American Legion Hall
August 18, 1967
Lake Tahoe, CA US
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King's Beach Bowl - August 25, 1967 »I was at the Lake, water skiing with a friend and his family. His folks dropped us off at the Hall for "the dance". We had no idea what was going on. I was 15 years old, a SoCal surfer dude in striped T, shorts and deck shoes.
The Band and crowd looked like nothing we had ever seen. The "hippie girls" wanted nothing to do with us. Most of the crowd was seated on the floor, smoking something. The Band played material from their first album. Pig and Jerry were in fine form.
Jerry came on stage after break and announced "the word for the night is freak" and soon the Band and audience were shouting "Freak, Freak, Freak". My buddy and I were stunned.
Those were powerful times and the Grateful Dead show was a powerful experience. The music and event were life changing for both of us.
Where >exactly< was this held? It took place about a year before I was born, but I lived in King's Beach CA at Lake Tahoe in the late '70s and graduated high school about 7 miles away at Incline High in the mid '80s. I'm slightly familiar with the KB Bowl shows (they took place about a half-mile from my 1979 house), but this Legion show... where >exactly< was it? North shore Tahoe? South Shore? Kings Beach (which is North Shore)?
I was lucky enough to see about 170 shows from 1989 thru 1994, and have 400+ shows on CD and tape, but these Tahoe shows from '67 (and maybe some from '68 and/or '69?) have eluded my grasp.
The show was in S. Lake Tahoe. According to Corry Arnold (see my post below) the Hall was at 2848 Lake Tahoe Blvd. Apparently, some winter after the Dead played (late 60s, early 70s?) the building was collapsed by an especially heavy snowpack.
Wilbur,
Jim Burgett himself was the man responsible for bringing all those acts to S. Lake Tahoe. Check out his facebook page. Also, check out Corry Arnold's article about the scene at http://rockprosopography101.blogspot.com/2011/01/january-10-11-1969-tnt-alpine-meadows.html
Location
I was there. My first show. I was a drunk kid, my eyes not yet opened. I seem to remember a Golden Road - a song I recognized from Bay Area radio - and a Lovelight. And not much else.
It was weird that somebody booked a fistful of SF acts at that hall that summer. The Revolution had not yet reached Lake Tahoe. That Hall was a place where local rednecks went drunk looking for a feel and a fight. Yet that summer we got not just the familiar house band, Dave Burgett, a Detroit R&B band with matching suits, but also this strange, exotic stuff = the Dead, Buffalo Springfield, and Electric Prunes I remember, there may have been others. I wonder who the subversive was who decided to book that stuff in the Tahoe boonies, and I will always be indebted to him.