“The cool older kids had trays of cassette tapes of Dead concerts—copies of copies of copies, usually many generations removed from the original source... the compromised sound quality became a perverse part of the appeal. Each tape seemed to have its own particular note of decay, like the taste of the barnyard in a wine or a cheese.”
-Nick Paumgarten, from Deadhead: The Afterlife. 

As a band the Grateful Dead performed over 2400 shows in a 30 year period.  A dedicated Deadhead taping culture followed the band from show to show obsessively taping, collecting, and disseminating recordings of the Dead’s infamous live acts.  

On July 18, 1967 the Grateful Dead performed in the Mark building of the Portland Art Museum, a former Masonic Temple.  To this day no recording has surfaced of the show in the Masonic temple.  Like  a bootlegged cassette tape, generations removed from its original source, Turn On You Love Light will recreate from living memory the night of the ‘67 Grateful Dead performance in the Grand Ballroom of the Mark Building on May 17, 2013. 

Opening for the Grateful Dead that night was a local Portland band called U.S. Cadenza (1965-1969). U.S. Cadenza were a group of  high schoolers recruited by the concert promoter Jim Felt (Diamond Productions) to open for the Grateful Dead in the Masonic Temple in '67.  US Cadenza was a prominent member of the Portland coffee-house music scene in the 1960s.    They played with all the Fillmore music acts that traveled through town to play Portland's Masonic Temple.  Some of those acts included The Doors, the Steve Miller Band, and the Grateful Dead.

During Shine a Light, U.S. Cadenza will reunite for the first time in 20 years to perform their  set from the ‘67 show.   

Through a series of interviews with those who attended the ‘67 concert a Grateful Dead set list will be developed from living memory.  The set will then be performed by the Garcia Birthday Band.
Turn On Your Love Light is a project by Travis Neel featuring US Cadenza and Garcia Birthday Band. 

All the ad promos are courtesy of Jim Felt.  Thank you!

visavistravis