1985 Grateful Dead Tickets Bill Walton Larry Bird Boston Celtics Attend 2 Shows

Description: Very Rare - 2 Full Tickets - November 4 and 5, 1985Amazing Moment in History / Music - Sports Crossover1985 Grateful Dead Tickets Bill Walton Larry Bird Boston Celtics Attend 2 Shows Bill Walton took some Celtics teammates to a Grateful Dead concert 35 years ago todayUSA TODAY The Grateful Dead took the stage at The Centrum in Worcester, Massachusetts, on Nov. 4, 1985. Band members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Brent Mydland, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann checked their instruments, ensuring they were ready and then launched into the set opener “Alabama Getaway.” Sitting off to the side on the stage that night were members of the Boston Celtics, including noted Deadhead Bill Walton. Thirty-five years ago, Walton enticed members of the Celtics, including Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Rick Carlisle and Robert Parish among others to attend two Grateful Dead concerts on Nov. 4-5. “Two of my favorite subjects – the Grateful Dead and Boston Celtics,” Walton told USA TODAY Sports on Monday. For Walton, basketball and music are passions, and he ascribes a personal philosophy to both. “The Celtics and the Grateful Dead represent so much of everything I believe in, live for and try to do with my life,” Walton explained. “Because of the culture Red (Auerbach) had built, the Celtics were a family organization. The Grateful Dead, that’s a family as well. They both have the ability to inspire, encourage and to allow you to be you and to become something that is bigger and better and more important than you as an individual.” Like a Dead show itself, details are a bit hazy – fact, fiction and myth woven in a kaleidoscope of sights and sounds. “Thirty-five years ago is a long time,” said Hart, the band's percussionist. Who's that guy standing up? Mid-'80s Dead was an interesting time. It was past the counterculture heyday of the '60s and '70s and just before its most mainstream popularity with “Touch of Grey.” Still, tie-dyed, diehard Deadheads flocked to shows. The Dead toured relentlessly in 1985 with winter, spring, summer and fall shows across the USA – 71 concerts culminating with a New Year’s Eve show in Oakland, California. The fall ’85 tour began on Oct. 26 in Hollywood, Florida, and worked its way north – Tampa, Florida; Atlanta, Georgia; Columbia, South Carolina; Richmond, Virginia and then Worcester for two shows. Worcester is an hour west of Boston, and the 1985-86 NBA season had just begun. It was Walton’s first season with the Celtics, who lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in six games in the Finals that spring. Walton was considered a key backup who gave them depth. Boston opened the season Oct. 25 with a loss and then won its next four games. The schedule makers gave Walton a birthday gift. The Celtics didn’t have a game from Nov. 3-7. “That’s how life works with the Grateful Dead,” Walton said. “Never discount the intentional decisions that are made as to where, when, what, how and why they play.” Walton is a longtime Deadhead, first seeing the band in 1967 when he was 15. He said he has seen more than 1,000 Dead or Dead-related shows (Legion of Mary, Jerry Garcia Band, Ratdog and Dead and Co, featuring John Mayer). The music has been an important part of his life for more than five decades. Bill Walton has become friends with members of the Grateful Dead. Here he's shown at home in 1997.Hart, who remembered watching Walton at UCLA and then with the Portland Trail Blazers, looked out into the crowd at a concert and asked, “Why is everyone sitting down and that one guy standing up?” Hart recalled. Longtime Dead crew member and executive Lawrence "Ramrod" Shurtliff said, “Everyone is standing up. That’s Bill Walton.” “Bring him up here,” said Hart, who became close friends with Walton. Even though Walton was a Celtics newcomer, it didn’t stop him from trying to indoctrinate teammates into the world of the Dead. He placed stickers all over the locker room at the practice facility at Hellenic College in Brookline. Walton, who has played percussion with the band on occasion, wanted his teammates to “get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right,” as the band sings in "Scarlet Begonias." Danny Ainge was not persuaded. Walton implored Ainge to give the music a shot. Ainge did not find the light no matter how hard he tried. Walton gave him a cassette to listen to, and Ainge returned it, asking if maybe one song could help him understand the music. “I came back,” Ainge said, “and said, ‘I can’t really get into it.’ He rips the cassette tape out of my hand and says, ‘When you’re a Dead fan, it’s all one song.’ ” There was a rumor Ainge’s wife wouldn’t let him go to the concerts, but Ainge dispelled that. "I could have gone if I wanted to. I just didn’t want to go,” he said. Bill WaltonIf you visit some Dead message boards, fans were sure they saw Ainge at one of the Worcester shows. “Wasn’t me. Must have been Rick Carlisle or Scott Wedman," Ainge said. Carlisle saw a Dead show as a student at the University of Virginia and was all in on seeing more. Carlisle said he has attended 25-30 Dead shows. “It’s a cultural experience,” said Carlisle who counts "New Minglewood Blues" and "Jack Straw" as some of his favorite Dead songs. “But it’s a different experience going with Bill Walton. In ensuing years, I went to a lot of shows with Bill and ended up getting to know the guys in the band and some of their stage crew.” Carlisle, who plays the piano, also befriended Bruce Hornsby who ended up playing keyboard for the Dead in the 1990s. 'Hope, optimism, peace and love' The Grateful Dead was by no means a sports-minded band, but it has had a long connection to sports from singing the national anthem at games to its relationship with the Lithuanian men’s national basketball team. Ahead of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, Lithuania’s national men's basketball team was in need of funding. The band stepped up by making a donation and giving proceeds to the team from selling the famous Lithuania tie-dyed Dead T-shirts, which featured a skeleton dunking a basketball. “They needed our help,” said Hart, who also helped compose music for the opening ceremony at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. During the World Series last month, executive producers at Fox Sports played several Dead songs leading into commercials between innings, and Walton narrated a documentary on action sports featuring Grateful Dead music. While not a huge sports fan, Hart wore a Celtics jacket during the latter half of the 1980s because of Walton.As Walton explains it, days before the Worcester shows in ’85, Bird and McHale cornered him before a practice.“They said, ‘What’s going on?’ ” Walton said. “I told them, ‘Getting ready to practice.’“Nah, something’s going on here. All kinds of new people in town. They’ve got long hair and they’re wearing these crazy shirts that you always wear and everything smells different.”“I have no idea what you guys are talking about.”“Are the Grateful Dead coming to town?”“Yes.” “Are you going?” “Yes I am.” “Can we come, too?” “I believe we can make this happen.” On Nov. 4, Celtics players met at Bird’s house and he arranged for limousines to take players to Worcester, according to Walton, who introduced players and the band before the show. Just before the band busted into "Alabama Getaway," Garcia made eye contact with Bird and said, “This is what we do,” Walton recalled. Bird was apparently hooked. “Jerry Garcia was the Michael Jordan of musicians," Bird said in a 2002 online chat at usatoday.com. “It was incredible blend of two cultures that stand for so much of the same things: working together to make a better tomorrow with hope, optimism, peace and love – important values,” Walton said. “The surge of energy that comes from a Grateful Dead concert and a Boston Celtics game drives you to incredible heights of capability, creativity, imagination and performance. It’s on.” The following day, members of the Grateful Dead attended a Celtics practice and Bird and McHale overwhelmed Hart in games of one-on-one. (Don't forget, the Celtics, who won the title that season, were coached by K.C. Jones and one of the band’s most popular songs is 'Casey Jones,' a coincidence not lost on Walton.) “It was humiliating to say the least,” Hart said. “Larry comes straight toward me and he says to me, ‘Walton tells me that you want to see how good I really am.’ Larry passes the ball right at me like a rocket. I was 15 feet away. I grabbed it, and thought at the very moment, this is not a good thing. He pulls me onto the court and says, ‘Me and you.’ I couldn’t even get a shot off. He started checking me really hard, and I said, ‘Hey Larry, I’ve got to play (drums) tonight.’ ” Later that night, Walton and some Celtics players attended the second show in Worcester. Just before the band opened the second set with "Shakedown Street," it sang "Happy Birthday" to Walton, who turns 68 on Thursday. Walton says his lifelong relationship with the Grateful Dead has “been right at the top of one of the greatest things that has ever happened in my life. I’m the luckiest guy in the world." 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End Time: 2024-10-29T04:10:55.000Z

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