(1980s)August, Greek Theater, BerkeleyAs the first set ends, the crowd noise registers 110 decibels on the meter at the monitor mixing board onstage. Cranky, Garcia stomps muttering down the stairs to his dressing room, only to discover that he has been locked out. Weir passes by, and Garcia barks, “Where are those drummers? I want to kill both of them.” Weir turns to Lesh and says something inaudible, and gets the reply “So I’ll turn down my bass, but I can hardly hear myself onstage as it is. I’ll have to stand right next to the speakers.” A stream of friends and family members trails in their wake down the stairs.The Dead have always had more people backstage than any other band. In the nineties the band gave away on the order of $600,000 a year in free tickets to their guests. Some of those tickets went to the usual sycophantic gaggle that surrounds each successful musical group. But if there was one element other than sustained musical genius that nurtured the band for so long, it was the cocoon of good and decent friends, the family, that accompanied them.
