ESTMPRFT
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
50 Historic Local Concerts 1956-2006
Hi, I enjoyed this article (50 Historic Local Concerts 1956-2006) as a SD native who saw many of these concerts. I do have a few comments: With regards to the 3-10-75 – Led Zeppelin show at San Diego Sports Arena, my memory seems to have reconstructed the event as more than a 14-song set, but my mind was very addled that evening. More substantially, regarding the 7-1-80 Grateful Dead at the Sports Arena, I can add some accuracy to what transpired. I was already a long time Dead Head, so when a close friend of mine announced that he was going to be a chaffuer (sp?) for some of the band that evening, I managed to obtain a backstage pass. Got to meet the band before the show and schmooze, and was invited to a party with them at Bill Walton's (a former classmate of mine from Helix) house afterward. After the show, in the backstage area (where I had been on and off all evening), what seemed to be dozens of SD's finest converged on some guy (that I hadn't seen previously) running through the area and pounced on him with their clubs. He was down on the ground with teeth and blood squirting all over the place. They were beating him senseless right between where the dressing rooms lead to the limos. (Garcia had already left.) By then the roadies and some of the band were surrounding the carnage. Mickey Hart and Bob Weir tried to intervene with Weir telling the cops that "There's a better way to handle this." He was rewarded by being placed in a choke hold and then they started muscling Hart around also. The roadies were yelling stuff like "If your going to arrest them, you'll have to take all of us away." BIt was a near riot. y now there must have been 50 cops there, and they whisked away Hart, Weir, and band manager Danny Rifkin. Hart and Weir were charged with inciting a riot and Rifkin with possession. The finest alleged that they had seen this guy (who wasn't there all nite) give a vial of some substance (never produced in court) to Rifkin. I saw no such thing, and I saw it all. The truer story goes like this: The Dead, after there late 70's Golden Hall shows, were told never to appear in SD again or there would be trouble - this was the reprecussion. The guy who got beat up was planted (other previous charges dismissed) to set up the band - I am sure he didn't know that having his face rearranged was part of the deal. I left the backstage area of the arena as the chaos subsided, walking circuitously to my car to make sure I wasn't followed, pealed off the Dead stickers so the cops couldn't ID me, and drove home very carefully. There was no party that night. And that is what REALLY happened. -Estimated Prophet/ESTMPRFT (Kurt)— October 2, 2008 12:48 p.m.