Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Mosquitoes, Bats, Bedouins with Guns: Grateful Dead In Egypt '78 [Highlight From Episode 337]

Transcript

Mosquitoes, Bats, Bedouins with Guns: Grateful Dead In Egypt '78 [Highlight From Episode 337] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Book on
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Rock Harry Angus. He is the author of the Encyclopedia
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: of Jerry Garcia Music Venues. I wanted to finish with
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: some of the shows that The Dead played in Egypt
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: in seventy eight. There's a color photo of the Sound
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: in Light Theater in Giza, Egypt. There are some great
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: stories in there, and one about Jerry climbing to the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: top of a pyramid. There's another one if you could
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: share the story that Bob Weir talks about when The
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Dead played at the foot of the Great Pyramid, and
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: he describes the scene and what he sees.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a gig where Mosquito starts swarming the
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: band that starts flying in the full moon's rising and
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: the pyramid is lit up with the Doin's on camels
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: with guns. It's great story. I don't have it in detail,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: but I'm gonna read what I have in the book
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: of it. I'm sure there's more that I'm not aware of.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: But the night before The Grateful Dead's first show at
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: Geeza Sound in Light Theater at the foot of the
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: Sphinx and the Great Pyramid, singer guitarist Bob Weir took
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: a stroll around the open air venue during soundcheck. Some
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: of the Egyptian drummers we played with were rehearsing where
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: we caalls and I got to a point where the
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: head of the Sphinx was lined up at the top
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: of the Great Pyramid, all lit up. All of a sudden,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I went to this timeless place. The sounds from the
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: stage they could have been from any time, and it
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: was as if Weir says, I went into eternity. So
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: you got to think back to that tune into eternity
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: or under eternity, And I don't know, to me, that
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: sounds like that's where he started that thought. Anyway, there's
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: a little bit more. One moment stands out from Bob
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: Weir and I don't know why it's coming to me now,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: But we were in Egypt the first night of three.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: We were playing on an amphitheater at the foot of
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: the Sphinx, in the foot of the Great Pyramid. They
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: lit it up really nice. There was a light show
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. It was pretty spectacular.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: We were not that far from the Nile River, but anyway,
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: the sun was going down and we start playing. Lights
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: came on and I hear a mosquito buzz in my ear.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: One lands on my arm, and as we're playing, I
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: realize it's dusk, and I look around and there's mosquitoes everywhere.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I'm figuring, okay, this is going to be a welcome
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: to Hell and I'm not going to be able to
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: play a note. I'm starting to swat at mosquitoes and
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: I'm like, how the hell am I going to do this?
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: And just as I'm thinking that, a shape goes by
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: my head real fast in the full moon starting to rise.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Now it's going to be an eclipse pretty soon. Backlit,
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: you can see on the bluffs on either side of
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: the theater there's these sand dunes, and these bluffs are now
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: ringed with badoons on their horses and camels with their
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: rifles over their shoulders, hundreds of them on either side.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: They had heard that this was going on and came
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: to check it out. Meanwhile, back on the stage, you've
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: got a cloud of mosquitoes, And as it turns out,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: that shape that flew by my head, another one flies by,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: and then another. I look around again and there are
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: these bats about a foot and a half across big fellas,
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: lots of them going after the mosquitoes. So if you
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: back off from this, what you see is the Great
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Pyramid lit up golden magenta, whatever color it was at
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: that moment, and the Sphinx also lit up, and the
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: theater surrounded by these badoons, and on the stage is
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: the band all lit up, surrounded by a cloud of bats.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It had to be one of the most sublime moments
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: that ever occurred. I left my body, he laughs. If
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: I had to freeze a moment in time, this is it.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Take me, Lord, this is how I want to remember it.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: And then there's a little Jerry one that was really
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: a mind blower. I can honestly say I was a
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: different person before and after those shows. It was a
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: really profound experience. Wow, playing right in the middle of
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: the pyramids, what a totally beautiful things like a psychedelic dream.