Friend Of the Devils: West Virginia, 4/78

Rich Mahan (0:05)

The Good Ol Grateful Deadcast, the official podcast of The Grateful Dead. I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarnow, exploring the music and legacy of The Grateful Dead for The Committed And The Curious.

Ladies and gentlemen, fellow Deadheads, welcome to season 10 of The Good Ol Grateful Deadcast. I'm your co-host Rich Mahan. Thank you very much for tuning in. In this episode of The Good Ol Grateful Deadcast, we wrap up our look at the new Grateful Dead box set, Friend Of The Devils, and head to the April 16th, 1978 show in Huntington, West Virginia. This new limited edition Friend Of The Devils is almost sold out and with good reason. The band was playing great in spring 78, and as the name suggests, this 19th CD box set features eight unreleased concerts showing the rise of drums and space as second set traditions. Friend Of The Devils, April 1978 includes complete shows from Curtis Hickson Convention Hall in Tampa, Florida, on 4-6, the Sportatorium in Pembroke Pines, Florida, on 4-7, Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Jacksonville on 4-8, the Fox Theater in Atlanta, Georgia, for two shows on 4-10 and 4-11, Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke University, that's the one with the great video from 4-12, Castle Coliseum in Virginia and Blacksburg on 4-14, and the Huntington Civic Center, the feature of today's episode on 4-16. The Concert at Duke is the breakout show from this box and will also be released separately. Duke 78 is available in 3CD, 4LP, and digital configurations. Both Duke 78 and the limited edition Friend of the Devils are out now. More info and orders are happening at dead.net. Head on over to dead.net/deadcast. Check out all of our past episodes, including the complete seasons 1 through 9 and everything we've released in season 10 so far. You can link from there to your favorite podcasting platform, and you can listen how you like to listen. Please help us by subscribing. Share this podcast with your friends on social media. Hit the like button. Leave us a review. Thank you. It helps more than you realize. Do you have a great tour story you'd like to share? Well, do it over at stories.dead.net. Record yourself telling about that epic road trip or the best show you ever saw, and you just may hear yourself on a future episode of The Deadcast.

We have transcripts for many of your favorite Deadcast episodes available now for your reading pleasure. Head on over to dead.net/deadcastdashindex and check them out. The April 16th, 1978 show at the Huntington Civic Center in Huntington, West Virginia was a heater, and we've got some great stories from heads that were there to illustrate just how great it was. A bonus, you also get some insight into Jerry's playing approaches from the man himself, and we delve into some very fashionable aspects of the band scene. Here comes Jesse Jarnow, Down The Runway Now.

Jesse Jarnow (3:56)

Grateful Dead hasn't been in Grateful Dead set lists since 1970, but maybe a few hardcore deadheads made copies to listen to for their trip across the Blue Ridge Mountains, going from Williamsburg to our final stop on Friend of the Devils in Huntington, West Virginia. Once again, Grateful Dead Archivist and Legacy Manager, David Lemieux.

David Lemieux (4:49)

Huntington, again, I had to look on a map like Blacksburg. These are places that, I mean, this isn't New York City, this isn't Boston, this is Huntington, West Virginia. Cool venue. I get a little bit more out of the show by kind of envisioning what the venue looks like inside and out.

Jesse Jarnow (5:07)

We've posted links to James R. Anderson's photos of the venue on the day of the dead gig, where you can see the modern brick building, the cemented entrance area, the still bare April trees, and the venue's fountain.

David Lemieux (5:18)

I feel that at the final three shows of the box, or two shows plus Williamsburg, the 14th, 15th, 16th, they got to a plateau. So they'd been building and they started strong, and they kept going with the momentum until they got to that weekend, till the Friday, Saturday, Sunday of the 14th, 15th, 16th, and then they plateaued there.

Jesse Jarnow (6:08)

As we've heard over the past few episodes, as the tour curled northwards, it picked up more and more followers the closer they got to the northeast. People had been regularly following the dead around in the northeast since at least 1970, but after the bans returned to the road in 1976 especially, it became something more like a national pastime for a certain cohort of people. Here's how Jerry Garcia described the fan base to WHMR in November 1978