HBD 40 Years Old and Rockin’ OKC

Love the next show 8/3/82 at Starlight. Great matrix of that one.

Howard how are ya! Sorry I missed you in Boulder I enjoyed those shows!.

I was not a fan of this show but I did really like the night before in Austin. This was my first Summer Tour that wasn't on The East Coast. Good times! 

Big Steve was just talking about this show a few days ago, said it was a hot one.  Not sure if he was referring to the temperature or performance.

This show was my long strange trip show and it started in Denver. I flew out from the east coast for the Red Rocks shows and then me and a friend were just going to hitchhike and or find rides for the rest of the tour. The only ride we could find from Red Rocks was a guy named Alaska Jack who had a converted school bus. Even at the very stupid age of 19 I didn’t think that driving across Oklahoma and Texas in a converted tour bus with Alaska Jack was the best idea. So the morning after the last Red Rocks show there we were standing on the side of the road in the sunshine after three days in the rain with a huge sign for Oklahoma City. Three hours later we were still standing there.

Finally a trucker pulled over which was strange because we were told that truckers never picked up hitch hikers. It was a sweet 18 wheeler with a sleeping compartment. The first few hours were uneventful but once out in the middle of no where of south east Colorado the driver pulled out a joint of bad weed and started talking about how much he liked San Francisco which of course had come up because we told him we were following the Dead around. Then he pulled out a vile of Rush and was huffing while driving. Ahh that’s when we figured out why this trucker was fine with picking up two 19 year old boys.

Not much more to that story nothing happened and he was a nice guy that drove us all the way to Amarillo TX where we got out our sign and started hitching again. Our next ride was with a 30 year old white dude who was driving back from Texas where he had a job interview. Once again in the middle of no where he starts to tell us a story about the day he went to the zoo. After he spent some time in the monkey house he came to a revelation that he just had to share with us because it was so obvious to him based on his visit to the zoo. White people were created by God and black people evolved from monkeys. There was no reason to fight about evolution at all. We nodded along politely and told him what an interesting unique idea that was.

He dropped us off at a strip mall in some small town in Oklahoma where I called my brother who was stationed in Enid at the time. So there we were sitting on the side walk waiting for my brother to pick me up and people would come up and ask us what we were doing there. Not in a bad way just curious. Being from the east coast we were a little paranoid about telling people we were following the dead so we just told people we were traveling around the country and we were waiting for my brother to pick me up. They would look at us confused and say why the hell would you choose to come here?

So my brother picked us up and cooked a nice T-Bone steak for us and then dropped us off at the Oklahoma City Zoo parking lot the next day where we were magically transported  back into dead head land. The only thing I remember about the show was that it was my first Iko. I had seen the bumper stickers that for some reason were spelled Aiko Aiko and thought the song was a big deal but I had never heard it before. After hearing it was confused, but anyway.

Found some people that said they could put us up for the night but after the show they told us they couldn’t. Some how I managed to remember where the hotel was where some of my friends from New Hampshire were staying that night. They were doing the tour by flying from show to show. What they were selling in the lot was more lucrative than the black and white photo’s of Jerry we were selling. Made it to the hotel with a ride from some locals and the next morning we were on the side of the road with a sign for Kansas City.

Long fucking journey for one show.