Meet-up at the Movies: GD Movie - August 14th

Sadly, things like this don't come to our small little college town.  However, I started a monthly concert night at the local independent theater (Darkside Cinema), and for August, i'm going to request 4 Mondays instead of the usual one;  (We rent a room, so we can show our own content.  They get to choose the time, which makes it really cheap).  

Aug 4 - Trivoli Gardens 1972
Aug 11 - Festival Express
Aug 18 -  Truckin up to Buffalo July 4th, 1989
Aug 25 - Jerry Garcia Band - Shoreline 9/1/90

Saw it in the theater when it was first released. Still the best rock and roll movie ever.

It will never be as good as stumbling across it on the Don Kirshner late night show while altered and unable to go to sleep. 

I love that movie. Not so much for the performances, which are excellent but marred to an extent because most are not full versions, but more in how it documents what a Grateful Dead run at Winterland was like, both from behind the scenes and from the fan's perspective.

There are so many brilliant fan interaction scenes, from the guy in the bar who is whining that the Dead have sold out (which 50 years later people are still whining about) to the folks trying to scam their way in, to the people in line and then the doors opening (with the legendary Clyde doing what he did so well), then the show raging and then the people sleeping in line the next morning and it all starting again.

As for the music, for me it's the extra stuff added when they re-released the DVD about 15 years ago that is really excellent, with full versions of Scarlet Begonias, China/Rider, Uncle John's Band, Dark Star and others.

When that came out they had a release party at the Fillmore and showed the full movie, then they showed the entire extra DVD that had not been previously released. I was lucky to schnake my way into that and fully enjoyed the open bar party. When they played the extra music it had been a long night and most of the people left. I stuck around and hung in the back corner, figuring I'd check it out but probably leave when I was ready to drive.

When the music started it was great to hear tracks I hadn't heard before, but then I closed my eyes and something amazing happened. I was in a real concert venue (one the band was famous for playing many times) and the music was coming full volume through a full concert sound system, and when I closed my eyes I suddenly had the overwhelming feeling that the band was live on stage and I was at an actual live Grateful Dead show.

It was better than any hallucination. As long as I kept my eyes closed it was REAL, especially since I had never heard any of the music before. It was emotional, it was stunning, it was scary, it was sad, it was fucking GREAT!

In the 37 years I've been seeing shows in that room I've had many, many amazing times there, and pound for pound that one remains one of the most memorable.

Anyway, I love that movie and will certainly be at one of the screenings.

GO TO THE MOVIE!!!

They did this for the meetup at the movies maybe 10 years ago(?), when they re-released the DVD. I think these movie events are fun but I prefer the whole concert videos from the vault. Even if they are all late 80's-90's I'd rather see one of those than a rerun of the GD movie. 

Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems there's so much pro-shot stuff from late 80's / 90's when they started using the screens, they could release a full show every month for years.