Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site sdcc12.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcc3!sdcc12!nm34
From: nm34@sdcc12.UUCP (nm34)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Tripping and the Dead
Message-ID: <228@sdcc12.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 2-Apr-85 16:18:50 EST
Article-I.D.: sdcc12.228
Posted: Tue Apr  2 16:18:50 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Apr-85 06:52:42 EST
Organization: U.C. San Diego, Academic Computer Center
Lines: 87


     I received a letter in reponse to this article on net music.  The
letter made me sad.  This is a part of what I said.


>     One unique thing about Grateful Dead concerts is that approximately
>30-50% of the attendees are tripping.  This may
>not be interesting to those of you out there who haven't experienced the
>alternate reality of these 'magical' substances, but those of you who
>have, and haven't been to a Dead concert, you should try it.           
>     ... The Dead, gear their music to
>stimulate these reactions to music.  The music is at times intense,
>moving you higher and higher then dropping you then picking you up and
>bringing you even higher.  The intensity can get frightening but just
>when it is too much to bear, they break into the most sedate and
>melodious pastoral music in which you can smell the fields and stream
>they evoke.  The lyrics are also both stimulating to confusion then
>understanding and reassuring.  In one song, often played after a long
>unmelodious passage, the words "...If you get confused, listen to the
>music play..." leap out at you and grab you and hold and comfort you. 
>
>     At a Dead concert many people are tripping.  It seems as if
>everyone is on the same wavelength.
>You can look at the person next to you, who you have never met before and
>you KNOW that they KNOW what you are feeling. You are really soulmates
>for that short time. Brought together by the music but also the
>experience.  


 

     I received this mail message in response to my article: 
     

>Hi...actually, I became quite sad when I read your message.  I am new to
>this music and I enjoy it  alot.  Before I went to my first concert last
>month, a friend told me all about what you were saying except that she
>said that people who are tripping don't always accept people who aren't.
>She gave me the impression that I might not be welcomed where I had
>always been welcomed.  It was a definite warning.  It made me have real
>misgivings about going etc.  Well...needless to say, I had a very good
>time and in fact no one was mean to me and I found myself very much
>accepted.  I am hoping that people like myself who don't do drugs won't
>be put off to going to a concert after reading what you've said, because
>if I'd become so apprehensive after all that my friend had to say that I
>didn't go, then I would have missed out on something that I really like
>now.
>
>Sincerely, XXXXXXXXXXXXXX 

     I first want to apologize if anything I said upset you.  It is the
last thing  want to do to keep people from attending GD concerts.  I
also want to say that I can see how my remarks might be interpreted in
a clickish fashion.  It is often difficult for me to express my feelings
about things I hold to be important, wonderful or fantastic without
sounding as if any other way is not as good or wonderful or fantastic.
I should have said that a Dead concert or any other musical event is a
wonderful thing in itself, and that is where the joy comes from, not
from the tripping.  The people in the Dead themselves are not tripping,
and they seem to be having a good time at their concerts.  The only
thing that tripping does, and I want to stress that it is the only thing
is that it makes you feel these great things more intensely.  It makes
you feel the unity of the crowd (people on no drugs, stoners, and
trippers) it helps to appreciate the "spacy" nature of parts of the
music and it makes you think you are in touch with the moment. I will
repeat myself, the wonderful aspects of Dead concerts and music in
general are there without the trippers, but the tripping adds to it.

     In apology I dont want to retract anything I said about the merits
of tripping ( and I am sorry I am upsetting the sensibilities of some
who would wish that I dont talk of such taboo things in net.music) I
just dont want my remarks to exclude anyone from the Dead experience.
For example, I have been to more concerts without these aids, than with
them.  I enjoyed them all to the fullest.  I enjoyed the ones were I was
tripping much more.

     I would not be honest if I did not  admit that there can and is
snobbishness by tripping people at Dead concerts.  I submit now, that
these people would be snobbish if they were tripping or not.  They look
on the Dead experience as a way to give importance to themselves and
they dont understand the true meaning to the Dead movement.  The Dead
experience is to bring people together in joy.

     So keep going to the concerts and continue to enjoy them they are
for you. 
       
                            C. Charlie