Grateful Dead at Clifford's Catering, Walnut Creek, March 1-2, 1968

In 2011 I made a post under the heading of "GD in Walnut Creek; East Bay Psychedelic Scene?" in which I noted the mystery surrounding the Dead's Listed gigs in Walnut Creek on March 1-2, 1968.

John Fernbach has shared the following handbill. Yeah! Thanks!

Reader Brad Vicknair has graciously shared an ad for the show and some wonderful recollections, which I reproduce here with his permission. Thanks, Brad!

I saw The Grateful Dead at Clifford's Catering in Walnut Creek on Saturday, March 2nd, 1968.

I was friends with twin brothers and their older brother was one of the guitar players for The Looking Glass. They were a band from Concord/Walnut Creek that played locally in the late 60's. The drummer's father booked The Grateful Dead and The Looking Glass at Clifford's on Friday, March 1st and Saturday March 2nd. The Dead played the weekend before at Kings Beach Bowl in Lake Tahoe and the day after their Saturday night gig in Walnut Creek, they played on two flatbeds on Haight Street.

The venue was originally Portuguese Hall. A poster from 1963 promoting Bobby Freeman, Wally Cox, and The Untouchables lists the venue as Walnut Creek Hall. In 1965 and 1966 the venue was called Holy Ghost Hall. Local bands and major recording artists appeared, including Sonny & Cher, Martha and the Vandellas, Dick and Dee Dee, Dobie Gray and others. In 1967, the venue was called Scuzzy Mouse. The venue has gone through many name changes over the years, but is best remembered as Holy Ghost Hall.

The venue was called Clifford's Catering when The Grateful Dead appeared. Clifford's was a restaurant/catering business that would rent out the hall on occasion. I have a copy of an advertisement for The Grateful Dead at Clifford's [see above-ed]. I don't remember seeing a poster, but there may I have been one. I had a ticket, but it's long gone. It was black and white, about 3" x 5", with a I drawing of a hippie as the central image and LSD, a peace sign and other symbols in the I background. I have a Looking Glass business card and the art is similar in style to the ticket that I remember. The ticket and poster, if there was one, was probably band generated.

The hall at Clifford's was upstairs. There was a table at the top the top of the stairs where a couple of girls were selling tickets. We bought our tickets and entered the hall, which had a raised stage with curtains in the back and on the sides. It wasn't overly crowded, but more people may have attended on Friday night.

When The Dead came on, it was easy to move freely in front of the stage. Pigpen was having problems with his Hammond B3. The sound was going in and out, and he spent the first two or three songs under the keyboard, by the foot pedals. There was a sound man helping, but it was mostly Pigpen working on the organ.

Mickey Hart was playing wildly! He broke drumsticks and in one seamless motion, sent them flying over his back shoulder and grabbed another drumstick from his bass drum. He impulsively ran off stage mid song and returned with a large gong. Mickey seemed to be enjoying himself and was entertaining to watch!

Several people in the audience kept shouting requests for "The Golden Road". Finally, Jerry responded, "We don't know that one I anymore". They played "Cold Rain & Snow". The Looking Glass also played the song regularly. My friend said that on Friday night, The Looking Glass asked the Dead if they minded if they played "Cold Rain & Snow". Supposedly, they played it and The Dead complimented them, saying that they liked The Looking Glass version better than their own.

Pigpen took control when they played a long version of "Turn On Your Lovelight".

Later in the evening, the band was stretching out musically. Behind me in the back corner of the hall were friends and family of the band. A woman with dark shoulder length hair, wearing a black floor length dress with multiple overlay and a little girl about two years old with curly blond hair, walked up to the front of the stage. It was Mountain Girl and her daughter Sunshine Kesey. Mountain Girl put Sunshine on the stage in front of Bob Weir and he handed her the mic. As the band continued to play, Sunshine screamed into the mic at the top of her lungs like in a horror movie! Mountain Girl eventually took Sunshine off the stage and they returned to the back of the hall.

I was blown away by the whole experience of seeing The Grateful Dead!

My friend later told me that some of The Dead were looking for a place to crash on Friday night. His brother, the guitar player for The Looking Glass, lived with his parents in Walnut Creek and their response was, absolutely not! Supposedly the drummer and his father took in some of the band at their apartment in Concord.

When leaving Clifford's there was a sign at the top of the stairs announcing Country Joe & the Fish would be playing in two weeks. The Grateful Dead were paid $3,000 for the two nights and the promoter ended up losing money, so Country Joe & the Fish never appeared. Bands continued to play at the venue, which was called The Saranap Inn until 1973. In 1974, the Sufis bought the building and Sufism Reoriented (Meher Baba) established the Spiritual Training Center at the location.

GD in Walnut Creek; East Bay Psychedelic Scene?

Can anyone anywhere add anything about these three Grateful Dead shows in Walnut Creek, CA? Little is known about the first, and next-to-nothing about the second two.

**update 20150905: the 1968 shows have been demystified**

1. Grateful Dead, Sunday, October 23, 1966: Gymnasium, Las Lomas High School, 1460 South Main Street,Walnut Creek, CA 94596-5383.

• Deadlists: http://www.deadlists.com/deadlists/showresults.asp?KEY=10/23/66.
• Deadlists notes: "Originally scheduled for Walnut Creek Library, showtime 3 PM." 
• JGMF: I have elaborated the venue as "Gymnasium" based on the ads below.
• JGMF: Not sure where the "originally scheduled" information comes from. Below is a mention and calendar listing for the show from the Contra Costa Times, October 20, 1966, p. 12:

The "Coming Attractions" listing for the GD show ("Coming Attractions," Contra Costa Times, October 20, 1966, p. 12) reads as follows:

"The Grateful Dead, rock-and-roll quintet, Art Forum Series, Walnut Creek Civic Arts Center, 3 p.m., Las Lomas High School gymnasium.

Then there's a little article ("'The Grateful Dead' Ducats Still Available," Contra Costa Times, October 20, 1966, p. 12) pimping the tickets:

The Civic Arts Center, City of Walnut Creek, advises that tickets for the concert, "The Grateful Dead", are still available. This rock 'n roll, second in the series of the Art Forum events, will take place at the Las Lomas High School gymnasium, Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are now on sale at $2 each at the Civic Arts Center, 1445 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek.

 I'll leave it to the GD historians to see if we learn anything from that. From a "Walnut Creek" (or a "1960s East Bay Psychedelia") perspective, it's just a little splash of color on a phenomenon that is very obscure (or penumbral, with your --ch-ching!!-- $5 word of the day).



Over at dead.net, meanwhile, user 'oakland dupree' gives an attendee's view [lightly edited]:

This was my first Grateful Dead show. There were maybe 50 -100 curiosity seekers. Very few teens like me. It was a free "arts and lectures" - type concert in the afternoon. Jerry wore a yellow Pigpen t-shirt. They were eating cookies and offered them to the audience. No takers. LOUD and good! Life changing concert for me. ... Someone passed out Golden Road to Unlimited Devotion fliers. A week or so later, I journeyed to 710 Ashbury and purchased a Pigpen long sleeve olive green polo shirt with turtle neck from MG. A few years later I gifted it to Debbie, background singer on Aoxomoxoa.

Sounds amazing. I wish I had a "Pigpen long sleeve olive green polo shirt with turtle neck [bought from Mountain Girl]". You get your sweet pippy I do. The fliers sound interesting too, natch ...

• As an aside, not sure if Jefferson Airplane people would learn anything from the 10/28/66 Saint Mary's College, Moraga, CA listing in the "Coming Attractions" calendar "Coming Attractions," Contra Costa Times, October 20, 1966, p. 12):

The "Jefferson Airplane" with Patty Phillips "The Chosen For," concert sponsored by the Associated Students of Saint Mary's College, 7:30 p.m., Slip Madigan Memorial Gymnasium.

The SMC website doesn't really do the school's very interesting history justice. That said, let me just keep "Slip Madigan" in my head as the "Rudy" of this little college (with a $111 million endowment ... not bad!) in the gorgeous rolling hills of the east bay. Mmm mmm mmm.

• As a second aside, I see from a Santana performance list of undetermined veracity that they are listed for Las Lomas High School in Walnut Creek on April 1, 1969. 
• As an aside to the aside, not that that same site has Santana at Gymnasium, Diablo Valley College, Pleasant Hill, CA. Corry or Ross or LIA or Bruno or anyone, how much stuff is "out there" on the East Bay?

Anyway, just hoping to learn more!

2. Grateful Dead, Friday, March 1, 1968: The Looking Glass, 1300 Boulevard Way, Walnut Creek, CA, 94595.

• Deadlists: http://www.deadlists.com/default.asp?http://www.deadlists.com/deadlists/showresults.asp?KEY=3/1/68
• dead.net, March 1: http://www.dead.net/show/march-1-1968: no attendees.

3. Grateful Dead, Saturday, March 2, 1968: The Looking Glass, 1300 Boulevard Way, Walnut Creek, CA, 94595.

• Deadlists:http://www.deadlists.com/default.asp?http://www.deadlists.com/deadlists/showresults.asp?KEY=3/2/68
• dead.net, March 2: http://www.dead.net/show/march-2-1968: no attendees.

update: see http://jgmf.blogspot.com/2015/09/grateful-dead-at-cliffords-catering.html for more on these 1968 shows, including proper venue, etc. etc. What follows is just kept for the record.

I'll just discuss these together, naturally enough. Scattershot style, unfortunately, but IIWII.

dead.net lists "Looking Glass" as another billed band, not as the venue name. No venue name, just address. Funny. Given what I observe about the location below, I have a hunch that this was not a club at all, but a house party.

There is almost no information anywhere about these shows. I looked in the CC Times for evidence of this gig or, poking around this time period, listings for this venue. I found nothing. Google really turns up nothing. Corry's "Grateful Dead Tour Itinerary March-April 1968" avers that "this event and venue are the most mysterious of this time period". Neither LIA nor Ross has much to add in comments.

The location, 1300 Boulevard Way, Walnut Creek, CA, 94595, is an odd one and would have been much odder in 1968, when this area probably still had walnut trees. Boulevard Way has always been an odd little corridor in a little town that has a few of them (despite now being extreme shi-shi). It runs southwest from the shadows of the I-680 / US-24 interchange. It was an odd little no-man's land in the 1970s. Even presently, it features mixed light industrial / commercial (though not much retail) and multifamily residential. It gets a little leafier and turns due south through more single family type homes, ending at Olympic Boulevard. As I recall, that street parallels the old train tracks. Coming in off of Boulevard Way, to the right Olympic runs due west toward where Reliez Station would have been (in Lafayette). The left it runs northeast and takes you toward the southern edge of Walnut Creek.

From the street view of 1300 Boulevard Way, you get a sense of the neighborhood as it exists in my mind. Not the Nieman Marcus side of town, though presumably, now, expensive by any sane measure. It would not have been expensive in 1968. This is a pretty obscure place to have a night club, I can tell you that. I am not surprised that it (presumably!) wasn't around for very long, if it really was a nightclub. Ross speculates that it might have been a rehearsal or something. I'd guess it was a house party, or damn close to it. Maybe some kids rented a warehouse space and threw a party. Las Lomas is not that far, and the old Del Valle High School (closed 1979, thank you Proposition 13) was even closer. The absence of attendees listed at dead.net makes me very, very suspicious, and I think the dead.net notation (which probably derives from Deadbase) listing "Looking Glass" as a band and not a venue provides an important clue.

Surely if there were a psychedelic club in Walnut Creek in winter-spring 1968, even if only briefly, there would be some memory of it. Was there any psychedelic scene in the East Bay to speak of? Here's hoping one or two recllections might be jogged by this post.