No one had heard of the New Riders, of course, but the main purpose of opening acts was to encourage people to come early so that they would buy popcorn and soda.Īs the 1970s and 80s wore on, both Bill Graham and the Grateful Dead were heavily invested in the idea that they had been partners since the early days of the San Francisco underground, but that isn't really borne out by the facts. One advantage for the Dead for touring with the New Riders of The Purple Sage was that by providing their own opening act, the band could ask for more money. In 1970, almost all rock concerts had two, three or four acts. The group was making money on a cash flow basis, but they still had substantial obligations, and thus no choice but to maximize their touring revenue. ![]() With the help of their new road manager Sam Cutler, the Dead streamlined and normalized their touring, crisscrossing the country in an orderly fashion, trying to work every weekend and as many nights as possible in between. Although the album was a big success, the nature of the record business was that the band would see little or no money from the record for some time, since it would initially just retire the substantial debts the group had accrued in the previous 3 years of recording for Warner Brothers. Amazingly, they had recorded an album that was receiving huge airplay on FM radio, but Workingman's Dead had only been released in June 1970. They had no choice but to tour relentlessly to retire the various debts they had accrued. He had taken something like $155,000 from them, a lot of money back then, effectively bankrupting the band. In March 1970, the Grateful Dead had been forced to fire manager Lenny Hart, since he was stealing from them. I am interested in the week of November 9-16, and the complex financial dynamics underlying the Grateful Dead's touring at the time. Other blogs analyze the tapes better than me, so I will not dwell on them here. This run of shows is memorable for great performances, unexpected material and special guests (Jorma Kaukonen, Steve Winwood and so on). Very briefly, fine tapes of the four Stony Brook shows, most of the Capitol shows, the Palestra (Nov 20) and one of the New York City shows (originally circulated as Nov 23 but more likely Nov 16) have circulated widely for many years.
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