Come Hear Uncle John's Band

One of the Christmas presents I received from my mother was the album Workingman's Dead by The Grateful Dead. The first half of the album is studio tracks, while the second half of the album is live stuff. Right now I'm listening to the live version of "Mason's Children".

Hearing live Grateful Dead tracks reminds me of one of my greatest regrets music-wise: I have never seen The Grateful Dead in concert, even though I had several opportunities.

One summer, one of my co-workers at the time was going, and she was asking all of us whether we wanted to go with her. Of course I wanted to go, but I decided against it. Later in the summer I was going to be going on a trip with my mom, and I wanted to save money for the trip. I figured that The Grateful Dead came to town every summer and played at Soldier Field, so it was no big deal, I would go next summer for sure.

The summer goes by. My co-worker said the show was great. My mom and I left for our trip. My mom worked that day, so we left in the early evening and drove until after midnight. When we finally got to a hotel for a night we decided to try to see some news, since neither of us had seen any news that day. We must have turned on CNN or Headline News. Guess what the first story was... the death of Jerry Garcia. Yes, he died the day I left for the trip that prevented me from seeing them earlier. It turns out that show I didn't go to was the last concert he ever did.

Ever since then I have tried to not make a similar mistake. If I have a chance to go to a concert, I go. I am upset that I never saw The Grateful Dead, Nirvana, or The Who with all of the original members.