Rising with The Dead
Radbam May 18th, 2009
Early Daze
The tribe was summoned, and they came—if not to answer the call of the ancient ram’s horn, than to its contemporary equivalent, the blogosphere beacon. They convened from all over the Pacific Northwest and beyond, converging from I 90, lo, unto thine thin strip of asphalt called Silica Rd., caravanning across the Central Washington wilderness towards the Promised Land of good times, good tunes and grateful homage.
The recent incarnation of the Grateful Dead, The Dead (less grateful without patriarch Jerry Garcia) played the last concert of its most recent reunion tour at the Gorge in Quincy, Washington. The awe-inspiring scenery rivaled the soul-satisfying music for this fan band of tie-dyed brethren, joined once again in a rite of gathering that binds and blurs the generations. I’ll leave it to the overflowing complement of sites, blogs and tweets to comment on the concert itself, and to engage in the never-ending critique of set-list relativity (did this surpass the Madison Square Garden show?), band member vitality (did Bobby look like the ghost of Winterland past?) and speculation on the future of the ever-resuscitated past.
And while I’m hardly the first to comment on the Dead experience as socio-cultural phenomenon, I want to share some brief observations about its spiritual implications. Rock concerts in general, and Dead shows in particular, have long been considered a surrogate religious experience for boomer skeptics and seekers. This tendency extends to the next generations of lovers of music-qua-critics of established faith.
There are some key elements shared by both conventional faith communities and the unconventional convocations of concert-goers.
The power of community compels much of the appeal of a Dead show. The parking lot “scene”, a transient village of falafel sellers, t-shirt brokers and hackey-sack phenoms provides the antechamber to the writhing, spinning and singing brood that stretches before the high priests of groove at the show itself. The community forged by this sacred space in time and place is set apart from the rest of the world and the work-a-day world, a kind of Sonic Sabbath. People who would otherwise pass as faceless strangers in the streets of the non-Dead world greet one another with warm smiles, comment kindly on the originality of a shirt design, and reach out with helping hand to the ticketless, the burritoless and the trip-troubled (as the rabbis say, those who know, know)
There is much ritual, fixed and sacred standards that are transgressed at great peril. The show unfolds as liturgy, first set followed by break, second set, drums/space, culmination and encore. Certain songs should only appear in certain places, and unexpected swaps are met with the umbrage of heresy.
And there is transcendence—a sense of going further that stems from feelings of unity with other people, every thing and The Other (not necessarily The Other One). Dance, music and the blessings of beat have universal and ancient appeal, and these primal forces bind and drive a sea of squirming day-glo to ecstatic heights, tapping into deep wellsprings of longing.
It is faith, even religion, by another name. Those who cherish it should seek it in other, less idiosyncratic, more readily accessible places within the “real” world. And faith communities should learn from the modes and methods of the Church of the Dead, compelling relationships that endure past encores, creating rituals that echo the ancient as they speak to the moment, and opening the doors of perception and the floodgates of spirit that can only emerge through common endeavor towards common cause.
My moment of oneness and transformation happened toward the end of the show. The band was reaching crescendo with a crowd favorite, Hell in a Bucket, dancing dervish-like in the darkness at this liminal spot between the Gorge’s cliffs and the Columbia River, between the world beyond and the world within. I looked up to behold the stars as they can only shine outside the light-polluted exurbs. The big dipper beckoned directly above at midnight in celestial space and terrestrial time. As Bobby Weir howled, “At least I’m enjoying the ride,” the dipper poured forth its cosmic charms, embracing and enrapturing the tribe that danced around the high-lumen bonfires of multi-colored spots. In that moment, the world as it is, the world that could be and the world to come became One. God bless the Good ‘Ole Grateful Dead.
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Amen! My Brother and Halleluiah! I have long preached the live music experience as the most viable and easily accessable sacrament. That is, the live music experience (when the band and crown exchange energy in just sucha way) is a tangilbe and meaningful expression of our connection with The One.
In the material world these experiences are few and far between. Rarley do they actually occur in the venues where we expect them. Body of Chrst holds much weaker sway than a well executed groove. When its done correctly, the band/audience conversation will open pathwys to the devine which are otherwise difficult to traverse.
Indeed….rock on to the soul!
You hit the nail on the head — and lest I confess. It’s NYC, in the late 80s and early 90’s. For some reason the The Dead always seemed to hold court at MSG over the High Holidays and Passover. Services or The Dead Shows — pray tell? All I can say is that I chose to follow my faith.
Faith need not be mutually exclusive…in fact, abundantly inclusive!
I swear I saw Jerry at the GAP outlet in Carlsbad last week end.
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