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The life 
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Warren Swil
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

V 5

 

By Warren Swil

Glendale News-Press August 10, 1995

To a generation that came of age during San Francisco's "Summer of Love," he was much more than just another rock star. 

Jerry Garcia's untimely death on Wednesday closes a chapter most baby boomers recall with a fond nostalgia. It was the time of 'Flower Power', tie-dyed T-shirts, Woodstock and Altamont. It was also rock's glorious age; and Garcia and his fellow Deadhead Bob Weir epitomized it. 

As a newcomer to California, I attended my first Grateful Dead concert at the Oakland Coliseum in the summer of 1975. It was a "trip" I remember clearly to this day: a weekend-long party attended by about 40,000. 

The show began in the morning with an appearance by The Who, at that time a relatively unknown band this  side of the Atlantic, but one des-tined to make it as big in the annals of rock music as the Grateful Dead. After their five-hour gig, The Dead took the stage in the late after-noon and played, non-stop, 'till past midnight. Not many other bands treat their audiences to a seven- or eight-hour show at each perfor-mance. 

The highlight of the show, as with most of them, was the free- form-jam session; Garcia and Weir could make their guitars “simply weep,” and the fans loved it. What drew me to many other Grateful Dead concerts throughout the 1970s and 1980s wasn't only the music, spellbinding as it was. It was the ambiance and energy of so many folk gathered together to have a good time. 

Despite the crowds, there was never any violence at any of the concerts I attended over the years. It seemed as if the original message of "peace" and "love" was assimilated by the audience. 

Garcia was more than just a great artist, though. Along with his contemporaries like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin - who didn't live long enough to fully relish their legacies -- Garcia became a larger than-life icon, revered by those who knew him personally and those who, didn't. 

To many of us who were young, free spirits in the 1970s, his passing is the end of an era. We remember him because of the good times we had, and with him a little bit of us dies, too. 

Warren Swil is the editor of the Sunday Glendale-Foothills edition of the Los Angeles Times.