Cool music comes in all shapes and sizes!
Today, with some 'net research, I was able to determine the exact show that was the first time I saw the Grateful Dead. I hope not to tell the long version of that night, but it really was transformative for me, a 19 yr old who, as it turned out, still had some learnin' to do.
April 15, 1970, Fillmore East, The Dead and The New Riders of the Purple Sage, billed as "The Dead at Midnight", because that's when the second show started.
I was not familiar with either band. Some friends and I had gone into the city to find something to do. We eventually stood on line for cancellation tickets to this show and wound up in about the 6th row, center, all high on some crystal meth (my first time for that, too!) good thing, because when the show let out, we all emerged into the dawn sunlight in lower Manhattan.
I didn't know who Jerry Garcia was, but here he was, playing with both bands (pedal steel!), and the music ranged from straight country to pop to rock n roll to acoustic blues to the tremendous electric masterpiece of Dark Star/St. Stephen.
The one I chose to post here, from that night, illustrates some of the roots of the Dead; their traditional, acoustic Ballad of Casey Jones.