What A Long Strange Trip
A friend from Cleveland, Ohio, Brian Daley, showed up at my apartment in Holland, Michigan during the summer of 1985, asking if I’d be interested in traveling to Wisconsin to hear the Grateful Dead perform back-to-back shows. After gathering my backpack, we then scoured the town in order to purchase the only remaining original formula Coca Cola available – following the recent change – and hit the road in his Honda Prelude.
Along the way, we must have bumped into at least a dozen people on the road that Brian, a Deadhead, knew from various shows he’d attended. That seemed rather unlikely – what were the odds? – though, less so upon arrival at the venue.
We set up a tent on the edge of a farmer’s field near the concert grounds, purchased tickets and proceeded to the first show, on Friday night. It was an excellent concert, though it took quite a while to exit the amphitheater, afterwards; something was obstructing the door at the top of the hill.
Once finally outside, we saw that a large car (a dark blue, Oldsmobile Delta 88) had parked crosswise, directly in front of the exit. That car belonged to friends of ours – Bernie, Libby & Roger – from Holland, Michigan, who heard that we had gone to the show and took a road trip to join us. Realizing that we would likely be very difficult to locate among the crowd, they decided to be as conspicuous as possible. Indeed!
© 2021 Phil Perkins
The Shows
PHOTO CREDIT: modified photo from unsplash.com.
Phil Perkins Photography 