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Great Moments in Rock and Roll and Lede-Burying

This blogger was fortunate enough to see the Grateful Dead, oh, maybe 10 times between 1970-1975. They weren't my favorite band of that period, but I was friends with many folks who were your classic Deadheads, and of course, the Dead were always on tour, meaning there were more opportunities to see them than their peers in the rock pantheon. They were also a damn fine show.

I now consider the time spent listening to the Dead to be validated completely by an unintentionally hilarious article in the Arts & Leisure section of today's Sunday Times. It's a looong piece on people who collect, listen to, and rate sound recordings formerly known as "bootleg tapes" of Grateful Dead concerts. These people spend quite bit of their precious time on earth arguing over "what was the BEST Grateful Dead concert ever?"

How to take the fun out of life, guys. Might as well argue about the best sunrise of your life. Rock and roll shows are instrinsically subjective experiences, and aside from certain fundamental levels of musicianship, there's nothing to argue about. I suppose it's only a matter of time before one of these obsessed fools invents saberDeadmetrics.

I almost gave up on this article in disgust, which would have been a big mistake. At the very end, on the second jump page, the author, a nitwit, got around to asking former members of the Dead how they rated their concerts. Mickey Hart and Phil Lesh each gave essentially the same answer.

Concerts? Who remembers?

Way to be, fellas! Roll one and smoke it if you got it.

posted by Michael Gee @ 7:08 AM