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

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.