Wondering how many of the three-quarters of a million people who attended this super-group festival (just the Dead, the Band, and the Allman Bros) in the summer of '73 at this central NY outdoor racetrack remember the goings on and have any stories to share? I can dig out the memories with a little help, but I clearly recall drugs, crowds, rain, sun, wandering, the Dead plunking away for hours on end, the Band battling with the rainfall, cows, motorcycles, getting lost, walking, walking, walking (tripping, tripping, tripping), and the band I came to see----the Allman Brothers---finally coming on at night while I was semi-conscious and buzzed out sleeping in the car, Dicky Betts' guitar licks wafting through the open windows as the cows slept standing up less than a yard from the road. How we ever found that car I'll never know---some kind of systematic acid pretzel-logic and process of elimination----but when my wife and friends finally had enough of the wet and the weirdness, it seemed like getting back to that vehicle was the only thing that would save us! So we joined the ever-present procession of stoned-out wanderers that seemed to travel from one festival to the next at that time, trudging along with the masses. This was supposed to be the ultimate outdoor post-Woodstock event, three of the biggest and best groups of the time, and we paid $20 for our tickets, only to find that the crowd had pushed down the fences when we got there and you didn't need a ticket anyway!
I'll always remember how my young wife's sandals (we were barely 21) weren't cutting it in the mud, and I gave her my low-cut Cons, tied 'em tight and saved her soles while I was oblivious to any feeling below my knees and my socks worked just fine for me. Who knew that acid could do that?
Were you there? Were the Allman Brothers good? It took me 32 more years to hear them live (2005 in Canandaigua NY) and I think they just might be as good now (w/Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes) as they were back then. This time I skipped the acid though, and my wife (the very same) and I settled for a little Finger lakes White in plastic cups at the civilized refreshment stand.
Old hippies never die, but they can't be walking through the rain with their eyes buggin' out of their heads when they get gray. But the music never stops!