HOW DID I FORGET THIS ONE?

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

Perhaps I let it fester, but Deadheads, the name for the cult of the most avid followers of the rock band The Grateful Dead, don’t forget anything associated with the band. (This was a strictly American phenomenon, as I found out when I first came to England.) The few Deadheads I knew had walls of cassettes of homemade recordings of the band’s concerts, since no two shows were alike. And when the full band wasn’t on tour, Jerry Garcia, the band’s lead singer, guitarist, and main songwriter, often did solo tours. In early November 1988, I got to experience from the stage the Dead phenomenon, and the whole experience might have been consigned to distant memory, except that out of the blue a week ago, I got an email from a Deadhead who somehow found me and was wondering if the Rick Right that was opening for Jerry Garcia at Caesar’s in Tahoe was indeed me. Guilty, your honour!

I was only offered the gig, which paid really well and gave me a suite at the hotel, because the musical comedy act the gig was originally offered to couldn’t do it. Maybe he sensed the hell it might be and opted out, but I was game/naive, so I said yes. I would only have to do three shows on consecutive nights, 20 minutes each night. What could possibly go wrong? Wellll, potentially everything, but fortunately it was only 20 minutes, and except for the time on stage, it was a great gig.

What was so awful about it? Mostly, that the idea of having ANY kind of opening act for Jerry Garcia was silly at best. The 1500 Deadheads in the room really didn’t care about what was on stage unless it was Jerry. The announcer gave the intro with the typical announcer flair, “Welcome to the Cascade Showroom at Caesar’s in beautiful Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Your headline act tonight is the legendary Jerry Garcia with special guest Rick Right. And now please welcome Rick Right!” The Cascade Showroom erupted with their own cascade of boos as soon as they realised Jerry wasn’t coming out yet, and those that didn’t boo did a complete 180 degrees, leaving me to perform to most people’s backsides.

So it went for 20 minutes, but my torture would be exacerbated just as I was about to wind up my attempt at a set. I was performing in front of a curtain behind which the band was set up. Just to complicate things, the band, during my final high energy bit, were loudly tuning their guitars, which totally obliterated my chance of ending on a high, as the audience were realising through their various altered minds that they were moments away from the next Jerry Experience. I did get a line out of this gig that I would use for many years: “Hey let’s pretend we’re at a Grateful Dead concert. I’ll tune for an hour, three people die outside,” a reference to the numerous Deadheads who overdosed on any number of stimuli at their concerts over the years. I only gave up that line when someone came up to me after a show and said, “Hate to tell you, my brother died at a Grateful Dead concert!” My only response was, “Really I’m sorry, man. What were the odds?” I dropped the line shortly after that.

Meanwhile, there were two more nights to go. It was very likely the same audience for all three nights, and the casino was losing a lot of money on this one. Garcia didn’t exactly attract the high rollers that your typical Tahoe headliner might attract. Most Deadheads didn’t have the financial means to stay at Caesar’s, so many of them camped in the woods. Many only had their show tickets and one change of clothes (and probably a whole shedload of drugs!) I convinced the show manager that it wasn’t necessary for me to do 20 minutes on the remaining shows, that 10 would be sufficient, and he totally agreed.

The plus of the whole gig was hanging out with Jerry in his dressing room, and finding him to be a humble guy. He told of an experience when The Grateful Dead played the Aladdin in Vegas, and he was gambling at one of the tables. He saw a Deadhead walking through the casino who likely didn’t know the 60s had ever ended, stoned out of his mind, and he decided to sit down as he was tired. The seat he chose to sit in was the one reserved for the pit boss, who would have been very upset if he saw his seat occupied. It took three bouncers to convince the guy that he could sit in a lot of places, just not that one. His attitude was, “Hey man, I’m tired, and no one’s sitting there,” which sort of made sense in the basic scenario. Also hanging out with Jerry for the entire three days was basketball Hall of Famer Bill Walton, an avowed Deadhead, which from what I knew about him and his politics, seemed appropriate. He was also a lovely guy, who actually watched my set, and had nice things to say.

Besides Garcia and Walton, the only other person I talked to at length was the seamstress who worked for the showroom, had done so for about 25 years, and had met virtually everybody. She had great things to say about Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Elvis, among others. In fact she reserved all her vitriol for Barry Manilow, who refused to talk to anyone the entire week he was booked, and had constructed a tunnel from his dressing room to the stage so he wouldn’t have to deal with anyone. I would never have guessed.

Ultimately this gig did nothing to further my career, but it did put some cash in my pocket. I also got to spend three nights in a lovely suite, and fortunately was there with my future wife, so I didn’t feel totally alone. If only the reason I was there in the first place didn’t involve a near humiliation that lasted three days, it would have been an ideal gig. I heard my favourite joke of the 1990’s only about a year before Jerry died in 1995: “Q: What did the Deadhead say when he quit smoking pot? A: Wow, this band sucks!”

July 10th, 2022



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