Approximately 500 fans congregated at a Best Buy in midtown Manhattan Tuesday for
the rare opportunity to meet Phil Lesh and Bob Weir and have one item of their
choice autographed by the Grateful Dead co-founders. The event coincided with the long-awaited release of
the Grateful Dead’s Rocking the Cradle: Egypt
1978 on September 30. The 2-CD/1-DVD collection contains previously unreleased
audio and video excerpts from the band’s monumental performances at the Sound & Light Theater at the base of the
Great Pyramid of Gizah.
In many ways, the
scene outside of Best Buy resembled more of a Shakedown Street lot scene than it did East 44th Street.
Dreadlocks, hacky sacks, tie-dyed clothing and Steal Your Face emblems
replaced the usual sights of pin-striped suits, briefcases, PDAs and Starbucks
coffee cups. Like a Dead show, tailgating and tape trading were widespread, and
the notes of a djembe echoed through the line, followed by an impromptu street
jam session — a far cry from the usual bustle of the area surrounding Grand
Central Station.
As they waited in line outside of the store, Deadheads
discussed the prized relics they had brought to the event, from Woodstock posters to the
first record they heard at summer camp in 1974 to their heady crystals for Phil
to rub for good luck. Many raved about the mini-documentary from Egypt,
“Vacation Tapes,” that allows a glimpse inside of the band and Dead family at
play. Fans young and old recounted tales of watching garbled videos of the
shows on the Internet and yearning to hear the tunes after reading of the
band’s desire to play in “places of power,” trying to turn the King’s Chamber
in the Great Pyramid into an echo chamber, and the lunar eclipse during the
final show that Lesh wrote about in his autobiography, Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead.
A handful of people in "Deadheads for Obama" shirts were fresh
off the previous night’s reunion concert in State College, Penn. and the air
was abuzz with talk of the set list and how easy security was.
“It was great to see them back together again,” said Irene Nowakowski
of Freeport, N.J., who arrived on the scene from the
show. “It was like a
magnet. You could just feel everybody coming together. We were next to a guy
who was dressed as a green bear and they let people dance all over the aisles.”
Clad in patchwork corduroy shorts and a tie-dyed shirt,
Brian Copello, 31, and his girlfriend recounted tales of their 12-hour journey
on a Greyhound bus to New York
on Sept. 30 to ensure their places in line Tuesday evening.
Kenneth McNamara from Sussex
County, N.J. had
waited in line for the event since 4 p.m. He expressed his excitement for the Egypt
shows and remembered when they happened in the ‘70s. “I’ve seen 125 shows and
then 40 more after Jerry died — I might be spaced, but I’ve got a good memory,”
he said as he fingered his salt and pepper beard and winked. He couldn’t make
it to the Penn State show but said, “You can’t go to
every party. You gotta give your body a rest sometimes — so you can navigate
what you’re doing today. The music — you can’t explain it, you have to live it.
It’s in your blood. Right or wrong, it’s there.”
The three concerts in Egypt on Sept. 14, 15, 16, 1978
were captured on a 24-track tape recorder and on video as well. The Dead
intended to make a live album and concert film to offset the immense travel and
concert expenses of the affair. However, technical problems with the tapes from
the first night and part of the second night foiled the plan. The recordings
were deemed unusable and found their place on the vault shelves until mixer
Jeffrey Norman and vaultkeeper David Lemieux unearthed the tapes and remastered
the salvageable material from the rest of night two and all of night three.
Highlights include the second live version of “Shakedown Street”
ever, the then-new “Stagger Lee” and “I Need a Miracle,” and the Egyptian tune
“Ollin Arrageed.”
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