by Brian Lawlor, Blue Bell, PA

Friday July 13th 1984 at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, Calif. I was in law school taking a summer class at USF when I heard the Grateful Dead were playing the Greek Theater — by the time I heard, tickets were long gone but I decided to check it out anyway; somehow I kind of helped the caterers, Fillmore Fingers, load in some stuff and found myself at the concert!

It was a pretty good first set finished off by a smoking “Might as Well,” which kind of summed up my decision to venture over to Berkeley that evening; the second set was smoking hot and towards the middle during “I Need a Miracle,” Bob Weir and the audience were playing catch with a beach ball — the audience would kind of lob it on stage and Weir would kick it back while playin the guitar! After a few bounces the ball went towards Jerry Garcia — it bounced slowly towards him just at the crescendo of the song; as the ball approached where he was standing he was about to go for the high note in his lead; it seemed the audience held its breath wondering whether Garcia was gonna kick the ball or hit the note!!

Well — much to the delight of the crowd, Garcia went for the note as the ball bounced gently by him — it was a special nite as the band played “Dark Star” for an encore during a shooting star in the sky!