Dead Head Ground?
Did the Dead ever take this act 102 blocks uptown?
We interrupt this long-running discussion about football to ask all the readers a question:
I have a 50-ish co-worker who swears up and down that he saw a Grateful Dead concert at Baker Field sometime in the early 70's. Now I know the Dead played the Columbia campus during the student riots in 1968 and Central Park in 1969, but this guy insists it was in the beloved old football stadium on 218th Street.
Can anyone confirm this?
And don't worry, I'm not a Dead Head. I do really like about 6-7 of their songs and went to one concert of theirs in 1995, but that's about it.
Penn and Harvard Lists Out:
Both the Crimson's and the Quakers' incoming football freshmen lists are out today. At first glance, I don't see any names on either list that were also on our wish list. I will need to do more research, but it's interesting that Harvard took no one from the New York or New Jersey area. Penn's list has a lot of New York/New Jersey/Philly area recruits as usual, including four from my backyard on Long Island.
This leaves Princeton as the only school in the Ivies that has not yet released its incoming freshmen football list. This strikes me as odd since Princeton usually does everything so early and its well-funded athletic department is also first class all the way most of the time.
posted by Jake @ 8:00:00 PM
9 comments
9 Comments:
That a rock band was able to truck its equipment onto an "occupied" campus, then plug in and play, only further indicates the absurdity and sheer foolishness of the events of '68. That SDS and its accompanying complements of fellow-travelers and gulled students actually felt they deserved such respite from the "rigors" of campus vandalism and looting merely illuminates their selfishness and ideological brutality. These events set back far more than athletics on the Columbia campus, yes, but set back athletics they did. And any commemoration of them is unfortunate.
Cathar:
I'm no fan of the '68 riots, its leaders, and the "honoring" of them that's going on.
BUT the Dead playing on campus is still kind of cool. Sorry, I;m still a comedian at heart.
Jake congratulations on your nomination.
Princeton's list is up on http://www.goprincetontigers.com
As a life-long 'deadhead' and Columbia College attendee (and member of the '96 football squad, too boot!) who majored in history, it's safe to assume my historical knowledge of the dead is quite vast...I can assure you that they never did play a show at Baker Field.
However, I always felt that Baker would be a perfect place to host a concert, as it's quite picturesque...perhaps that'd be a good way for the athletic dept. to raise a bit more funding??
Matt:
I trust your conclusion. I have been looking at a number of Grateful Dead fan sites and none of them list any shows at Baker Field. I think my co-worker was thinking of the '69 Central Park show. I think this is kind of like Robin Williams' old joke about if you really remember the 60's, then you didn't enjoy them!
And I agree about Baker being a great concert venue.
The only "outside" events I can honestly ever remember our beloved Alma Mater letting out Baker Field for are 1) An annual (well, it at least used to be annual) spring football game between NYC cops and firefighters; and 2)Intra-squad exhibition games by the Jets back in the Joe Namath years, as best I recall there were two played at Baker.
But further events might not be all that bad an idea.
The Dead played on campus? That's pretty awesome, even if it was for a bunch of idiot protesters. Baker field should be used for concerts, would be perfect summertime venue (winter/fall/spring) not so much, it gets too cold with the wind. That'd also be really cool if they could get the Giants and/or Jets to hold intra squad scrimmages again. I would wager that the Manhattan fan bases of both teams would be very interested in spending only $5.00 to see their teams play without having to leave the island! Paging Dr. Murphy!!
Okay, I think I'm getting more to the bottom of this. Now my co-worker says he thinks it may have been an Allman Brothers concert. Now this will take more research, but that's cool too.
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