4/20/69: atwood hall, clark university, worcester, MA.the dead and roland kirk share the bill and play for a tiny crowd at clark’s on-campus theatre (capacity 658). the dead flew in from indiana (where they played a fine gig at purdue university), but their equipment came by truck. this explains why the stephen prung poster lists the clark performance as 4/19. anyway, 1969 wasn’t the first time the dead graced atwood hall. they performed there in the fall of ’67 and, the word is, they blew the power twice. afterwards, they simply excused themselves and promised to come back.on april 20, 1969 they did just that, and the tape survives where jerry admits right before the morning dew opener: “last time we were here, it was a colossal disaster.” the circuits did hold up this time, and the band delivered 90 minutes of music, including a really sweet dark star and a damn nice dupree’s diamond blues > mountains of the moon encore. mr. kirk, on the other hand, seemed unhappy with the billing and waved a gun around at the dead prior to the show.
https://archive.org/details/gd69-04-20.sbd.lutch.4992.sbeok.shnf
Tracing the arcana of The Dead is a fascinating pursuit! A love of the subject matter and a love for often tedious research is essential. The blending then becomes magic in the hands of a true story-teller. You combine the three. (I do prefer black licorice to red, but I love what you're doing here!!) :-)
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