<\/p>\n
One of the most unique guitar players of all time, Jerry Garcia didn\u2019t have the most traditional influences that many other major Rock guitarists from his era had. His style showed that he had been inspired by many different music genres, especially by artists who provided the elements that helped Rock emerge. During his career, the musician talked about many groups, giving his opinion on them, including The Rolling Stones<\/a>.<\/p>\n What was Jerry Garcia\u2019s opinion on The Rolling Stones<\/p>\n Keith Richards<\/a> once said<\/a> that \u201cThe Grateful Dead is where everybody got it wrong,\u201d because, in his opinion, it was \u201cjust poodling about for hours and hours. Jerry Garcia, boring shit, man. Sorry, Jerry.\u201d Garcia, however, was not a big fan of The Rolling Stones either. As he said on a few occasions, he felt he had already heard much of what they were doing in the original Blues artists from the United States.<\/p>\n \u201cFor sure (the English groups helped me to like Rock music more), because The Beatles music was interesting music and good music. The Rolling Stones music was not too much of a surprise because I\u2019d listened to a lot of Rhythm and Blues in those days. Early Rolling Stones music was similar to that Rhythm and Blues, only not as well done as the old records. But The Beatles were doing something new and they had good musical ideas, they had a great thing going on for them,\u201d Jerry Garcia said already in an interview<\/a> in 1967 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage).<\/p>\n He told the same thing to Rolling Stone<\/a> in 1987: \u201cThe Stones were all stuff that I grown up with, it was like retakes of the old Marshall Chess Records. It was a little Muddy Waters, a little Chuck Berry, you know. All stuff I\u2019ve heard before and I understood the way it worked, the way it functioned. At that time I\u2019d been playing Bluegrass banjo for about 4 or 5 years.\u201d<\/p>\n Grateful Dead almost was The Rolling Stones\u2019 opening act and Jerry Garcia said they were good<\/p>\n Although he preferred The Beatles, for example, Garcia did enjoy some of The Rolling Stones\u2019 music. He even covered songs associated with them during his early days with The Warlocks, one of his first bands. They performed tracks like \u201cKing Bee,\u201d \u201cLittle Red Rooster,\u201d and \u201cWalking the Dog.\u201d Although these songs were recorded by British bands such as The Rolling Stones, they were originally written and recorded by American Blues artists.<\/p>\n In 1965, Garcia and the Dead went to see The Rolling Stones perform at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium. Just a few years later, in 1969, they almost became the opening act for the British band. They were set to perform at the infamous Altamont Festival, which the Stones put together after being criticized during their tour that year that the tickets were too expensive. So they decided to put together a free concert which had as opening acts Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The Dead were set to play right after CSNY but decided to not go on stage after they saw how the violence was rising among the crowd.<\/p>\n \u201cOh God. Altamont was such a bummer, man. You could just feel the tension in the air. It was a combination of a lot of things. You know, the Hell\u2019s Angels got a bum rap from it, but it wasn\u2019t their fault. Hell no (the Stones couldn\u2019t have stopped the madness). They were fucking scared, they were playing for their lives. Well, see, the Rolling Stones never did have a cool audience.\u201d<\/p>\n He continued:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they started playing, people were screaming. Then they knocked off for two or three years and now they come back, and it\u2019s back to screaming. But the one opportunity they had to go a different direction was on their regular tour. Because the regular gigs, they had to get the audience to get up. You know, Mick Jagger would make his little speech about turn on the lights so we can see you. The lights would go on and everybody would scream and run up to the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt was so predictable. They knew it would work. It\u2019s like the magicians, like Cagliostro, man, you know what I mean? One of those trips. If you get to the point where you\u2019re playing music and you can\u2019t get off unless the crowd tears itself to pieces and attacks the stage, it\u2019s kind of like sinking your teeth way in. It\u2019s taking more than you need. You know, the Stones had the opportunity to come on as musicians during their tour. Because people were sitting and listening carefully and digging the music.\u201d<\/p>\n Jerry Garcia continued:<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a whole other thing. It\u2019s something they\u2019d never experienced before, they\u2019d always had that hysteria. They\u2019re good, they don\u2019t need any tricks. To my mind, they don\u2019t need any tricks. They put on a good show, they play fucking good. They don\u2019t need any of the rest of the bullshit,\u201d Jerry Garcia told Jazz & Pop<\/a> magazine in 1971.<\/p>\n During that day, when all the planning went wrong, several people were injured and four died. Two people were killed in a hit-and-run car accident, one drowned in an irrigation canal and during The Rolling Stones\u2019 set, a man died after being stabbed by a member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, who had been hired to provide security for the festival. The Grateful Dead<\/a> had suggested the Hells Angels, since they had previously provided security at some of their concerts. The crowd was estimated at between 250,000 and 300,000 people.<\/p>\n The Grateful Dead and The Rolling Stones are among the highest-grossing bands of all time<\/p>\n Usually, when a band sells millions of records, is strong live, and tours extensively, it consequently has a big chance of becoming one of the highest-grossing groups of all time. The Rolling Stones have sold an estimated 200 million records worldwide and have had two tours ranked among the 20 highest-grossing of all time.<\/p>\n The interesting thing is that the Grateful Dead really broke that rule. They sold an estimated 15 million records worldwide, a figure that would not normally place them among the highest-grossing live acts. However, in 1991 and 1993, they had the highest-grossing tours of those respective years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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