September 26-27, 1969, The Pavilion, Flushing Meadows Park, Queens, NY (canceled)

An ad from the September 11, 1969 Village Voice (it's in two parts, but it's for the same venue)

I recently came across an ad for a Grateful Dead show that was canceled. In itself, the canceled show is not that big a deal. However, besides my natural desire for completism, the cancellation hints at a whiff of competition between Tri-State Area promoters, and the Grateful Dead's willingness to play them off against each other.

The ad above (in two parts, but it's the same ad) is for forthcoming concerts at The Pavilion at Flushing Meadows Park in Queens. I found the ad at the indispensable blog All The Streets You Crossed, which all 60s and 70s rock historians should be reading religiously. A recent post was on Summer '69 ads for concerts at The Singer Bowl and Flushing Meadows Pavilion in Queens, on the grounds where the 1964 World's Fair had been held. I noticed the ad for the Grateful Dead on September 26 and 27, which was a Friday and Saturday. However, we know that on that weekend, the Grateful Dead co-headlined the Fillmore East with Country Joe And The Fish.

A re-scheduled show, from one Borough to another? Yes, certainly. But I think there's a hint of a lot more of a story here.

Howard Stein And Flushing Meadows
Howard Stein was an important promoter in New York in the 60s and 70s, and he booked the Grateful Dead many times. Among the many venues where he booked the Dead were the Capitol Theater in Port Chester, Gaelic Park in the Bronx and the Academy of Music in Manhattan. Stein competed first with Bill Graham and later with John Scher for bookings from touring groups, not just the Grateful Dead.

The ad for Singer Bowl and Pavilion ad from the June 5, 1969 Village Voice

In the Summer of 1969, Howard Stein was booking both the Singer Bowl and The Pavilion, in Flushing Meadows Park in Queens. The park had been the site of the New York World's Fair in 1964, and subsequently became the site of Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets (and for some time, the Jets as well). The Singer Bowl was the larger venue. You can see from the ad above that concerts at the Singer Bowl and the Pavilion did not directly conflict. The Grateful Dead had headlined a July 11-12, 1969 weekend at the Pavilion for Stein, supported by Joe Cocker And The Grease Band and Tribe. I believe the Pavilion shows were where Steve Parrish met the Grateful Dead.

Thus it does not seem surprising that since the Grateful Dead played early in the Summer for Howard Stein, they were booked for a return visit at the season's end, on the weekend of September 26-27. Yet the Dead ended up playing the Fillmore East with Country Joe And The Fish. My vague recollection is that the Dead were a late addition at the Fillmore East, replacing Mountain, but I could have it backwards--perhaps Country Joe And The Fish replaced Mountain. In any case, there seems to have been a change in plans. The Dead were planning to be in New York, but they ended up at Fillmore East rather than Flushing.

While I don't doubt that no one who might know the story has any interest in recounting it, I do doubt that this was casual. For all the Grateful Dead members' friendship with Bill Graham, which I believe to have been genuine, they were always willing to play for other promoters in San Francisco. The Dead even started their own ballroom to compete directly with Bill Graham. I can't think that they treated the lucrative New York market any differently.

Howard Stein vs Bill Graham, 1969-71
BGP: February 11-12, 1969 Fillmore East
BGP: June 20-21, 1969 Fillmore East 
     HS: July 11-12, 1969 Pavilion at Flushing
    HS: September 26-27, 1969 Pavilion at Flushing (canceled)
BGP: September 26-27, 1969 Fillmore East
BGP: January 1-2. 1970 Fillmore East
BGP: February 11, 13-14, 1970 Fillmore East
     HS: March 20-21, 1970 Capitol Theater, Port Chester
BGP: May 15, 1970 Fillmore East
     HS: June 24, 1970 Capitol Theater, Port Chester
BGP: July 9-12, 1970 Fillmore East
BGP: September 17-20 Fillmore East
    HS: November 5-8, 1970 Capitol Theater, Port Chester
    HS: February 18-21, 23-24, 1971 Capitol Theater, Port Chester
BGP: April 25-29, 1971 Fillmore East

Stein and Graham were drawing from similar pools of potential fans. Flushing Meadows was just 11 miles from Fillmore East (4/5/6 to the 7, change at Grand Central). Port Chester was a little farther away, up in Westchester County, and outside of the reach of the subway (though not Metro-North). Still, the Capitol was only 30 miles away, and there was plenty of overlap between the Fillmore East and Capitol Theater audience.

There's any number of possible explanations for the Grateful Dead canceling their date with Howard Stein at the Pavilion and playing the Fillmore East instead. I have no ideas of the contracts or expectations of the band, and the entire episode may have simply been a misunderstanding. However, there's no way that the September 26-27 weekend wasn't a serious competitive matter between Bill Graham and Howard Stein. Somewhere there's a story, and I hope we can figure it out at some point.

March 18, 1973 Felt Forum, New York, NY: New Riders Of The Purple Sage & Special Friends

The Village Voice ad from February 15, 1973 for the March 18 NRPS show at the Felt Forum

On March 18, 1973, the New Riders Of The Purple Sage played The Felt Forum, the auditorium in the basement of Madison Square Garden. The show was broadcast in its entirety on WNEW-fm, New York City's leading rock station. Besides being a fine broadcast of the New Riders in their prime, the show featured numerous special guests. Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Donna Godchaux helped out on vocals on different songs, Jerry Garcia played electric guitar and banjo on a few numbers, Bob Weir sang a couple, and Keith Godchaux played grand piano for much of the show. The most memorable part of the performance, however, was when Garcia, Weir and Godchaux joined the New Riders and began the second set with a trio of gospel numbers: "Cold Jordan", "I Hear A Voice Calling" and "Swing Low". Garcia played banjo and Weir played acoustic guitar, the only instance of the two playing acoustic together on the East Coast between 1970 and 1980.

The Grateful Dead were playing three nights at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale in Long Island, but for whatever reasons (probably the New York Islanders) they were booked for March 15, 16 and 19 (Thursday, Friday and Monday), so they had the Sunday night off to hang out with the New Riders. It's remarkable enough that the Dead guested on a radio broadcast, but thanks to the great Its All The Streets You Crossed blog, we can now see that the Grateful Dead were all but advertised in the Village Voice. The ad above is from the February 22, 1973 edition of the Voice, a full month before the show, and the ad says "New Riders Of The Purple Sage & Special Friends." The message would be unmistakable: in rock talk, "Special Guests" means 'opening act who hasn't been booked yet', but "Special Friends" would imply extra people on stage. It wouldn't take a genius to note the Dead's performance dates on Long Island and see that they had the night off.

There were plenty of live FM performances in the 1970s, but relatively few of them featured guests, as the record company was paying for the band to be on the air (making up lost ad revenue for the station) and didn't want to share it with another company's act. In the case of the Dead, however, since they were bigger than the New Riders and had a unique relationship to them, Columbia would have been ecstatic to have the Dead join the New Riders on the FM broadcast throughout the entire Tri-State area. For the Dead, the significant factor here was that by Spring 1973 they had left Warner Brothers and were working for themselves, so they didn't have to concern themselves with whether their own record company "approved" of them appearing with their friends.

However, since the Dead were performing elsewhere, their contract with the Nassau promoter, whom I believe was Bill Graham, would have prevented them from being mentioned by name. Also, since the name "Grateful Dead" was not formally invoked, the band members could show up and perform on whichever or whatever songs they felt like. Knowing what we know today, Garcia must have had his banjo with him because he was probably practicing constantly, trying to get up to speed for Old And In The Way, which had just begun to play in the Bay Area. It's a great touch that he used it to perform with the Riders--I think March 18, 1973 was almost the only time he played banjo on stage with them (Garcia did play banjo briefly at a unique show at The Matrix on July 7, 1970). Besides the mini-acoustic set, Garcia played banjo on "Henry" as well as electric guitar on "Glendale Train," obviously just having the kind of fun he couldn't have if the marquee had said "tonight: NRPS with Jerry Garcia."

The Village Voice ad from February 15, 1973 for upcoming Capitol Theater shows

Pity poor John Scher. In New York at the time, Ron Delsener promoted shows North of the Hudson River (New York City proper) and John Scher generally promoted shows South of it (in New Jersey). Scher's principal venue was the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ. Scher had booked the New Riders at the Capitol for Friday, March 23, 1973, five days after the Felt Forum show. The New York City (Tri-State) metro area is so large that the Passaic show would have drawn a different crowd than the Felt Forum show, even though they were only 20 miles away from each other.

However, with the Dead having made a surprise guest appearance at the Felt Forum show, the buzz would have been in the air, so everybody in New Jersey must have assumed that the Dead were going to drop in at Passaic, too. Never mind if that's a rational judgment: I guarantee you everybody standing in line for the show that night had heard about New York (probably in a greatly exaggerated fashion) and was fully expecting Jerry and the boys to make an appearance. Anyone on the Deadheads mailing list could have seen that the Dead were booked for Utica on March 22 and the Spectrum March 24, so it would have seemed perfectly plausible.

The 1973 New Riders were a great live band, and I'm sure they put on a terrific show at the Capitol, but the audience was probably still let down. It must have been tough for the Riders to rock through their best songs while a crowd of Jersey Deadheads (plus some Philadelphia lunatics) shouted "Jerrrry!"