When the Grateful Dead played a free show in a French town square
It was one of the stranger images in the history of rock music: in the quaint town square of Lille, France, a group of burly and hairy Americans stepped off their tour bus, constructed a makeshift stage, and began blasting out psychedelic jam music. Among their audience were coal miners and elderly day shoppers. Whether they were ready for it or not, Lille was getting a heavy dose of the Grateful Dead.
The Dead were no strangers to free shows. Especially during their freewheeling days as 1960s countercultural leaders, the band would often show up unannounced at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, Central Park in New York City, and just about anywhere that they could find. They even played at the Chateau d’Herouville – better known as Elton John’s “Honky Chateau” – in 1971, setting a precedent of free shows in France.
Evidently, there was one fan who believed that the band needed to keep this tradition alive. While embarking on their Europe 72 tour, the Dead finished up their second concert at The Olympia in Paris, France, when a disgruntled fan approached their hotel room window. He began shouting that the concert should have been free, and to shut him up, roadie Rex Jackson dumped his chocolate ice cream on the fan’s velvet jacket.
Not taking too kindly to the Dead’s negotiating tactics, the fan found one of the band’s equipment trucks and dumped a certain substance into the fuel tank. The band was supposed to play at the Lille Opera House on May 5th, but when the truck didn’t make it, some of the band members had to tell the audience the band news. On the verge of a near-riot, the band and road personnel escaped through a dressing room window, but not before promising to return to play a free concert.
A week later, the Dead made good on that promise. “We came back—I think it was a week later—and played a free concert in the town square of Lille, where the audience [were] the local townspeople, who had no idea what the heck was going on,” recalled Rosie McGee, the band’s close friend and translator for the French gigs. “They were walking their dogs and pushing their baby carts and having lunch and whatever. We set up a little stage and did a gig. It was a glorious day: it turned out to be really great.”
“That was one of the highest concerts ever, that we ever did — in the central marketplace of Lille for about 6,000 coal miners, all standing there in their helmets with black faces,” road manager Sam Cutler recalled in the Good Ol’ Grateful Dead podcast. “It was really weird with their kind of wives and girlfriends [begins to speak in mock French accent]: ‘What is this? These crazy Americans! Oh, but the music is very good…’
“It was a beautiful day too,” Phil Lesh explained in 1995. “The light in France, there’s nothing like it — It’s understandable why it has produced so many great painters. It was one of those days. We played in the park, and there were working people: real French working people, the kind that Van Gogh would paint, again. There they were, sitting down in front.”
It was a brisk midday concert, the only outdoor gig of the run. Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan was especially endangered to the elements, and photos of him bundled up can be found in the original Europe 72 booklet.
“Pigpen in particular, who was pretty ill—he only had a couple weeks left of touring with the Dead. Pigpen was really bundled up,” Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux recalled in the podcast. “I don’t think that cold was good for any of them, but not him. But the whole band is bundled up. It was very cold, it was a daytime show. The Dead did a full show! They didn’t show up and play for an hour and say, ‘Here you go, it’s the least we could do.’ They played a full two-set show with an ‘Other One’”.
Although none of the songs performed would be included in the final Europe 72 tracklisting, the free Lille show was perhaps the most “Grateful Dead” gig that the band played on the tour. Check out audio from the Dead playing ‘Mr. Charlie’ in Lille down below.
