin and others. He was a sometime member of The Liberty Hill Aristocrats, the old-timey band with Rodney and his brother Peter, and a decade later he was still playing with Rodney in a band called Roadhog, who were ultimately joined by Robert Hunter in 1974. So one host of the Friday night show was definitely a fellow traveler. Philip DeGuere, of course, besides being the producer of Simon & Simon and many other hit TV shows, was also the co-director of the legendary Sunshine Daydream movie, filmed in Veneta, OR on August 27, 1972. So both of the hosts of the KZSU show must have facilitated a few welcome tape transfers.

Naturally, anyone reading this will immediately think "hey! Are the tapes still at KZSU?" The answer is probably, yes, I expect that the tapes are still there, but they have something else on them. Tape was expensive in those days, and tape recorders exotic, so tape was probably re-used over and over again. Since I only know of Garcia tapes having survived the Tangent, I think Mr. Clare and Mr. De Guere (and producer Pete Wanger, about whom more later) are the most likely culprits, and we thank them for that.

Jerry and Sara Garcia got married on April 25, 1963, and took a honeymoon trip to Yosemite National Park. Just two weeks later, they were opening the weekend's show at Top Of The Tangent. We are fortunate to have a tape of some of it. I expect the source was ultimately KZSU, since the penniless Garcias could not have afforded either a tape or a tape deck. The May 5, 1963 Stanford Daily ad that shows "Jerry and Sara" opening for Mike Cooney (the ad is up top) is probably the first time Jerry's name--any of it--was published in an ad as a performer.

The 1963 Monterey Folk Festival
One of the crossroads of pre-Grateful Dead history was the 1963 Monterey Folk Festival, held on the weekend of May 17-19. The series of relatively large ads in the Stanford Daily indicate that college students were a primary target for the festival. The most popular act, in fact, was probably the Friday night headliners, the trio of Peter, Paul and Mary. Today, however, the resonant booking is on Saturday night, with The Weavers, Bob Dylan and The New Lost City Ramblers.

The infamous story of the Monterey Folk Festival was that the Saturday afternoon event, listed here as "Folk Talent Show." According to McNally, The Hart Valley Drifters (Garcia, Nelson, Hunter on bass and Ken Frankel on mandolin) won Best Amateur Group. There was also a banjo and fiddle contest, a staple of bluegrass festivals. Bluegrass is fast-paced, difficult music, and there is a gunslinging element to playing it well. Similar to a "cutting contest" in jazz, the best players like to show off their chops. At a high profile event like this, everybody's six guns were ready for shootin'.

The story, detailed by Blair Jackson, was that the ultra-competitive Jerry Garcia came in second. Worse, for Jerry, was that he came in second to a frailer, the same Mike Cooney that Jerry had opened for two weeks earlier at the Tangent. Frailing is "old-timey" banjo, tasteful but not nearly as difficult as the three-finger style pioneered by Earl Scruggs in Bill Monroe's band. For a three-finger picker like Jerry to lose to a frailer on a judge's decision had to seriously rankle. The "outtakes" to Blair Jackson's books include some dismayed comments from judge Rodney Dillard (an excellent bluegrass musician himself), cranky that he still had to defend his decision 35 years later. 

Garcia's disappointment aside, there was plenty of great artists at the festival that directly or indirectly influenced Garcia and the Dead over the years, such as Doc Watson, Mike Seeger and Lightnin' Hopkins (on Saturday afternoon, the "Country Boys" were actually the White Brothers, with Clarence White). However, the road not taken was described by McNally, as Garcia recalls leaving before Dylan had even finished his set. Hunter says the sound was lousy, and perhaps it was, but Garcia was a purist, too, and not interested yet in "new music." Neither Garcia nor Hunter had really heard or heard of Dylan at this time.

The Black Mountain Boys, with Jerry Garcia, David Nelson, either Eric Thompson or Sandy Rothman and an uncertain bassist (possibly Norm Van Maastricht), played Top Of The Tangent on February 7 and 8, 1964

By early 1964, Garcia's bluegrass band had evolved. Hunter had been unceremoniously fired, if "not being told that you weren't in the band when you came to rehearsal" counts as fired, and he had moved to Los Angeles. On board was Eric Thompson and/or Sandy Rothman, depending on availability. Bluegrass bands didn't make any money, so it was hard to make gigs, not least since both Eric and Sandy were actually based in Berkeley. On February 7 and 8, 1964, the Black Mountain Boys were headlining the Top Of The Tangent (along with "the blues of Kellery Powers"). Tickets were $1.25. There were shows at 9, 10:30 and 12:00. The assumption here seems to be that college kids would drop in on a date, or to hang out, stay for an hour and move on.

The Black Mountain Boys and Jerry Kaukonen are at the Tangent on March 6 and 7, and Jesse Fuller was at The Offstage. From the March 6, 1964, Stanford Daily.

A month later, the Black Mountain Boys headlined at Top Of The Tangent on March 6 an 7, 1964. This time, they were joined by "folk artist Jerry Kaukonen." We know Eric Thompson was in the band at this time, because he seems to have been responsible for the tapes that exist. Both Eric and Sandy are referenced on the extant tapes. However, its important to remember that bluegrass bands weren't rock bands, and performer could casually step on and off stage as they saw fit. Early 60s folk and bluegrass groups did not have nearly the fixed lineups that were engendered by electric groups such as The Beatles. With amplifiers and trap drums, a band had to be organized; with just one mic at the Tangent, and a tiny room, anyone good enough could be invited on stage, assuming they had brought their axe.

Mothe McRee's Jug Band opens for Ken Carter, on May 1 and 2, 1964, at the Top Of The Tangent in Palo Alto. The Stanford Daily ad (from May 1 '64) says "Minors Welcome," which implird a change in poicy

Sometime in early 1964, the Tangent had closed for a while for remodeling. When it reopened, they had pizza, at the time a fairly exotic food. Notice that the May 1, 1964 Daily ad now says "Folk Music and Pizza." In April, 1964, Jerry Garcia had let the Black Mountain Boys lapse, since they had no gigs. Garcia played the occasional bluegrass gig when he could find one, but there was no money in it and very few players of Garcia's caliber. Jug band music was a different matter. It was good music, but you didn't have to be an expert to play it. This weekend show at Top Of The Tangent may be the first advertised Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Band show.

The Stanford Daily listing from May 1, 1964 for the Mother McRee show at the Top Of The Tangent

Like most newspapers, the Stanford Daily listed the shows of its advertisers in its roundup of local events. The May 1, 1964 edition includes some intriguing detail

The Tangent reopens this weekend with singer Ken Carter and Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions. New features are a pizzeria and room downstairs for people under 21. The same show will play in both rooms at 8:45, 10:30 pm downstairs, 9:30, 11:15 upstairs. Hoots and auditons will now be held every Wednesday evening. $1.25, 75 cents with discount card.

We learn a number of interesting things about the Tangent here. First of all, because of the timings, we know that the opening act would play downstairs and then upstairs, and would still be performing up there while the headliner was downstairs. Folk music was not particularly loud, so this was actually plausible, but it seems strange to modern fans.

More critically, it appears that the Tangent itself is trying to expand its market to include people under 21 as well as over. It's not clear to me why the insistence that there will be an upstairs and downstairs show is so critical. We know that Bob Weir and many others who were not 21--and certainly didn't look 21--had been regulars at the Tangent. It may be that after the remodel, the Tangent started to serve beer. Once there was beer, there had to be a distinction between upstairs and downstairs, at least officially.

Palo Alto has always had a peculiar relationship with liquor. Leland Stanford had originally wanted the town of Mayfield to host his university, but they refused his condition that they close all the saloons. Instead, Leland Stanford and his partner Timothy Hopkins bought up 75,000 acres between Mayfield and Menlo Park, and the dry town of Palo Alto was founded. Palo Alto laws required that there be no saloon within a mile of campus limits. When prohibition came, Mayfield merged with Palo Alto anyway (Mayfield's downtown was on California Avenue, the future and now-past site of the Keystone Palo Alto).

After Prohibition, bars opened a mile from campus--conveniently, the old Mayfield was just over the limit, and the county line was a mile away, in East Palo Alto. But downtown Palo Alto did not have a bar until--this is not a typo--1981. This helps to explain why decades of Stanford undergraduates were so anxious to go to San Francisco instead. Palo Alto residents like my parents were satisfied with this, because they did not want the sleepy downtown to become infested with sleazy bars that were open late. However, per California law, restaurants were allowed to serve beer and wine. This meant that a place like The Tangent, which served food, was one of the few places to get a beer in downtown Palo Alto, since they did not have to compete with any bars.

117 University Avenue, Palo Alto, as it looked in 2006. At the time, it was a dive bar (by PA standards) called Rudy's. The upstairs was only accessible by a door on the right (in the center of the photo), with the new address of 119 University. 

The Jug Band played a famous gig in July 1964 (The Daily did not advertise it), recorded and preserved by KZSU producer Peter Wanger, and rescued by his brother some years later. The live recording and subsequent interview with Jerry Garcia that was released is the only officially released trace of the folk music at the Tangent in 1963 and 1964, even though it appears that it happened every weekend.

In the end, it probably didn't matter. Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions went electric, as we know. The Tangent itself was open as late as 1969, after which it became The Full Circle. However, after January 1965 there were only periodic scheduled shows at Top Of Tangent, mostly improvisational theater. Casual hoot nights seemed to exist intermittently for the balance of the 60s, and indeed The Warlocks actually showed up at the Tangent a few times in Summer '65, because there was nowhere else for them to play.

However, by 1967, the action moved next door to a club called The Poppycock, at 135 University, but it too did not last beyond 1970. For many years, the building at 117 University Avenue was a pleasant, low-key bar called Rudy's, but it closed around 2013. The upstairs part now has a different entrance and a different address (119 University). Last I looked, there was some sort of high-tech startup there, but they had already moved to San Francisco, just like those who had come before them.