SET I — Cold Open: The Side Door
Winterland, 1972. The show was over. People were still trying to get their bearings outside when a little door in the side of the building opened.
Out came Billy. Then Pigpen. Then Jerry, walking fast.
Michael D. Goldberg was standing close enough that Jerry was already ten feet past him before he realized he wanted to say something. He could not think what. Jerry was almost out of earshot when his mouth opened by itself.
"Thank you, man!"
Jerry stopped dead in his tracks. Turned on his heel. Looked him right in the eye.
"No, man... thank you!"
Goldberg put those sentences on Usenet the day after Garcia died, August 10, 1995, under his own name. Hoboes still hosts the post under Memories. He signed it bayboy. That is the claim this piece will carry from him. One night, one side door, one flipped thank-you.
SET I — Act One: What the Books Will Carry Without Him
I am not inventing which Winterland night he was standing outside.
What the public floor will hold without Goldberg is narrower and harder. In early 1972 the Grateful Dead were still playing that room with Pigpen in the lineup. Dead.net keeps January 2: Truckin', Mr. Charlie, Chinatown Shuffle, a Good Lovin' that swallows China Cat and spits it back, Pigpen songs still in the book. JerryGarcia.com keeps March 5, an American Indian benefit at the same arena — Next Time You See Me, Mr. Charlie, Good Lovin' to close — with Ron McKernan listed beside Keith Godchaux. Pigpen's last Grateful Dead performance was June 17, 1972, at the Hollywood Bowl — dead.net still marks the night that way. By the December Winterland run that year, the setlists no longer need him.
Goldberg dated his walk 1972 and put Billy and Pigpen in front of Jerry. That places the memory inside the short window when those three could still leave a Winterland stage door in that order. I am leaving the stub blank. The exchange is his. The early-year Winterland book is the shelf it sits on.
SET I — Act Two: The Sentence That Turned Around
Most thank-yous die in the air between a fan and a famous back. This one came back flipped.
Goldberg wrote that his heart was in his mouth. He wrote that Jerry stopped, turned, looked him in the eye, and returned the courtesy with the same two words in the other order. Then the post opens into the bigger grief of August 1995 — good times, loving music, a vision that outlives the concerts — and lands on the same phrase he threw at the side door: thank you, man.
I am not going to decorate what that meant. The public sentence is short enough. A man said thank you. The man he thanked said it back.
SET II — Same Floor, Different Band
Three years after Goldberg's year, Jerry's own band took that room again.
December 19, 1975. Winterland Arena. Jerry Garcia Band. Nicky Hopkins on keys. Ron Tutt on drums. John Kahn on bass. JerryGarcia.com still prints the set: Sugaree. Catfish John. That's What Love Will Make You Do. Sitting Here In Limbo. Lady Sleeps. Mystery Train. I'll Take A Melody. Pig's Boogie. Mission In The Rain. Kingfish, Keith and Donna, and Clover on the bill with them.
That night is not Goldberg's night. It is the same floor with a different payroll, after Pigpen was gone, after the Dead had already made Winterland a second home. The tape is on this site. You can press play without leaving.
DRUMS/SPACE — Two Words, Both Ways
Three documents again.
A named Usenet memory: a side door, a late shout, a full stop and a turn.
An early-1972 Winterland book that still has Pigpen walking out of the building with the band.
A December 1975 Jerry Garcia Band set on the same boards, playable now.
The thank-you does not prove January 2. January 2 does not prove the eye contact. They sit next to each other the way Stephen's Front Street breakfast sat next to Hampton — separate papers, same attention paid. Goldberg threw two words at a man who did not have to stop. Jerry stopped. He sent the words back.
ENCORE — What to Play
If you want the early-1972 Winterland shelf Goldberg's walk belongs beside, start with January 2 and March 5, 1972 — Pigpen still in the set, Good Lovin' still his to drive. The official pages are easy to find.
On this site, the playable night in that room is December 19, 1975 — Jerry Garcia Band at Winterland, Hopkins and Tutt, Sugaree into Catfish John into a set that ends on Mission In The Rain. Press play there if you want Jerry's band on those boards. Goldberg's full post is still at hoboes under Memories. The side door is still in it. So is the turn. So is thank you, both ways.