Deadheads

Deadheads: Stories from Fellow Artists, Friends, and Followers of the Grateful Dead, ed. by Linda Kelly.
At first I thought I had made a mistake in bringing this book along to Bonnaroo. I was worried that it would be too lightweight, the Deadhead stories too unfocused. But the book is greater than the sum of its parts. The collection of interviews with casual fans and people close to the band (including Tom Constanten, a former member) makes me feel like I understand what it was like to be a Deadhead in the band's glory days and decline. Jerry Garcia died just after Kelly finished the book, and she chose to keep people's stories about him in the present tense and then add an afterword of remembrances. There are photos throughout (many of Deadheads camping in Philadelphia) but most are too dark to even be able to see faces. It would be nice to see color photos, or at least clearer ones. But that's for another book, I suppose. I think my favorite of the interviewees is Ricky Begneaud, a Cajun chef who catered for the Dead and was friends with Bob Weir. There's also a great story by John Popper about sneaking out to a Dead show with his mother's car: "A lot of bottles were in the parking lot, and I said to myself, 'Well, I'll just drive across. These are tires, they can take it." (I love this story because I once drove across a glass bottle in the parking lot after a DMB show and wrecked a tire on my mother's Caravan. In New Jersey. Then we got lost. Then I got sick. The day after I got home I went to the hospital with appendicitis.) Popper also gives helpful advice: "One thing you should never do, by the way, is drive under a blinking light when you're tripping, because suddenly there are rabbits everywhere" (59).

This book is full of near-misses and miracles. Sometimes you get backstage, sometimes you get stuck in traffic and miss the show. "All part of the rich tapestry of life," as my father says. It's an important collection of stories captured at a perfect time. It's sad that it's just a testament to a concert community that no longer exists (at least in my experience). We can just approximate it now, but I'm glad at least there are so many eyewitness accounts of its existence.