POP MUSIC REVIEW : At Grateful Dead Concert, the Fans Are the Most Fun

Confession: I’ve usually been grateful when a Dead concert was finally over.

The opening sets--where Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir concentrate on compact blues and country-flavored tunes--is invariably engaging, but the second sets--with their endless, spacey instrumental centerpieces--are akin to pop somnambulism.

The problem--finally apparent Friday night at the Forum, where the Dead opened a three-night stand--is that I’ve been concentrating too much on the band instead of the audience. Instead of GRATEFUL DEAD on the Forum marquee, they ought to put THE DEADHEADS. The band, in many ways, is a merely sound track for that cast of thousands.

Sociological connection--the active emotional interchange between performer and audience that was inherent in rock’s gospel, blues and country roots--is a primary factor that has distinguished rock from the mostly passive nature of most post-World War II pop.

As it has for 20 years now, the Dead just keeps on truckin’--a soothing and comforting force whose concerts offer a chance for Deadheads to escape briefly from the pressures of the everyday world.

In the Deadhead community--a remarkable cross section of economic backgrounds and ages--the hippie sentiments of peace and friendship have not been discarded.

The disappointment cited by fans Friday was that overnight camping wasn’t allowed in the parking lot. This prevented the establishment of a grass-roots Deadhead City, where fans sleep in tents or vans and operate food/craft booths. Still, some Deadheads took advantage of the hours that the parking lot was open to sell crafts or hold tailgate parties.

Others, including Northridge hardwood-floor installer Gary Kelley and five friends, booked rooms at a hotel across the street from the Forum so they could still experience the “weekend retreat” nature of the shows.

“I like the feeling at the shows,” Kelley, 29, said on the way into the concert. “The thing about the scene is that it is friendly, very nonviolent. You meet a lot of new friends. Like I met four of the people who are sharing the hotel room at the Dead show last year in Long Beach.”

Inside the Forum, bright green, yellow and blue balloons were draped from the ceiling and three dozen fans already had their microphones set up in the authorized “taping” area on the arena floor.

The Dead concentrated in the opening set on old favorites in the relaxed manner of family members greeting each other at a reunion picnic. Because the Forum management didn’t place the usual portable chairs on the main floor, the evening was billed as a dance concert. But the floor was so crowded that movement was limited.

“Just warming up,” said Gary Kelley at the end of hour set. “That’s the way all the shows are. They really get going after intermission. I’ve got 150 tapes. They do a lot of the same songs over and over, but in different ways.”

After intermission, the Dead moved slowly into the long, jazzy instrumental improvisation of its “space” mode. The audience, too, seemed to enter an almost meditative state--an eerie calm throughout the arena as if thousands were exorcising themselves of tensions.

Eventually, the Dead rebounded with a series of livelier and more uplifting songs--infusing the audience with energy. Hundreds of young hard-core Deadheads--many with tie-dyed shirts and peasant skirts--moved into the arena lobbies for more dancing room.

As vendors and security officers watched with fascination, the dancers moved in waves in strange, tribal-like movements that seemed to have little direct bearing to the rhythm of the songs. Quipped one vendor: “I wonder what kind of acid they’re on.”

Because of the history of acid and pot use at Dead concerts, the running joke is the shows, in effect, are “free drug zones.” But many of the older Deadheads questioned Friday said they had long ago stopped experimenting with chemicals. The real addiction, for them, is simply the Dead experience. “Being here,” said one man in his late 20s, “is the high.”

To outsiders, the Dead concerts are limited musically by the lack of dramatic peaks and forward movement, but as an overall experience, the evenings remain unique in pop culture. As the concert neared its end Friday, some Deadheads seated nearby began making plans for future shows--not just the other weekend performances at the Forum, but shows next spring at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre. In the Dead world, the beat really does go on.