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The nice thing about the Acid Test was that we could play or not. And a lot of times we’d really be too high to play, and we’d play for maybe a minute and then we’d lose it and have to leave —”This is too weird for me!” On the other hand, sometimes we’d play, and there was no pressure on us because people didn’t come to see the Grateful Dead, they came for the Acid Test; it was the whole event that counted. Therefore we weren’t in the spotlight, so when we did play, we played with a certain kind of freedom you rarely get as a musician. Not only did we not have to fulfill expectations about us, we didn’t have to fulfill expectations about music, either. So in terms of being able to experiment freely with music, it was amazing.
-Jerry Garcia

Everything is relative to the center of it all, which is music in motion through time and space. -Bill Kreutzmann

Photos: All – Ron Bevirt