jarid

After a friend of mine who worked for Bill Graham got me in the venue, the Blues Brothers were just finishing up as we walked through the front doors. I was enveloped in a world I had no idea existed. Up to that point, being that the closing of Winterland was my first Dead concert, […]

The first time I saw the Dead was on March 23, 1975 at Kezar Stadium. Nobody but the Grateful Dead could have made those crazy sounds that day, but technically speaking they were billed as Jerry Garcia & Friends, so that makes the closing of Winterland the first time for me seeing them billed as the

The closing of Winterland was the big to-do in my prime years of being a Deadhead. Having attended my first New Year’s run the previous year in 1977, attending the closing with the Blues Brothers and New Riders opening was a no brainer. The holy grail tickets for some reason weren’t too hard for us

Memories of the Winterland closing begin with a great anticipation and planning. Getting tickets, coming to the city the day before and getting a good place in line and the inevitable waiting and waiting in line, overnight – through the next day until finally – the doors opened and we dashed for the prized seats,

I was a 16-year-old growing up in Los Angeles. I was from San Francisco, but moved south in 1966 and still had a very large extended family in S.F. My first show was at the Forum on 6/4/77 and I did see the GD at Winterland on 10/20 and 10/21 1978. So, as you can imagine

The closing of Winterland was a chance for a gathering of the people who recorded and traded audio reels filled with Grateful Dead live concerts. By 1978, this was a small but dedicated group of fanatics. As I recall, we got in line around noon to be greeted by our new friend Dick Latvala, years

When word came out of the closing of the Winterland, several of us happened to be hard-core Deadheads, working entry-level jobs at KOTI-TV, a small television station in Klamath Falls, Ore., a relatively easy seven-hour drive from San Francisco. Erich Lyttle, who was the most experienced creative producer at the station, headed up the idea

I In 1978, I was working at a TV station in Klamath Falls, Ore. that had three other Deadheads working there. We weren’t able to get tickets for New Year’s, so we came up with the idea of sending Bill Graham a videotape request using the Dead’s Saturday Night Live performance of I Need a Miracle>

It was almost exactly 12 midnight when the lights come on to celebrate New Year’s, and looking down on the floor, I find one gram of pure cocaine! I could not believe it. Up all night and ate the breakfast in the morning. ~ Jimymac

I was a taper at the time and, though I did not record the show myself, I did meet up with people at the show who did make a great board tape and later sent me a cassette copy. Years later, I was selling stereo and TV gear at a store in Berkeley, and Phil