Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Second rate reporter says what?

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Books are my comfort food!

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Republicans do not trust women.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

In my day, never was longer.

“But what about the lurkers?”

You are here: Home / Music / RIP, Jerry

RIP, Jerry

by | 42 Comments

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August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995:

“If we had any nerve at all, if we had any real balls as a society, or whatever you need, whatever quality you need, real character, we would make an effort to really address the wrongs in this society, righteously. “

Gone but not forgotten.

Reader Interactions

42Comments

  2. 2.

    Maude

    Didn’t Rush insult Jerry at some time in the past?
    Prolly jealous.
    They don’t make them like the Grateful Dead anymore.

  4. 4.

    mellowjohn

    someone (forgot whom) said after jerry died, “i miss him like a middle finger.”

  5. 5.

    LoudounLib

    This being the last day of Jerry Week, it’s nice to see and hear these tunes. Thanks so much.

  7. 7.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    March 23, 1995 Charlotte with Hornsby. The Warf Rat gathering at intermission was only alcohol support group I ever did. It worked.

    The wheel is turning and you can’t slow down,
    You can’t let go and you can’t hold on,
    You can’t go back and you can’t stand still,
    If the thunder don’t get you then the lightning will.

  8. 8.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Sixteen years, amazing. I still remember the exact intersection where I was stopped for a light when I heard the news on the radio — and to this day, have a little flashback every time I take that route home.

  10. 10.

    Spaghetti Lee

    Love the Dead. Too young to have gone to any of the shows, but I love their music. It’s always bugged me how they get the tag of music only stoned people listen to. They wrote some great songs.

  11. 11.

    beltane

    I’ll always remember that day. I was pregnant with my first child and started to go into labor shortly after hearing the news. Just by coincidence, my soon to be sixteen year old son turned out to be the musician in the family.

  14. 14.

    Cat Lady

    Was at Highgate less than two months before he died. We took the kids who were 10 and 13, and we camped in North Hero the night before to get a jump on the traffic and madness. We got such an early start that the parking crew put us at the beginning of Shake Down Street, and had the amazing experience of watching the entire circus unfold. The van next to our pickup truck sold nitrous balloons and all night long we had to listen to balloons pop cuz they overfilled them. The van left at about 4 in the morning, and there was an outline of the van made out of pieces of latex. It was hard to explain to the kids that those balloons weren’t for kids, and not to eat anything from the vendors.

    Good times.

  16. 16.

    nepat

    “Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead did as much for mankind as any president.”

    –Grace Slick

  18. 18.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    All those day-glo freaks who used to paint their face
    They’ve joined the human race, some things will never change

  19. 19.

    South of I-10

    I only attended one show in Foxboro, Mass in 1989. Had such a good time. I was 18 and that seems like 1000 years ago.

  20. 20.

    Dr. Morpheus

    Grateful Dead? I couldn’t get more than thirty seconds into any of those videos before I started nodding off.

    Wow, you like really boring music.

  21. 21.

    Cat Lady

    So we got into the venue so early that we set up near the front, but about halfway through Dylan the hordes started to overrun the back chain link fence. The first wave came over the top of the fence, and hundreds of half naked kids started running towards the front, chests all blodied from the sharp tips on top of the fence. About a half hour later, the fence came down completely, overrun by people who were climbing over the TOP OF THE PORTA POTTIES THAT WERE AGAINST THE FENCE AND KNOCKED OVER, DOOR SIDE DOWN! Thankfully, that wasn’t us. Good times!

  25. 25.

    RosiesDad

    I saw them in March 1973 at the Nassau Coliseum, about a week after Pigpen died. (He had been too sick with biliary cirrhosis–paying attention, Cole?–to play with the band for about a year and Keith and Donna Godchaux were new to the band.) Great show, first general admission concerts at the venue. Found out later that the Nassau County Police busted a lot of kids for drugs but was probably too wasted during the show to have noticed.

  26. 26.

    BobS

    I saw Jerry with the Grateful Dead and the Jerry Garcia Band more times than I can count. At a show in Chicago in the early 70’s, when Bart Starr was freshly retired from quarterbacking the Packers, some guy in the crowd kept screaming out a request for Dark Star. After what seemed like the 20th time, another guy started yelling “Bobby Douglass”, who was the Bears quarterback at the time. Possibly my favorite show was at Cobo Hall in Detroit in the mid-70’s. The last time was at the Palace in Auburn Hills Michigan in the early 90’s- my wife and I brought our two kids, now 31 and 28. They weren’t into the Dead’s music then like they are now, but they were both wide-eyed at the experience (my daughter pointed out it smelled like Uncle Robert’s house) and now they appreciate the fact they got to see an American icon.
    Quite by accident, while hitch hiking across the country in 1972, I ended up at a campfire in Colorado getting high with him and about a dozen other people. It was a pretty big fire.

  27. 27.

    pragmatism

    @SiubhanDuinne: fond remembrances are bittersweet. I was waiting tables and asking customers if they heard that Jerry died. Most of them said “Jerry who?”.

  28. 28.

    vtr

    I will never forgive myself for missing all the Dead’s performances in Highgate back in the ’90s.

  31. 31.

    M. Bouffant

    Hippies!

    Here’s some damn street cred for you though:

    First time I saw the Dreadful Grate was at Golden Gardens Park in Seattle, 1968. A free concert, they played from the back of a flat-bed truck. Stood right next to ol’ Jer pre-concert, he was just hanging around, no such thing as a back-stage area.

    And I was young enough to have danced so hard my love beads broke.

    Of course, that’s when they were still good, mostly doing blues covers.

  32. 32.

    Mike E

    One out…one in. Miss E came into my life on this very day just before midnight. A great day for me.

  33. 33.

    Fulcanelli

    Please don’t dominate the rap, jack, if you’ve got nothing new to say. If you please, don’t back up the track this train’s got to run today.

    I spent a little time on the mountain, I spent a little time on the hill. Act, some say “Better run away”, others say “you better stand still”…

    One way or the other, this darkness got to give…

    RIP Jerry…

  34. 34.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    Saw them only once, in Santa Barbara in the mid-70s at some football stadium. The lasting memory was the sound system. They had the wall of speakers and the sound was just as crisp and crystal clear at the far end of the stadium (where I could afford to sit) as it would have been in your living room.

    And loud, did I mention it was loud?

  35. 35.

    Tim Connor

    @nepat:

    “Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead did as much for mankind as any president.”
    —Grace Slick

    Amen to that –at least in my lifetime. And I am, for better or worse, getting old.

  36. 36.

    Darkrose

    Was at the Giants game tonight: Grateful Dead Night. Jerry’s daughter threw out the first pitch, and Jerry must have been smiling down on us, because we smoked the Pirates 0-6.

  37. 37.

    Xboxershorts

    Saw my first show in ’79 and never looked back. A wide eyed naive, insecure and dorky 18 yr old. The music hit a nerve that stayed with me for the rest of my life. But, the crowd so impressed me. It was like I’d found the family that could accept me regardless of my shortcomings.

    And more so than the music, it was the sense of family that kept me coming back.

    In 2001, I moved away from my hometown of Rochester, NY to a job in the middle of nowhere, N Central PA. Potter County, population 16,000. And even here, in this extremely rural setting, that same family found me and I’ve hooked up with a circle of like minded friends who have a private get together every 4th of July weekend with 3-4 days of music, camping, feasting and merry making.

    The music will live on in perpetuity, not because it’s exceptional (some of it is, some of it isn’t), but because it has become a family. A family that encompasses the whole world.

    My family here in Potter Cty allows me to record the music from the weekend, and I share that with the world through Youtube. I share this acoustic set from Friday night at the barn with you now, my Balloon-Juice family…

    http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4A9425ABDE399CA7

    Also, check out these 13 year olds from TeaNeck, NJ to see for yourselves how following generations are picking up where we leave off…these kids really are amazing!

    http://www.youtube.com/user/LeadHeads555

    Be well my Balloon-Juice family and enjoy

  38. 38.

    D-Chance.

    What a wonder sentiment, indeed. Even if it DOES come from someone who spent his entire life avoiding the responsibility he advocates.

  39. 39.

    Paul in KY

    Should have a video of ‘St. Stephen’. I read somewhere that Jerry said it was his favourite song. They played it at his funeral.

  41. 41.

    Gus

    @Cat Lady: I was at that show. Lots of bad shit going down, assholes crashing the gate, etc. Quite a contrast with my first show in ’87 at Alpine Valley.

  42. 42.

    daverave

    Didn’t see this thread until this morning cause I was celebrating my birthday with a few friends last night. We played Jerry all night in his memory… on my turntable.

    My 2nd Dead show was at the closing of the Winterland, New Year’s Eve, 1978 just a few weeks after moving to SF from NY. Scalped tickets, the Blues Brothers lead off at 8, NRPS followed, then Bill Graham riding a joint down from the rafter at the stroke of midnight. The band played until 6AM followed by breakfast for the whole crowd. Good, good times.

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