[Tennessee Jedi]

My obsessive nature was showing itself before I became a Head.
In 9th grade I was SO into the Who.
Live at Leeds might have started me on the listening to live music.
Then I heard "Becks Bolero" and went on a Jeff beck kick which led me to the the Yardbirds.
Love the English Rock !
And then my buddy (this is how it always starts) gives me the record version of Skeletons from the Closet.
It was right around the time I smoked the weed for the 1st time.
Weed + Dead = Chocolate cookies + milk.
Yummy.
But isnt it weird when you see the Dead for the 1st time ?
I was into Live/Dead and Europe 72 and then Spring Tour 86 Dead comes to town.
Yeah !That was when I got hooked.
After Brent kicked I took a few years off.Got into blues and jazz and fusion and Jimi and Zep.
BUT...
The Dead are still my main thing.
Ever since I started listening to the Dead Ive been playin' guitar...Its my thing.
Cant listen too long without wanting to play.Pick up and play along.
Wife thinks I'm nuts.

[Benthegoodbum]

I was really into Rob Zombie around 12-13. Then I started listening to Pink Floyd and smoking grass. After that I slowly progressed to the GD with a lot of interesting music in between.

[HOWEYMAN]

my sophmore year in high school is when my interest in music changed me. before that, I never took music seriously. then I was given ..And Justice for All to listen to, I was instantly a fan (even had the jean jacket with the back patch, lolo!) I still love classic metal. I think Maiden is the best metal band ever, their music is genius IMO. I like listening to them today just as much as then.

but of course it wasn't until I heard the the dead, that I realized how much I loved music. If I would have never heard the dead, I don't think I would have became a huge music fan like I am today, listening to everything, (country, blues, reggae, bluegrass, etc.) because through the Grateful Dead, I came to love all types of music.

[Tennessee Jedi]

Howey
You are so right - the Dead turned me on to all kinds of stuff.

[tigerstrat]

Age 13-16, definitely a Zep/Who/Floyd/Stones/Joe Walsh/Deep Purple/VH/Sabbath etc fan before being introduced to the GD in 85.

But in 85 I was falling in with a mostly metal crowd whose "new big thing" was Metallica. I thought they were good, but at the same time I was getting turned on to west coast hardcore punk, which was at its peak at that time, and so fast and aggressive it made the emerging "thrash" metal seem somewhat pedestrian to me. I hadn't discovered Bill Monroe bluegrass yet! That would come to me around 1990.

1st rock concert I ever attended: Grateful Dead 6/21/85 Alpine Valley...the bus stop for the longest strangest trip.

2nd rock concert: Circle Jerks 7/3/85 Cabaret Metro, Chicago, across from Wrigley Field.
apparently the Dead Milkmen also played but I must have missed the opener, which is fine as I was never a big fan: http://www.deadmilkmen.com/tourstories/ ... 00014.html

In the next two years or so, I went on to see most of the classic 80's hardcore bands at the Metro: Black Flag, D.R.I. (personal fave, pre-Crossover), MDC (just saw that they are touring again), 7 Seconds, Naked Raygun, Suicidal, and my crowning punk bragging right: Dead Kennedys at the Palacio right down the street. Around late 87 the shows there just stopped and it seemed like a lot of the bands broke up around the same time, or (lamely imo) "went metal".

[Tennessee Jedi]

Yeah but how many times have you seen CLUTCH ?

[gr8fulbluz]

Even when I was in a punk band, in high school, I was still into the Dead at the same time. I never got to see any cool punk shows. I made it to Shea stadium for The Clash and the Who in 1982 shortly after my first Dead show at Nassau in march of that year.
However,
I still love a good Irish Pub type celtic rock/punk band.
I dig paddy rockers like the mahones from canada, saw them just about a month ago, good rockin time. plus they are really a verry nice bunch to party with.video here

I like to see a rock band with alternative instruments. Like a fiddle/violin or mandolin or accordion or anything.
But when I play guitar is sounds like the Dead, I just cannt help it I suppose!


Edit: I will still listen to Iron Maiden's first album for a change of pace.

[BlobWeird]

1st rock concert I ever attended: Grateful Dead 6/21/85 Alpine Valley...the bus stop for the longest strangest trip.

The day before I was born right there. Nice

And I think Maiden is great. All their progressions are relatively the same but they do it well. Mother Russia is my favorite song from them by far.

[mutant_dan]

1st rock concert I ever attended: Grateful Dead 6/21/85 Alpine Valley...the bus stop for the longest strangest trip.

The day before I was born right there. Nice

And I think Maiden is great. All their progressions are relatively the same but they do it well. Mother Russia is my favorite song from them by far.

I had seen a bunch of Dead shows prior to Alpine 85 but this show was the first one that I actually taped. I used some Shure SM 57's and the tape lacked any bottom end. It really sucked, little did I know about mics at that time. I patched into all kinds of mics the rest of the tour. Trying to figure out what to buy next.

Later that year I spent some time on the Metalica and Ozzy tour setting up my taping rig as if I owned the place. The interesting thing was that MTV was recording video the that entire tour. I could throw up a set of Nak Shotguns and security thought I was with the film crew. Didn't get busted once and I had the guns up high....

Those were the days my friend....

[Billbbill]

I made it to Shea stadium for The Clash and the Who in 1982 ...

I was there too!

[slip_naught]

It's been long enough that I think I can freely admit that I saw Judas Priest 2 years in a row in 81 and 82. One year was Scorpions (Animal magnetism) and Whitesnake opening and the other was Saxon and someone I can't remember. I also saw Ozzie with Randy Rhodes on Blizzard of Oz tour (Def Leopard opened---1st time in the states), Pat Travers, Rainbow, Van Halen and a few other heavy metal/heavy rock bands...of course at the same time and was also seeing Zappa, the GD, Genesis, King Crimson and David Gilmore.....never got into the serious hardcore stuff though.

oh the good ol days.

Funny stuff man ... I was right there with ya when a lot of those bands hit the Boston area 79 ~ 81. I had a foolish bias against the Dead in those days because of the 'scene' at my high school, never even approached the music, but once I was 'shown the light' at Hartford 82 they've been a main staple of my musical diet ever since.

Rainbow, Pat Travers ... man that brought back some heebies.

[Henry]

Well I never really was a metalhead but when I started to play around 1979, I got into the "metal bands" of the time, like Rainbow, Judas Priest, Saxon, Motorhead etc. for a little while, Black Sabbath too and Deep Purple (rather heavy rock than metal). I hated both disco and punk so that seemed the only way to go. I guess I was supposed to follow players like Eddie Van Halen, instead pretty soon I gradually shifted towards older stuff, first Led Zeppelin, then Hendrix and Cream, then I saw the Woodstock movie which impressed me a lot and turned me on to the Who, then there were the Rockpalast broadcastings (a chapter for itself...) In the summer of'80 I got heavily into Southern bands like the Allman Brothers and Johnny Winter, soon after that the San Francisco bands like Quicksilver (Cipollina still is one of my heroes), Airplane (Jorma too) and - you name it - the Dead. Saw them live for the first and only time in '81, but didn't really get turned on yet. Jerry Garcia was like another hip guitar player to add to my list...
Later on, I went through blues, rockabilly and country periods and other stuff in between. For many years, the only Grateful Dead albums in my collection were a "best of" (What A Long Strange Trip It's Been), Dead Set, Workingman's Dead and a CD that a friend had given to me of an acoustic Dead performance from '70. Only about a year ago, following a period of frustration with my last band, I dug that one out and suddenly decided I just had to learn to play those songs myself... which only made me want to find out more so I ordered American Beauty and it blew my mind. It was unbelievable, this was like what I should have done all along... The next one was Skull and Roses, then Ladies and Gentlemen, Fillmore '69, Live/Dead and some more, then some Dick's Picks and later assorted downloads, finding out I like certain periods of the Dead's history more than others, all the time gathering all information I can find about the band and learning more songs... it seems there is no turning back now.