Mr Mike's Hippie Love Blog

Day 53: July 28 The Dead @ Blossum Music Center - Cuyahoga Falls OH
Today was a nice day - we woke up at a good Flying J and only had about 120 miles to our next show - we already had all the supplies we needed to make some food and were just hoping for the best after the last couple shows... mainly no rain and no hassle from the security/cops. We had a pretty straight shot across Ohio to Cuyahoga Falls (South of Cleveland) on I80 it was a toll road which sucked but we will have to get used to those as we had East. We got to the venue very early and there were already some people settling in - there was no charge for parking and it was a sunny day so far. We were able to park nose first with a paved road in front of us - this parking lot was huge and had roads going through it but was mostly a grass lot. We were getting ready to set up the EZUP and everything when a security lady with a blow horn started coming down the road and saying something - so we immediately thought oh great here we go already being told to shutdown again... but we were all wrong! She was letting us know that they would let people setup here on the road, but that we were about a mile from the venue - she gave us the choice to set up here or move forward and not be able to setup - so we stayed here of course and were happy to be able to have a stress free day. We had some great vending neighbors here also - a couple nice girls from Jersey were to our left and set up a full bar and their were some good guys with a huge three tent setup on our right. We got all of the clothes up on the EZUP and put out hemp and were going to do some chilli tonite. The only problem we had here is that we didn't come in with much beer, so we would have to depend on lot prices. Most of the afternoon was spend relaxing with the storefront up and sitting in the shade ... we met a couple of kids from Minnesota who hung out most of the day and Zeke came back around today and sold lighter leashes and Grateful Dead song books between us and the bar. This kid has a helluva voice and was shouting for all of us - he also was good at finding free beer - so that worked well. Shakedown Street was very busy all day - but nobody really bought anything - Sarah sold a little bit of hemp and had a lot of people looking, but nothing else. We were setting up the kitchen after awhile also and started making chilli for after the show. This night was alot of fun even though we didn't make any money - it was nice to be set up and be able to relax - we did feed a lot of the tour kids and sold a little bit of chilli, but there just wasn't enough traffic. We hung out with people after the show for quite a while and even talked with some cops who were just great - somebody yelled "Six Up" while they were coming down Shakedown and the cops even stopped to ask us what it meant - they said that they knew it was about them but didn't get it - and we tried our best to explain it. The cops replied that it was better than what they were usually called. I told the cops that we really appreciate them being cool and letting Shakedown happen - they told me that they feel it is better to let us try to make a little money and keep moving then being too overbearing which makes tension rise. Very true. We ended up leaving this show pretty late and had a long drive ahead of us: we needed to be in Massachusetts for the next Dead show on Friday. So that means we had a day off to drive about 10 hours - yuck! Alot of the tour was heading right to Nelson's Ledges just to the East in Ohio for an aftershow party and a small show tomm. but we had to put on some miles and get to Mass for the Great Woods shows - we were hoping for good luck here because we did very well at a Trey show in 2001 - but we had also heard that this venue had changed and now it was hard to work. We drove about 45 minutes afterwards and slept at a rest stop.