Monterey Pop. It was the first rock festival of it's kind,the predecessor to
Woodstock. It showed the world for the first time that the guys in the suits and
the guys in beads could work together and organize a well run event.

But before the Grateful Dead could sign their name to the contract, there was a
lot of conversation (translation:arguements) going on. Phil Lesh and Bob Weir
were sure that they were getting ripped off. Jerry Garcia was enthusiastic about
it from the start.

"Mountain Girl", he said to me, "I think this could be the start of something
big."

The festival was a fairly balanced representation of artists from Britain and
the USA: Jefferson Airplane, the Who, the Dead, Ravi Shankar, Jimi Hendrix, and
the Animals, just to name a few.

It was Jimi Hendrix's first major US appearance. He blew the audience away-but
I'm getting ahead of myself.

Walking into the festival grounds and seeing all those hundreds of people who
were "freaks" like ourselves was a thrilling feeling. The minority was now the
majority, if you know what I mean.

It was an interesting group of bands. There were the Who smashing their
instruments, and Jimi Hendrix burning his. The acid taking San Francisco bands
contrasting with the serious musicians like Ravi Shankar.

I spent most of my time backstage, but when I ventured out into the audience, I
found the entertainment to be wonderful.

So did the crowd. Like I said before, Jimi Hendrix blew them away. He was like
nothing they had ever heard before. Jimi on record is a lot less astounding than
Jimi live.

Lying there on the grass with Jerry, with the sun filtering pleasantly in
through the surrounding trees, and listening to Jimi's guitar wail is, to me,
the very essence of the sixties. While I was dancing to "White Rabbit", it
occurred to me that we could change the world. I was sure that in about ten
years or so the whole world would be just like Haight-Ashbury.
Ah, the age of love, flower power, and overconfidence!

Did it occur to us that, while we were shamelessly partying, that a horrible war
was going on in Vietnam? Nah. Our hearts were in the right place, but our brains
were high as the sky. Ever hear the expression "Blow your mind"? Well, we coined
it for a reason!

Monterey Pop was the first step towards becoming the Woodstock Nation, and I was
happy to have been a part of it.

My favorite part of the festival, though, happened after the festival. Many of
the bands got together, and held a huge jam session.

It all started with Jerry saying, "A jam session might be nice. Yeah, a jam
would be real nice..."

"Well", Rock Scully, the Dead's manager, said, "How about the floral pavilion?
Or even the football field?"

Soon they ended up setting up at the end of the floral pavilion. Everyone was
high and having the time of their lives.

I mean, picture this supergroup:Jimi Hendrix, Jerry Garcia, Pete Townshend,
David Crosby, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, plus other members of the Airplane,
the Byrds, the Dead, and the Who.

Of course no one knew each other's songs, but they were all on acid so that
didn't seem like a problem. Jerry was at the center of it all, generally acting
like the conductor: "Take some more acid, and everyone knows "Good Morning
Little Schoolgirl", right?"

No one did, but they blundered their way through and the sound is amazing!
Someone should have brought a tape recorder, I swear.Why is it that the greatest
performances are never caught on tape?

But as strange as this sounds, for me, this was just another day of living with
the Grateful Dead!
 
 

Two years  later came the biggest of all festivals, Woodstock. It was a festival
and it was a disaster area. The one death that occurred could easily have been
one hundred. Even without the bad green acid and the poor sanitation, the place
was a mess.

Many people freaked out completely at Woodstock, but not Jerry and I. We were
having the time of our lives. If you watch the movie, you'll see Jerry saying,
"Marijuana, exhibit A," and holding some up. A classic counterculture moment.
However, our poor manager's nerves were probably frayed for life. Woodstock
wasn't half as organized as it could have been. Why ruin the fun?

We were running completely off schelule from the start. Two hours after we were
supposed to have left, the Grateful Dead and their "extended family" were
gathered in the hotel lobby and finally ready to go. Feeling excited about the
impending festival, we set out for Max Yasgur's farm.
Then we hit the several-mile long traffic jam.

We were on that road for hours. I thought it would never end. By the time we got
to Woodstock, (yes, I know I stole Joni Mitchell's line!) we were much less
enthusiastic then we had been before.

My first sight of Woodstock astounded me. What appeared to be a sea of flower
children was milling about, getting acquainted, getting high, and having a
blast. The music coming from the small stage was only a sideshow compared to
what was going on in the field. The atmosphere of the place was different from
anything I had ever experienced before. Then, to my amazement, there was this
guy getting up on stage and announcing, "Don't take the green acid, it's not so
good." I had never heard anyone so publicly address the kid's drug use. My kind
of utopia!

The Grateful Dead were signed up to play in the early evening, but that did not
happen. Nothing at Woodstock happened the way it was supposed to! They went on
two hours later, just as the sun was beginning to set.

Jerry had taken some acid right before he went onstage, and he got up there and
freaked. He saw blue balls of electricity bouncing off of his guitar, or
something like that. So I ran out to where he was standing to tell him to just
start the show! Then I heard roadies yelling from backstage, "The stage is
collapsing! The stage is sinking!"

Sure enough, the stage was sagging in the middle. Just great! The band was so
shook up after that that they played a really bad show. That's just the way the
Dead works; when they're supposed to play really well, they invariably mess up.

~  ~  ~
"Mountain Girl?" someone asked, shaking me.

"It's not time to get up yet," I muttered, opening one eye. Suddenly I
remembered: I was at Woodstock, and I had fallen asleep backstage. You may ask
how I could do that, since the festival is such a pop culture icon now. But it
was the afternoon of the second day, and I had not gotten much sleep the night
before.

I glanced up at the sky and sighed. The clear, cloudless blue had been replaced
by threatening dark clouds.  I remember thinking, "If they're going to hold a
three-day festival outdoors, why don't they hold it in Hawaii?"

Regardless of all the good vibes down below, the rain began to pour down in
sheets. I was soaked to the skin in about five minutes. There was a mad rush to
cover the instruments and equipment.

The worst part of Woodstock was watching the field turn into a sea of mud.
Roughly half a million hippies had nowhere else to sit but in the mud. I felt so
bad for them; I was cold and wet, but they were cold and wet and muddy.
"What a mess," Grace Slick blinked sleepily, trying to keep her eyes open. The
all-night party we had held had not been a good idea.

But I figure, if you can't enjoy yourself, then what's the purpose of living?
~ ~ ~
There was virtually no way to leave Woodstock after the second day. The area was
so muddy that not even the helicopters that had been transporting the musicians
could land. So we, meaning the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the
Fish, Janis Joplin, and several other bands, were forced to camp out backstage.
We had a great time nonetheless, sharing each other's food and drugs.

As we lay under the blankets that someone had kindly provided for us, Jerry
remarked, "I have a feeling that we will never again be able to duplicate a
peaceful gathering like this one."

Gazing up at the stars, I couldn't imagine that he was correct. How could he be
so pessimistic? I wondered. But oddly enough, Jerry was right. Because next came
Altamont, the disaster of festivals.

However, while we were laying there, no one could imagine what the future would
bring. All we knew was that just then, everything seemed perfect.