Yokum and I were hard-core Dead freaks. We had already done Barton Hall and Englishtown, so when our bosom buddy Rico said he had two tickets for the closing of Winterland, there was no doubt. Rico, my friend since age 4, wanted to go, but he said we NEEDED to go, so we hopped on […]
Fellow head Paul Martin and I had learned to fly while grad students. We flew to Denver for Christmas, and tried to fly home in time to catch all the Winterland shows. I had never missed a Winterland show since my first three in November 1973 when they opened with Promised Land at my first
I was fortunate to have won the right to purchase tickets. The local BASS ticket outlets gave out stubs with a number on them, and if they drew your number, you got to purchase tickets. My future wife Marianne had a winning ticket so we went down and bought our tickets. Marianne was lucky that
I was living in Bellingham Wash. at the time. I was able to get tickets from a friend named Gregg Rydman and we rode to California in a beat up old VW bug that was very cold all the way south. We arrived in S.F. on the 30th and went right to Winterland. Petty was playing that night
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Not thinking I’d win the lottery for tickets, I wrote Bill Graham a letter from my home in Bozeman, Mont., sent the $50 apiece, and asked for three tickets. I signed it Mayor of Bozo City or something. I had gone to Kentucky and then to Florida for Christmas. Tix came to Montana late. I
Three others and I drove up from the San Fernando Valley the day before NYE, we camped out in Scotts Valley at a campground in freezing weather. When we went to Winterland, we stood in line all day; I remember there was a church on a street across or maybe in the parking lot and
The balloons of course were a huge liability, they’d get in front of the speakers, they’d pile up against everything. You couldn’t hear anything, you couldn’t make sense of anything, and you couldn’t move. There were so many balloons it was unthinkable. Bill over did the balloon thing, how unlike him. The thing about this
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I loved going to Winterland to see the Dead, and I saw them a few times there before it finally closed. The first time was in ’75 for the sort of reunion show (the Bob Fried Benefit) that happened. I was with my older brother David and was a junior in high school. For the closing
Once we heard about the closing of Winterland, our group started putting away a stash of party supplies to get us through that night. We saved for months until we had an ample supply. We had been going to Winterland for years, and the fact that it was closing was very emotional for me. It
All Grateful Dead shows at Winterland were special; “they weren’t the best at what they do, they were the only ones that do what they do.” I remember thinking just how special these shows were going to be. Not that I needed a reminder of this fact, but the amount of people lined up for
