THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 26, 1996 TAG: 9606260382
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CRAIG SHAPIRO, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 133 lines
On a typical workday, Mike Tabor gets to the office at 9 a.m., sometimes 9:30.
Tuesday was not a typical workday.
The mammoth Furthur Festival - with five bands, including two fronted by members of the Grateful Dead, solo artists, jugglers and 25 vendors in tow - was rolling into the Virginia Beach Amphitheater that afternoon.
Tabor, the amphitheater's general manager, was at his desk early.
And he was ready. He caught the festival Sunday in Raleigh. Another senior staffer saw it Saturday in Charlotte. Monday, Tabor briefed his crew on what to expect.
``Anytime you go down and check out an event early, you have two main objectives,'' he said Tuesday morning.
``No. 1 is logistics, the set-ups for the vendors and artists.
``Of course, you also go to check out the general public's personality.''
Translation: the Deadheads.
The festival is the first extensive tour by members of the Dead since the death last August of bandleader Jerry Garcia. Furthur headliners include Dead guitarist Bob Weir and percussionist Mickey Hart.
It's the closest thing that devoted fans - the Deadheads - are likely to find to the free-wheeling marathon of dance, music and brotherhood that the Dead generated in their decades of touring.
Not only was the Furthur Festival the biggest party staged so far at the 6-week-old amphitheater, Virginia Beach was just the fourth stop for the tour.
Hence Tabor's trip to Raleigh, where some 9,000 happy-to-be-there fans danced the day and night away. He expected a similar turnout Tuesday.
``I felt a lot more comfortable about it coming here. It was a nice, easy set-up from a logistical standpoint. And the crowd was nice and calm.
``Unfortunately, we're on the front end (of the schedule). If it stays together and comes by next year, it will probably get bigger.''
Vendor Bill Kimble can go into a detailed scientific explanation of how the ``Daydreamer: Psychedelic Flight Simulator'' creates its intricate patterns and array of colors. Or he can tell you how his customers react: ``I've done a lot of drugs,'' they tell him, ``but I've never seen anything like this.''
Here's how it works: Put on the mask, point it at the sun and, keeping your eyes closed, blow into a tube to spin a patterned wheel. The designs projected on the eyelids are the geometric makeup of the optic nerve, Kimball said. It also creates a strobe effect.
``What you're getting is a synchronized brainwave frequency,'' Kimble said. ``It's a very intricate light show of the mind.''
Kimble and partner Todd Van Vactor, both of Indianapolis, were among the vendors setting up at 11 a.m. - three hours before the gates opened and five hours before the music began. They arrived in rented trucks, campers and vans with bumper stickers reading ``Weir Everywhere'' and ``Dead Serious.'' Grateful Dead tunes blared from a half-dozen stereos.
``Hey people, let's everyone play a different song, O.K.?'' shouted Harry Popick, surveying the site. Popick, who operated the Dead's monitor-mixer for 20 years of concerts, is coordinating the vendors' fair.
Applicants were solicited in early April through the Internet and the Dead hotline. Some 500 responded, including a fellow who sent in three pages of poetry. The chosen 25 met last Wednesday in Atlanta, the day before the summer-long festival kicked off.
Among the T-shirts, shorts, bandanas, beads and tie-dyed bedsheets on sale were exhibits of art by Garcia, cartoonist R. Crumb, and John Lennon, and the Cybertent, a computer bank hooked up to Deadnet and web sites. The web page is updated after each concert.
Just for Tuesday, parking lot E at the amphitheater was rechristened ``Shakedown Street.'' Named for a bluesy Dead song, it was the designated Deadhead rendezvous area.
And if the Deadheads, who typically followed the band's tour in a funky caravan, weren't exactly out in force, they were there in spirit.
Some kicked around a hacky sack, others created their own rhythms on bongos and congos. Unofficial vendors were selling incense and massage oil, grilled cheese sandwiches, and ice-cold drinks.
Mark Dragiewicz, 25, and Carrie Mullikin, 24, met four years ago at a Dead concert in Sacramento, Calif., and have been on tour since. They drove five days from Tempe, Ariz., to pick up the festival in Atlanta and plan to stay with it until the final date, Aug. 4, in Phoenix. The couple financed their trip by selling handmade jewelry; their van is their home.
``Thanks to the Grateful Dead, we've been everywhere in the U.S. and a few foreign counties,'' said Dragiewicz, who recently graduated from Arizona State University with a degree in biology.
``We get out here early, sell some stuff, and spend all day hearing good music. After the show we make a few more bucks and get to camp out.''
By his own count, Kevin Chimielewski saw the Grateful Dead more than 500 times. A machinist from central New Jersey, he planned his vacation around this festival, sandwiching the Beach date between Sunday's show in Raleigh and the upcoming Friday concert in Noblesville, Ind. After a few days back at work, he'll be in Saratoga, N.Y., for the July 6 jam.
``We have to keep the tradition going, definitely,'' said Chimielewski, 39. ``There's a lot of good energy between us and the bands. We give them energy and they give us energy back.''
He wasn't due to play until 7:30, after Bruce Hornsby and before Mickey Hart's Mystery Box, so Alvin Youngblood Hart had plenty of time to talk about hooking up with the festival.
A young, front-porch bluesman from Oakland, Calif., Hart (no relation to Mickey Hart) spends about a half-hour on stage, with only his guitar.
``I get to be seen by a lot more people,'' he said, talking backstage at the amphitheater in the early evening. ``But I don't know if they get to hear it. But it's certainly a good opportunity. I'm glad I'm not cutting down trees, which I was doing for a while there.''
Hart, whose debut album ``Big Momma's Door'' came out this spring and met Bob Weir through mutual friends. Weir was recording in his home studio with blues great Taj Mahal one night, and Hart was asked to sit in.
Flash forward a year, and the young musician's on a megabill that includes Hornsby and Hot Tuna, playing in front of thousands of people who may not even know his music. The biggest revelation, though, has been witnessing the technical crew at work.
Hart is used to traveling light.
``For every one person on stage, there must be 10 working backstage,'' he said. ``I'm just sort of doing this as a representative of the music and culture.
``People don't realize that 60 or 70 years ago, people danced all night long to this kind of music.''
Have audiences for the Furthur Festival responded in kind?
``It's inevitable,'' Hart said. ILLUSTRATION: VICKI CRONIS color photos, The Virginian-Pilot
Chad Tignor, 22, of Virginia Beach plays his homemade didgeridoo, a
traditional Australian instrument, while waiting for Tuesday's show.
Los Lobos was one of the acts that hit the stage before the members
of the Grateful Dead.
VICKI CRONIS photos, The Virginian-Pilot
April Jackson, 16, of Richmond, cools off in the Rain Room after
leaving the parking lot at the Furthur Festival.
Two fans take a break from the sun and the crowd Tuesday in the
Virginia Beach Amphitheater parking lot. Saying they wanted to be
known only as Vivian, 18, and Zach, 22, the pair said they've gone
to all the Furthur Festival shows so far and intend to keep
following the tour. by CNB