Phil Lesh and Bob Weir interviewed 9/7/95 by Marty Martinez and David Gans
Marty Martinez: Welcome to the Album Network and the world premiere broadcast of the Grateful Dead's Hundred Year Hall. I'm Marty Martinez -
David Gans: And I'm David Gans.
MM: And joining us here in the Bay Area to talk about this live album, and other related matters are Phil Lesh - hello, Phil -
Phil Lesh: Howdy.
MM: - and Bob Weir.
Bob Weir: Hiya, kids.
DG: Phil, I remember very early this year when you began listening to material for this third vault release. Dick Latvala had chosen some material from Europe '72 for you to listen to. How did you decide on this particular concert to go with?
Lesh: Well, we sorta went 'round and 'round about it for a while. John [Cutler] and Dick preferred this one, and for a while I preferred another one - I think it was from London. It had a "Dark Star" on it. But this other one, the jammin' out of "The Other One" on the second disc is a thing that, uh, I didn't even believe it when I heard it. I still have trouble believing that we actually played that.
Weir: We, of course, didn't.
Lesh: But somebody did...
DG: <chuckle>
Lesh: - because we got it on tape.
*
MM: This actually was your third trip to Europe, the first two being a lot briefer - an appearance in England, and then one in France, and then this one, which went on for 22 dates over the course of nearly three months.
Lesh: Was it that long?
Weir: No, it wasn't that long.
Lesh: About three weeks, I bet. <laugh> No, we tried to cram 'em together, 'cause we had to come back here and tour.
DG: Tell us a little about those first two trips to Europe.
Lesh: If I'm not mistaken, the first one was the Bickershaw Festival -
Weir: Right.
Lesh: - at Newcastle-Under-Lyme. And of course, it rained, right?
Weir: Oh, yeah. It was cold.
Lesh: A lot of people were there. The Mud People had migrated across the Atlantic as well, and we played, a what, a two-hour show there?
Weir: Something like that.
Lesh: It went on for a while, and I think we did "Dark Star," and that's where all of sudden the jet plane bifurcates the sky at the high point of "Dark Star," you know, the vapor trail - moments like that. I don't really remember much about being in England except that I was delighted to be there.
Weir: And then the second time we went to Europe was, uh, this guy Michel Mann, he had this chateau in Herouville, which is about two hours out of Paris, and the place is allegedly and quite apparently haunted by the guy - you can still see him walkin' around there late at night and stuff like that. Kinda melancholy.
Lesh: Are you sure that's not Kreutzmann in the bushes?
Weir: <laugh> Kreutzmann spent most of his time on the tennis court, as I recall.
Lesh: <laugh>
Weir: We went over to play this rock festival that this guy Michel had put together, and we got there, and the whole deal was rained out. But then it stopped raining. And it was a beautiful, gorgeous day, and we figured, okay, we came all this way, what're we gonna do? Well, we've got our equipment, let's just set up and play.
So we set up at his place, on the lawn, and all the townspeople from Herouville came, and the fire department, the police department, all their wives and kids and stuff like that, and we had a big party. [6/21/71]
Lesh: With the best wines that Michel could find, and the best food.
Weir: It was a pretty swell event, really.
Lesh: We played for free for the people.
MM: Yeah, it actually ended up being a free concert for the folks who were just hangin' out in town.
Lesh: I mean, complete with psychedelic light show [by] Light and Sound Dimension...
Weir: The whole deal - lot of people got thrown in the swimming pool.
MM: In the big swimming pool.
Lesh: A lot of people jumped into the swimming pool. <laugh>
DG: <laugh> Sounds great.
Weir: With their party dresses on and all.
Lesh: <laugh>
*
Weir: Hundred Year Hall, or Jahrhundert Halle, is an interesting place. It looks like a regular concert hall, but it's entirely made out of plastic. It looks like it's made out of wood and velvet and stuff like that, but it's entirely made out of plastic. I guess they intended to prove a point of some sort when they were building it. It's a great sounding little hall, too.
Lesh: Yeah, it was amazing.
DG: How little? At the end of the record you hear applause, and it sounds like a fairly small audience.
Weir: I think about 3,500 - it's not that small.
Lesh: The audience actually was mostly servicemen, from the Wiesbaden airbases which are right around Frankfurt - a lot of servicemen.
DG: So you went to Europe and played for Yanks?
Lesh: Uh, in Frankfurt, yes.
*
DG: I wanted to talk about my favorite passage in this record. Coming out of "Lovelight" - on the label it says "Lovelight->Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad," but there's a three and a half minute section in there... Jerry starts playing "Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad" at a very fast tempo, and the entire band sort of glides into a smoother tempo, and then somebody starts talkin' "Not Fade Away," and there's a moment in here when half the band is playing "Not Fade Away" and the other half is playing "Goin' Down the Road," and then there's more - tempo changes, harmonic interest, and there's one moment where the "I Bid You Goodnight" theme from the end of "Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad" is happening - it's just this beautiful, sort of telepathic thing. You get all the way into "Not Fade Away," and then say to heck with it and go straight to "Goin' Down the Road" after all.
Lesh, Weir: <laugh>
Lesh: That's the stuff that we dream about. That's the stuff that we aim for, that's the stuff that's the most fun to do, and it's the most magical and it's the stuff that nobody - you can never predict what's gonna happen. Although there are some factors that are involved - for instance, with only one drummer, we could turn faster, we could shift gears rhythmically, differently than we do with two. It's like you're heavier, and going faster with two drummers, and it's hard to change direction. It's like, it's like a car or an airplane, the heavier, you know, and bigger it is...
Weir: Bigger engine, goes faster, but - it doesn't turn on a dime.
Lesh: Yeah, so that was a particular thing we could do with tempo, and the thing about it was, it was never all in one direction - we could go faster or slower, and sometimes both at the same time. And, uh, it was just - those moments are, you know, true goose-bumpers, for me.
*
Lesh: Dan Healy was our sound man, up until a couple years ago. He got in an altercation of some kind with a Dutch citizen on the train. The police came looking for him, and we we formed ranks in front of Dan so that they couldn't get to him. <laugh> We were gonna make them go through us to get Dan - they weren't gonna take our sound man away, you know.
DG: Wow.
Lesh: And these three Dutch policemen - they looked like something out of "The Third Man," or some kind of World War II black and white movie...
Weir: <chuckle> Yeah.
Lesh:... you know, "I came to Casablanca for the baths." "There are no baths in Casablanca." "Oh, I was misinformed."
Weir, Lesh: <laugh>
Lesh: Eventually, somebody came along who spoke Dutch and English, and was able to convince us that all they wanted to do was talk to Dan right there, at the hotel, and they weren't gonna take him away. So I think then we said it was okay that they talk to Dan.
Weir: Somebody actually spoke Dutch, too - that's amazing. You know, there's a saying that the devil came to earth to tempt mankind one time, and he came to Holland, and after a while he gave up because he couldn't learn the language.
Lesh: <laugh>
*
DG: It was a legendary trip in a lot of ways - there was a wonderful album out of it...
Phil Lesh: Well, we took 43 people with us...
Bob Weir: Right.
Lesh: We just didn't feel right about going over there [with] just the band and the crew, and everybody wanted to bring their families, and so...
Weir: The office crew and everybody.
Lesh: Yeah, and that's, and so that, unfortunately, set the precedent. <laugh>
Weir: <laugh>
Lesh: So now, wherever, whenever we go anywhere, that's how we go.
So we got there with 43 people, and everybody stayed on throughout the whole thing. It was quite a show. I remember we got to the Grand Hotel in Lucerne, Switzerland...
Weir: <chuckle>
Lesh:...and they had been expecting an orchestra - you know, like 43-piece orchestra, you know, maybe some kinda chamber orchestra. That's what they thought we were - a musical group, or, you know, maybe some kind of dance orchestra. How did they know? They took one look at us, <chuckle> and decided that, uh, we weren't the right kind of people to stay in their hotel - but unfortunately for them, we had already paid in the bill, in advance, so they pretty much had to let us stay there.
Weir: Five-star hotel.
Lesh: Yeah, and uh...
Weir: Tres elegant.
Lesh:...have you seen pictures of what we looked like in 1972?
Marty Martinez: Yeah, sure, matter of fact I have some pictures here and it's quite scary - no, it's nice! I mean, you guys...
Lesh: Well, it could have been...
Weir: Well, we scared them.
Lesh:...it could have been for them, yeah.
MM: Yeah, and, and...
DG: Did you behave yourselves?
Lesh: No.
MM: That was my next question.
Weir: <chuckle> We did our level best, but you know.
Lesh, DG: <laugh>
MM: I also want to talk about traveling around, on the bus, the Bozos versus the - Bolos?
Lesh: I was never aware that there was a contest, myself <laugh>.
DG: What that something that Hunter wrote up after the fact, or one of those false dichotomies?
Lesh: That's a Dilbertian kind of thing, but the Bozo bus considered themselves the Bozos, and they didn't name the Bolos, until later.
Weir: We had the Bozo bus Whistling Club - as I recall.
Lesh: I was on the Bolo bus myself, so <laugh>, I never experienced...
MM: Were the Bolos more civilized than the Bozos?
Lesh: They, it was just quieter.
Weir: <chuckle>
Lesh: You could sleep on the Bolo bus.
Weir: <laugh> Right.
DG: There was talk, though - I remember Hunter's little narrative that went in the Europe '72 album about various times when the Bolos would "raid" the Bozos, or...
Lesh: <laugh>
DG: ...is this just one of those sort of...
Lesh: <sarcastic> I don't remember any of that, you know.
DG: ... rivalries, a false dichotomy, like...
Lesh: Exactly.
Weir: Well, you know, you get...
DG: ... Cal versus Stanford, that sort of thing?
Weir: You get on one bus...
Lesh: <chuckle> Good versus evil.
Weir: ... and you travel all day long on this one bus, and everybody runs out of their stash, 'cause we're goin' across borders and stuff like that, and so we had to keep it kinda down. And then these rumors would pop up that, "Hey, they've got stash on the other bus..."
Lesh, MM: <guffaw>
Weir: ...and, uh, and so yeah, there were raids.
Lesh: <laugh> I must have been asleep.
MM: ... this - Phil was asleep during this part of it.
Lesh: It's possible.
*
MM: I want to talk about "The Other One." When, from the entire "suite," did "The Other One" begin to stand out and become, I don't want to say isolated, but move away from the rest of the whole suite?
Lesh: That was when Jerry decided he didn't want to sing the first part any more, uh, "Cryptical Envelopment."
Weir: Right, right.
Lesh: Jerry decided he didn't want to sing that anymore, so we took the second section - the faster part, with Bob's lyrics and vocal and the big jam and everything - and that was "The Other One."
Weir: Interesting story with "The Other One." It was one of the first tunes I ever wrote. Actually, we came up with the "map," basically, for the song in a rehearsal somewhere, just kickin' stuff around. And then I took it and started shaping it up, and things like that. We went on a tour in the Pacific Northwest, and I was - you know, I was not done with it, I was wondering what the song was about - and then one night it sort of came to me. Basically, it's a little fantastic episode about my meeting Neal Cassady. I wrote the two verses - that's all there is to it, really, is two verses - and we played the gig that night and came home the next day, and when we came home we learned the news that Neal had died that night.
DG: Wow.
Weir: As legend has it, he died counting the railroad ties on the tracks -
Lesh: From Dallas to Denver.
Weir: Something like that. San Miguel de Allende [Mexico], I think, is where he was.
Lesh: Okay.
Weir: So I guess that was a little visitation, that's - not unlike Neal.
Lesh: But if I remember correctly, as soon as you had the words, then we did the song.
Weir: Yeah.
Lesh: I mean, we did it that night
DG: Wow.
Lesh: It didn't require any rehearsal.
Weir: Right.
Lesh: <laugh>
DG: I remember a version from a little bit earlier, maybe late in '67. You had a different set of lyrics - a second verse that went, "The heat down at the jail/They weren't very smart," or something like that...
Weir: Yeah, that was after my little -
Lesh: Water balloon episode?
MM: <laugh> Uh-oh!
DG: Oh, I wanna hear this!
Weir: I got him good. I was on the third floor of our place in the Haight-Ashbury, and there was this cop who was illegally searching a car belonging to a friend of ours down on the street - the cops used to harass us every chance they got. They didn't care for the hippies back then. So I had a water balloon, and what was I gonna do with this water balloon, come on.
Lesh: Just happened*to have a water balloon, in his hand, ladies and gentlemen.
Weir: And so I got him right square on the head -
Lesh: A prettier shot you never saw.
Weir: - and, uh, he couldn't tell where it was comin' from, but then I had to go and go downstairs and walk across the street and just grin at him -
Lesh, MM, DG: <guffaw>
Weir: - and sorta rub it in a little bit.
DG: Smilin' on a cloudy day! I understand now.
MM: It all becomes clear.
Weir: At that point he decided to hell with due process of law, this kid's goin' to jail. He didn't have a thing on me <chuckle>. It never got to court, but on the other hand, I did get thrown in jail and beat up a little bit.
MM: <laugh> You just happened to have that water balloon handy, it was kind of just like standard procedure.
Weir: He was the guy that was breakin' the law, too, the cop was.
MM: That's, that's - I agree.
Weir: I guess - what, what does a water balloon amount to, is that assault with a, uh...
DG: Friendly weapon.
MM: With a moist weapon.
Lesh, DG: <laugh>
MM: That goes under the water laws.
DG: <laugh>
MM: And if it was tap water, that also...
Lesh: Disrespect for an officer.
Weir: Right.
DG: That was enough in those days, as I recall.
*
David Gans: The music on this tour was just magnificent, I gotta say. The Europe '72 album that came out back in '73 has long been a favorite, and now we're hearing that there was some really great improvisation going on, in that time. Can we talk about the music?
Weir: No.
DG: Marty, you're next.
Marty Martinez: Well, I'll agree with Bob, if he doesn't want to talk about the music, I'll just pick on Phil...
Lesh: Pick on me!
MM: I have a bone to pick with Phil. As producer of this project, you left out a great deal of music. It could easily have been a three-CD set.
Lesh: Well, okay, there were certain marketing considerations - which tell us that three-CD sets don't do as well as two-CD sets. And, uh, some of the music was, uh, less well-performed, less interesting, in fact.
Weir: Less lustrous than other parts.
Lesh: And there was some that was badly recorded - there were some recording glitches. So we chose to do it like this.
DG: So unfortunately, a couple of interesting Pigpen performances were lost from there, but we do get, for the first time ever on a real Grateful Dead record, "Next Time You See Me."
Lesh: I don't remember the actual details, guys, but there was something wrong with the other Pigpen material. We didn't leave it out because we didn't wanna put Pigpen songs on there; there's always some reason.
Weir: Grateful Dead revisionism.
Lesh: We may put out another version of the show that is complete, on a cassette perhaps, or something. On a special-order basis or whatever.
*
Lesh: We went down to the [Jahrhundert Halle] to check it out. I'm looking at all the busts of the famous composers that are in the foyer, and everybody else has gone in, and Mountain Girl or somebody came back out and said, you gotta see this, man. So they took me up to the balcony, and we're lookin' down at the orchestra, they're rehearsing "Carmen," and they say, well, do you see anything unusual down there? And I say, no. "Look at the solo cellist."
The solo cellist is my double. He has my same hair, he has my build, my eyes, my movements, when they stop to take a break, the guy gets up and walks around. He looks like a clone of me.
DG: Wow.
Lesh: He is my double. They say everybody's got one.
DG: Did you meet him?
Lesh: After the rehearsal, I went down there lookin' for that guy, and it turns out there was another orchestra in the bowels of the building rehearsing, doing something. It wasn't the same orchestra that we had just seen. But all these other musicians are wandering around down there, and I'm down there in cowboy boots, a Pendleton shirt, a Levi jacket, jeans, and everything but the cowboy hat, you know. And I'm wandering around down there lookin' for this guy who looks like me, and they're all lookin' at me like I've just done a costume change: "Wait a minute - Hans! You look so different!"
MM: <laugh> "Hans, vhere did you get those pants?"
Lesh: And they're all lookin' at me like I'm a really weird person.
Weir, DG: <chuckle>
Lesh: And so I never found this guy to come face to face with him.
Weir: "Wait'll, wait'll he comes back in ten minutes in his clown suit."
Lesh: <laugh> Yeah, he comes back from his break, and he's gonna get some stories...
Weir, DG: <laugh>
MM: "Hans, you're messing viz us!"
Lesh: "What happened to your cowboy boots, Hans?!"
MM, DG, Weir: <laugh>
DG: "How did you do that?"
Lesh: It turns out in every German city there's at least 50 Leshes in the phone book, so - I mean, this guy could conceivably have been named Lesh, and I never did know.
*
MM: Included on this disc is a wonderful song, one of my favorites, "Comes a Time." I've always wondered why it kind of faded from the songbook. And it's great to have it on this CD.
Lesh: Oh, I love the song, too...
Weir: I do, too.
Lesh: ...I think it's a marvelous song.
MM: Why did it fade from the songbook over the years?
Weir: Jerry was always trying to bring it back, but it's one of those songs where there're a couple more chord changes than you can easily remember. So you have to roll over it. <chuckle> And, and we never got around to, uh,you know, we'd - "we gotta work that one up!" "Yeah, next sound check, man!" And...
Lesh: <laugh>
Weir: ...it never happened.
Lesh: Exactly. The other thing about that song is the introduction was real tricky.
Weir: Yeah.
Lesh: Jerry and I would start in what they call "contrary motion" - lines that went in different directions. And it was just the two of us. And then, about three notes later, the other band members would come in. Or did you play in unison with him?
Weir: Mm-hmm.
Lesh: Oh, that's right, that' s right - we had a three-part linear, but it was like counterpoint, everybody had to play the right note at the right point. And, uh -
Weir: None of us could remember it.
Lesh: It got pretty tricky there, because I thought I knew where *I* was supposed to start, but it didn't sound right...
Weir: <chuckle>
Lesh: ...for one thing.
DG: Well, it finally got recorded quite beautifully - in this very room, actually [Bob Weir's home studio] - on Jerry's Reflections album. Then it came back into the Grateful Dead repertoire just a couple years ago - to the delight of the audience, as far as I can tell.
Weir: Mm-hmm.
Lesh: Oh, yeah, it's a marvelous song.
Weir: We never did it quite enough to get it as strong as we wanted to do it...
Lesh: Right.
Weir: ...uh, to sort of put it in the "featured ballad," uh, position.
Lesh: Yeah, it had an ending that we could go *out* on, kinda like "Morning Dew"...
Weir: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
Lesh: ... or "Stella Blue" or something like that, but we just never did it enough; it's one of those lost opportunities.
*
Marty Martinez: What I wanna ask you guys is to just sum up your feelings about this release - and about this segment, this concert of Europe '72.
Lesh: Well, in that period Keith [Godchaux] was just coming into his own, really. And I gotta say that playin' with Billy - Billy played like a young god on this tour. I mean, he was everywhere on the drums, and just kickin' our butts every which way, which is what drummers live to do, you know.
Weir: Be s'posed ta.
Lesh: I had a really great time on this tour. I didn't bring any family with me, or anything, and I was free as a bird, and we played great. I remember that we played well on this tour and I enjoyed every bit of it. And it was great to be in Europe.
MM: All right, so the first two times you guys go to Europe, they're quick shots. This time [1972] you go in for 22 dates. What were your expectations, of the audience and the people, because over here we already had a groove set, but what were you guys expecting?
Weir: We had no idea...
Lesh: Exactly...
Weir: ... what to expect.
Lesh: ... there was nothing, no, nothing to expect. We'd hoped that we'd, uh, play to enough people every night to make it worth our while. It turned out to be fairly successful, if I remember correctly; I mean, the halls weren't sold out, but it wasn't, it wasn't like some places we played in the states where we'd play in a basketball-size arena and there'd be 300 people down front.
Weir: There was, uh, there was one clinker gig - it wasn't a clinker gig, but, uh, I think there were like, about 300 people that showed up at this great big, uh, railroad station turned into a concert hall, in, uh, Burgundy somewhere...
Lesh: Dijon?
Weir: Dijon, right.
Lesh: That was in '74.
Weir: Oh, that was '74?
Lesh: That was in '74.
Weir: Oh, heh-heh...
Lesh: '74. But the thing about it...
Weir: ... wrong again!
Lesh: ... but the thing about those, those kind of situations is we always would play really well.
Weir: Right.
Lesh: We never, I never -- maybe we were trying to prove something to the few people that were, you know, interested enough to come and see us.
Weir: No, it was just, you know, if there's nobody there to listen, it's too easy to play well. It's, for some reason --
Lesh: Aaayyyaa -- yeah.
DG: Sort of a, one of those Murphy's Law kinda deals, right, like...
MM: <laugh>
Weir: If there's nobody there to be impressed, you, you're gonna, you're gonna --
Lesh: If the tree falls in the forest, does it sound good?
*
Out-take #2 of 2 (aired on KPFA-FM 10/18/95):
Marty Martinez: There was, uh, a show that was supposed to happen in France, and, and, Phil or Bob, you guys can pick this up -- and, this show was supposed to happen -- now maybe, this story's so wonderful...
Bob Weir: We gotta back up...
Phil Lesh: <laugh> This is a long story.
Weir: ... we gotta back up a little bit.
Lesh: To the Paris show; it started at the Paris show.
Weir: It started the night before in Paris, where, uh, a couple of Communists decided that -- uh, decided that everybody should be able to go the show for *free.*
Lesh: This is when we were playing in the Olympia Theater in Paris, which held, what, uh, duh, buh, fifteen-hundred people, if that -- maybe more like eight. [5/4/72]
Weir: Now he decided this in stark ignorance of the economics of the matter. He got shown the door, too. And, um, that didn't, uh, that didn't pretty up his mindset any, so, uh, he decided what he was gonna do was, uh, piss in the, uh, in the gas tank of our diesel truck.
Lesh: Actually, he didn't do that until after the show when we went back to the hotel...
Weir: Oh yeah, oh yeah, that's right.
Lesh: ... and, uh, Rex and Sonny and I were...
Weir: And I think myself.
Lesh: ... were up on the balcony...
Weir: And we poured a...
Lesh: ... and, uh, somebody...
Weir: ... bucket of water on him.
Lesh: ...I don't remember who, poured, no, not a bucket of water - chocolate ice cream on his mauve velvet jacket. This is a Communist...
DG: This was one well-dressed Communist.
Lesh: ... this is a Communist wearing a mauve velvet jacket. It was very, very chic.
MM: Bourgeois Communist, is that, is that, uh --
Lesh: That's not a contradiction in terms, apparently...
MM: Yeah.
Lesh: ... in France...
Weir: Yeah, I mean, they...
Lesh: ... the sky's the limit.
Weir: <laugh>
Lesh: But, uh, heh, but after the chocolate ice cream came down on his, on his jacket, I think -- after the chocolate ice cream came down on his jacket, I think he got a little, uh, miffed, and so that was...
Weir: It ticked him off a bit.
Lesh: ...that was, I think, the final "trigger" that caused him to (a) piss, or (b) put water in the diesel fuel tanks of our trucks, so that our equipment couldn't go anywhere.
Weir: And so, uh...
Lesh: The next night --
Weir: ... the next morning, everybody got up...
Lesh: <laugh>
Weir: ... the truck headed outta town, first, bright and early, and then we all got up and got on the bus and headed to Lyon.
Lesh: Lille, Lille.
Weir: Oh, Lille, right, right. Lille.
Lesh: Right by the Belgian border, yeah.
Weir: And, um, well, the truck made it about eight miles outta Paris, and it broke down, and that was that, and that was that. But we didn't know this; we arrived, we arrived at the, uh, at the hall, in Lille, um, to a mob of irate Frenchmen, shouting, uh...
Lesh: "Power to the people!" and <laugh> "We shall overcome!"
MM: <laugh>
Weir: ...anti-American stuff, and, uh, since, uh, since it was deemed that my French was, uh, the best in the crew, the best in the group, I, uh, I was, uh, awarded the onerous, uh <laugh> ...
Lesh: <laugh> The signal honor...
Weir: <laugh> ... uh...
Lesh: <laugh> ... of explaining it to a howling mob.
Weir: ...opportunity to, to go out and tell a howling mob, that hey, folks, no show tonight.
All: <laugh>
Weir: And not only that...
Lesh: "Pas de musique! Comprendez? Pas de musique!"
DG: <laugh>
Weir: ... and not only that, the promoters bolted with your money. <laugh>
MM and DG: <laugh>
Lesh: Which wasn't true, though. It wasn't true.
Weir: It wasn't?
Lesh: The guy hadn't bolted with the money, he just, uh, I don't think he could, could get it that night, to give them their money, their money back for their tickets, but he, uh, I think he later gave them back the money...
Weir: Ah, great.
Lesh: ... because, and if he hadn't done that, we wouldn't havegone back to play.
DG: Okay, but there you were --
Lesh: But we're getting ahead of ourselves.
Weir: So anyway, uh, they didn't take it real well.
MM: <laugh> No, huh?
Weir: So we, we...
Lesh: And so we retreated...
Weir: ... we adjourned rather quickly to the, uh...
Lesh: ... to the, uh --
Weir: ... to the dressing room. And, um, and we spent about 30 seconds in there wondering what the hell -- "what the Sam Hill are we gonna do now?" And, uh...
Lesh: <mock fright> "Do we have to go out there and talk to them again?"
Weir: ... and, uh, meanwhile, the door started to go "thump, thump, thump"...
Lesh, MM and DG: <laugh>
Weir: ... and bulging a little bit, and we could see that that was gonna hold for about, oh, maybe a minute and a half. And, uh, we had, we had, one, uh <chuckle> one avenue of, uh, of escape, and that was out the window and down a drainpipe, uh, just sort of climbing, holding onto the drainpipe down three stories, and, uh...
Lesh: Actually, it was only a story and a half, Bob.
Weir: Really?
Lesh: You coulda jumped it...
Weir: Really?
Lesh: ... but it woulda hurt when you landed.
MM: Ooof.
Weir: Yeah, we woulda had a lotta broken ankles. Anyway...
Lesh: Yeah.
Weir: ... so we were outta there, out the back window, down the drainpipe, and, uh...
Lesh: Runnin' for the bus.
Weir: ... uh, a quick, quick sprint for the bus. We left a little rose on the uh, on the windowsill there, and uh, and we came back, about...
Lesh: "Why, they've disappeared!"
Weir: ... two, three weeks later? we came back and uh, and played in the park for free. [5/13/72]
MM: See, so it has a happy ending.
Lesh: Yeah, it does. Becau -- and, and the promoter was in tears, because he'd given all the money back, but he had promised that we would come back and play, and everybody was saying <sarcastic> "Oui, oui."
Weir: Right.
MM: <laugh>
DG: What's the French equivalent of "Sure, man"?
Weir: "Oui, oui, mais d'accord, mais d'accord."
Lesh: <laugh>
MM: "Yeah, right."
Lesh: But it was a beautiful day, too. The light in France, there's nothing like it. I mean, you can, it's understandable why it's produced so many great painters. And it was one of those days. We played in the park and there were working people -- I mean, real French working people. You know, the kind that Van Gogh would paint, again. There, there they were, sitting down in front.
Weir: It was, it was wonderful...
Lesh: Kids...
Weir: ... a sublime experience.
Lesh: ...kids in their strollers, their mothers walking them through the park, stopped off and -- caught the show. It was great.