A free 50th anniversary Grateful Dead tribute show this Sunday caps off a summer of hard work alongside Deckers Creek.
Fifty years ago this year, the Grateful Dead took time off from their grueling tour schedule to record an album. On September 28, 1975, they celebrated the release of that album, Blues for Allah, by treating about 50,000 people to a free show at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. The set list included the new tunes with some old favorites like “Beat It On Down the Line” and “Truckin’.”
This Sunday, September 28, you can hear that full set performed on its 50th anniversary—for free, just like the first time around—by the Morgantown tribute band Dead All Along. And the setting is nearly as majestic: the recently refreshed space along Deckers Creek at the South High Street bridge.
If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve heard a lot about this space lately. In June, a fun pop-up art project called the Deckers Creek Mushroom Trail was installed there, along with a book trail laid out by the Morgantown Public Library. In August, the 6,500-square-foot mural “The Wild Thread of High Street” was completed on the back of South High Street Station, overlooking the Deckers Creek rail-trail and the creek. And all through the spring and summer, the volunteer group Morgantown Forward has organized groups of hardy people to pick up trash, clear vines and brush, and paint bridge pillars.
What was until recently an overgrown, garbage-strewn riverbank is now a big, grassy lawn and a clean, inviting stretch of rail-trail close to downtown.
The September 28 concert is “a manifestation of my dreams,” says L.J. Giuliani, owner of 123 Pleasant Street and an organizer and volunteer with Morgantown Forward. He’d raised the idea of a show by the creek to Walt Sarkees of Dead All Along a year ago, he says, and Sarkees suggested this 50th anniversary concert. The timing is perfect for capping off the summer of Morgantown Forward’s hard-won accomplishment at the South High Street Bridge—work that’s part of a much larger vision.
“The idea is for the Deckers Creek trail to connect downtown and the Wharf District with the neighborhoods, Morgantown High School, and Whitemore and Marilla parks,” Giuliani says. “Things are moving in that direction.”
The cleanup of this stretch of trail builds on decades of work by and collaboration between Friends of Deckers Creek, the Mon River Trails Conservancy, the city of Morgantown, Main Street Morgantown, and other agencies and groups.
Can Morgantown round up 50,000 people for a free concert? Show up from 2 to 6 p.m. on Sunday, September 28, to find out. There will be food vendors, and people are invited to BYOB—the event is on private property.
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