Further Festival, The Other Ones, Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA 7/24-25/1998

After my companions and myself left Irvine, we north on the 101. California was more beautiful than I anticipated, and I place I always wanted to go. As a teenager obsessed with skateboarding, my dream was to move to California for a pro career. That didn't work out, but I was here now, in the epicenter of what I considered real culture, real wilderness, farming, and lots of sunshine.

We hit San Fran and it was unreal. THe city was busy. The hills and traffic were intimidating. Haight-Asbury was also illuminating. Huge amounts of tourists-including many kids from tour, clashing with the street hippie kids who wondered who all these people who looked like them (but honestly cleaner) were and if it was gonna mess up their efforts to grift the tourists. 

I have a distinct memory of seeing Sean Lennon playing solo guitar in Amoeba records that day, to promote his record. I can't find any record of it, but I know it happened. I also distinctly remember almost being mugged by hippie street kids in Golden Gate Park, a girl with her nose rotted off begging us for money, and a poor pregnant hippie girl sitting outside the McDonalds (which is no longer there) begging for change. 

I mean, I was a rough kid with bad family, but Haight Asbury was eye opening. Speaking of eye opening, somehow in the chaos I was dosed, and San Francisco became a heart pounding blur of a nightmare, and honestly, I don't know how any of us ever escaped from their with our lives, but I found myself sleeping, eventually (after a long night of discomfort), on the side of the road in Mountain View the next day. 

I remember working the lots was harder in some respects, and that suprised me, but I also remember that these were the best concerts of the entire tour. The first night was literally spellbinding, especially that opening jam into Dark Star, and especially the meat of the show, Bird Song > The Other One Jam > Bird Song > Drumz/Space > Let It Grow > Dark Star Jam > Across the River > Uncle John's Band. 

I found myself twirling on the lawn of shoreline, feeling the wind on my skin, while the Let it Grow jam was blistering. What a memory. For this ramshackle kid too late to the Grateful Dead, this was my moment. Steve Kimock got it my head at this show more than any other, and there he stayed for a long time. 

Sadly, I was broke and unable to score a miracle into the next night. But it was a great show too!

The people I was with decided to go back east via Phish tour. I decided to see what would happen, and got into a random car with some hippie kids "going north to see what we can see". With a few dollars and lots of learning to do, we left shoreline and found a san fran beach where there were campfires and slam poetry while passing around wine. We did this and then slept until the sun began to came up, and San Fran's finest (or some equivalent) came around giving out fines so we woke up and ran. 

We headed north, eventually landing in Ashland, Oregon, for probably a month. Eventually I went back east, to Ohio. I'd not see my companions again until Phil Lesh SUmmer tour 2001. 

7/24/1998 Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA

Dark Star > Hell in a Bucket, Scarlet Begonias > Fire on the Mountain, Mississippi Half-Step, Queen Jane Approximately, Baba Jingo, Tennessee Jed, Bird Song > The Other One Jam > Bird Song > Drumz/Space > Let It Grow > Dark Star Jam > Across the River > Uncle John's Band, Box of Rain, Good Lovin

7/25/1998 Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View, CA

U.S. Blues, Playin in the Band > The Other One* > Ramble On Rose* > Down the Road* > Jack-A-Roe, Friend of the Devil, Iko Iko* > China Cat Sunflower*+ > I Know You Rider*+ > Drumz*+, Preacher in the Ring@ > Banyan Tree > Corrina > Playin in the Band Jam* > The Other One* > Wharf Rat*, St. Stephen* > The Eleven* > Turn On Your Lovelight*#

E: One More Saturday Night, Touch of Grey

*- with Bill Kreutzmann; #- with Jorma Kaukonen ; +-without Molo; @-just Bruce, Mickey, and Molo; #-w/ Jorma Kaukonen