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Eyes OfThe World/The Music Never stopped

France, June 22nd: Looking For A Chateau...

On 21st June 1971, the Dead performed a legendary one-off gig in the Chateau Herouville, France. Twenty five years and one day later, French Heads honoured the occasion in a country setting just outside Paris....

LOOKING FOR A CHATEAU.... Found it. 300+ gathered at the Ferme de Boucagny, west of Paris. The sun shone most of the time till nightfall, and the only meteorological problem was a nip to the air. The site was really charming - set in a green valley, cherry trees on the campsite (and a number of people - including some visitors from Hamburg - used the facility), excellent sound system, goats in the shed, swallows on the wing, and the farmyard comfortably full. The people at the farm laid on an excellent barbecue and bar - solid fare for festivating.

Decoration wise, a large noticeboard with articles reporting the Dead's 21.6.71 Herouville gig (stories of local bouchers, boulangers and bougie-stick-makers getting down to some unprecedented bougie) and a splendid blown-up photo of their tie-died amps standing in the grass, with Garcia alone mooching centrefield, reminded those who cared what the day was about. But this was incidental to the Stealie covering the back of a truck on the main road (just in case you weren't sure you'd found the place), the swathes of tie die around the stage and, sun gone down, Mr Freeze's fractals playing round the covered stage in an unwalled barn.

Stage and time management was less together - the 1700 start slipped nearly 3 hours, and when it finished (on time!) at 0500 there were two frustrated bands (Mannish Boy and Fool Moon) unable to play.

Fantomas, an acoustic combo opened. Songs included Dark Hollow, UJB, and GDTRFB.

Les Brelouze (title deriving from combination of Jacques Brel and Blues) then took the stage. Young guys, they've played a few gigs in Paris, but not the Hot Brass and Cithea events, and so were new performers at this scene. A Dead cover band their set list (partial) ran:

Shakedown, Box of Rain, Sugar Magnolia > Scarlet >......Hard to Handle, One More Saturday Night

Followed by Cousin Medard who played a fine set of frenchified (frankincensed?) covers, concluding with St Stephen.

The two Erics (Eryx Le Mar) stepped out for guitar/bazouki and electric versons of Dupree's Diamond Blues, Throwing Stones and others. Janice de Rosa gave us a fine Joplin-style - including Don't You Need Somebody to Love, Ball and Chain...

Then the owners of the farm, going under the name S.O.E.N., took to the stage for the wierdest show of the evening. Black curtains and fluoresecent lighting strips came down, an empty wheelchair with three candles on one armrest and, on another chair, a dead man with guitar took the front of the stage, while the musicians played and sang from behind the curtains. Rivetingly bizarre....

And finally Deadicace, slightly reconstituted with Patrick Coutin on rhythm guitar, and joined by Nikki Matheson on harmony vocals, Tom ?? (who had flown in from S.F. via Frankfurt that day) taking lead vocals on the Other One and Good Lovin, and the occasional saxophonist delivered:

They Love Each Other, Next Time You See Me, Jack Straw > Sugaree, Mississippi Half Step, Playing > Space > Drums (with mini-Beast) > Cryptical > The Other One > I Need a Miracle > Playing reprise, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, The Harder They Come > Good Lovin > Deal.

By which time daylight was reappearing. After a long night, I shall retain a memory of a group of 12 people sitting in a circle singing a succession of Dead songs in the dawn. They knew all the lyrics; they were French; they were under 25; and they sang in tune.

Bill Giles <bgiles@pratique.fr>

The original 1971 Herouville show was the Dead's second jaunt to Europe (after the Hollywood Festival and before the Europe 72 tour). For the radio special to launch 100 Years Hall earlier this year, Weir and Lesh talked to David Gans about what went down...

Weir: And then the second time we went to Europe was uh, this guy Michel Mann, he had this chateau in Herouville, which is about two hours out of Paris, and the place is allegedly and quite apparently haunted by the guy -- you can still see him walkin' around there late at night and stuff like that. Kinda melancholy.

Lesh: Are you sure that's not Kreutzmann in the bushes?

Weir: Kreutzmann spent most of his time on the tennis court, as I recall. And, uh, we went over to play this, uh, this rock festival that this guy Michel had put together, and we got there, and the whole deal was rained out. But then it stopped raining. And itwas a beautiful, gorgeous day, and we figured, okay, we came all this way, what're we gonna do? Well, we've got our equipment, let's just set up and play. So we set up at the, uh, at his place,on the lawn, and all the townspeople from Herouville came, and uh, you know, the fire department, the police department, all their wives and kids and stuff like that, and we had a big party.

Lesh: With the best wines that Michel could find...and the best food...

Weir: It was a, it was a pretty swell event, really.

Lesh: We played for free for the people. I mean, complete with psychedelic light show, Light and Sound Dimension...

Weir: The whole deal -- a lot of people got thrown in the swimming pool.

Lesh: A lot of people jumped into the swimming pool...With their party dresses on and all.

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