Ratdog And Allman Brothers Girls Eye View

I said in the last post I was thinking about having my seven year old daughter Guest Blog on her opinion of Ratdog and The Allman Brothers at Jones Beach Theatre 8/13/08, her first big time show (see previous post) with Daddy. What I decided to do was just have her write her opinion directly into Notepad, and I'll show you what she wrote, unadulterated, then I'll give an explanation after. Here it is.....


I went to a concert with my dad.I was up front. The bands were Ratdog and the Allman brothers.I can't believe I actually saw bobby from the grateful dead. Before I did all that I had a picnic dinner on the beach. I had a sandwich with ham tomatoes and mayo. Back to the concert it was so loud I put cotton in my ears. I caught a balloon. on a break I went a little closer up to visit my aunt my uncle and my cousins.I switched seats with one of my cousins then we switched back. They played a song that they usually show's Jerry Garcia but they did not.next there was a song called Mellisa thats the name of my cousin so I went over to my other aunt who was there I danced with her cause the songs name was the name of her daughter.I had a lot of fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.....Definitely Sweet!!
I left what she wrote, pretty much, being the anal purist I am. But here's an explanation since I discused it with her. What she's talking about when she says "They played a song that they usually show's Jerry Garcia but they did not" is that I told her during The Allman's "No One Left To Run With" they sometimes flash a picture of Garcia on screen along with departed Allman Brothers Duane Allman and Allen Woody. She was looking for Jerry, but they didn't show him. After the show I mentioned this to my friend and he said he had heard that they stopped showing the picture of Jerry because The Allmans didn't like the fact that he got a bigger response from the audience than Duane or Allen did. If that's true I have no problem with that. I can understand Greg, especially, feeling sensitive to that. I mean Duane Allman deserves HUGE respect, especially at an Allman Brothers show. But Jerry Garcia is such an icon that you can't help people responding the way they do, ALSO especially at an Allman Bros show; a majority of Allman's fans are Deadheads too. Deadheads kind of boost the Allmans crowd since Jerry died.

Anyway that was what she meant. It's interesting that that stuck with her after the show. And it reminded me of a story. When she was about two years old I was doing what every good Deadhead Dad does; I was turning her on to The Dead and looking at Grateful Dead pictures. While looking on with me she says, out of the clear blue "Daddy, Jerry's so cute!". I actually couldn't believe that my daughter said that at two years old. At that point I knew eventually she'd be going to shows with me. And here we are at that point already. Time flies Man. Summer time does come and go, my oh my.