When the parking lot is its own weird trip
The party outside the Dead & Company show is alive and well
Parking lots outside Grateful Dead shows were the stuff of lore, and that tradition has continued with Dead & Company, the post-Jerry Garcia incarnation of the band featuring John Mayer.
This summer, as the band tours the United States, the party outside the show is alive and well, each with a unique flavour. In New York City, when you’re exiting the subway at Citi Field, you can see Shakedown Street — as the legendary lot scene is known (named after a 1978 album by the Grateful Dead) — opposite the stadium.
For a show in Boulder, Colo., you’re on a college campus. In Saratoga Springs, N.Y., at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, you’re in a state park on grass in the woods by cornfields.
On Aug. 27 and Aug. 28, photographer OK McCausland captured the culture outside two shows: in Saratoga Springs and at Hershey Park in Hershey, Penn.
When I see these pictures, I like to close my eyes and imagine I’m walking from my old Volvo station wagon to a huge open field, with row after row of colourful VW vans, RVs and
buses. People young and old, sitting atop or just next to their vehicles, as if the lot is their front lawn. Some play music, others play games or barbecue or do anything else one can imagine while tailgating to see their favourite band.
Strangers stop strangers just to say hello when a smile is exchanged. It’s electric and contagious. The lot is like the greatest outdoor flea market in the world, with vendors all selling your favourite stuff, whatever that may be. Often the stuff finds you — things you didn’t even know you were looking for. Everyone seems to know one another, and no one looks out of place. It’s not about what they wear; it’s how they wear it. The style is captivating.
I’m drawn to people who have been wearing a T-shirt that’s seen hundreds of shows. I call it “worn in,” not worn out. Maybe it has holes from a joint or just from wear, and fits the body like a second skin.
One of the most beautiful things about Dead style to me is that it oozes authenticity. Fans may have on their favourite shirts, but they don’t appear dressed up in costume. They are in uniform, wearing the clothes rather than the other way around. Everyone looks so comfortable and familiar, like family.
Once, you’d have to be there or have a friend bring you back a T-shirt or sticker, but thanks to Instagram the lot has grown.
You may be looking at a vendor who’s been travelling in the scene for 50 years or a 15-yearold wearing his father’s old Tshirt. And inside the venue, the band plays on.