SET I — Cold Open: Under the Traffic Light
He was seventeen and not old enough to drink.
The bartenders in his small Western New York town knew the kids anyway. They kicked down a few beers as long as nobody got loud. The bar was the St. Stephen Hotel on Main Street in Brocton — about forty-five minutes southwest of Buffalo on Route 20. After they turned the only traffic light off, the boys used to drink under it.
One July night — he dated it the 2nd or the 3rd — his friend Jamie looked at a man sitting at the bar and said what every underage kid in a grape town is going to say sooner or later.
"Man, you look like Jerry Garcia."
The man looked at him.
"That's funny — I am."
A Reddit poster writing as DrSukmibals put those lines on the public net under his own handle, with a photo of the hotel that still carries the name. That is the claim this piece will carry from him. One small-town bar. One napkin. One handshake that meant almost nothing until later.
SET I — Act One: What the Books Will Carry Without Him
I am not inventing which Rich Stadium night he was getting ready for.
What the public floor will hold without Brocton is narrower and harder. Dead.net and JerryBase keep Sunday, July 2, 1989, at Sullivan Stadium in Foxborough: Playing in the Band into Crazy Fingers to open, Tennessee Jed and To Lay Me Down before the break, Friend of the Devil to start the second set, Truckin' into He's Gone into Eyes, Dear Mr. Fantasy into Hey Jude into Sugar Magnolia, Quinn the Eskimo for the encore. Two days later the same books keep Tuesday, July 4, at Rich Stadium in Orchard Park — Bertha into Greatest Story, Cold Rain, Row Jimmy, Stagger Lee, Looks Like Rain into Deal; then Touch of Grey, Ship of Fools into a Playing reprise into Terrapin, Morning Dew, Not Fade Away, U.S. Blues for the Fourth of July encore. Rhino later boxed that Buffalo night as Truckin' Up to Buffalo.
The poster dated his bar night July 2nd or 3rd and said he always loved the Buffalo Rich Stadium shows. He and his friends were getting ready to hit Milestrip Road. Between Foxborough on the 2nd and Rich Stadium on the 4th there is a quiet day on the summer book. Brocton sits on the road into that stadium country. I am leaving the stub as his memory against that shelf. What the setlists will carry without him is the Fourth of July stadium with Morning Dew already played in the rain.
SET I — Act Two: Grape Farmer, Napkin, Milestrip
The longer tell fills the room.
Jerry looked like any other grape farmer in the area. He was pretty preoccupied talking with another group of guys who also looked like they could have been locals. Great laugh. Jamie got an autograph on a napkin. They shook hands. At seventeen, DrSukmibals wrote, he did not really understand what had just happened. They went about their night looking to get ready for Buffalo. They were more interested in scoring bud and booze.
He grew up there. The scenery was awesome except the winters. He was the kid who wanted to be a pirate when he grew up, so it was not until he got older that meeting Jerry actually meant something. He moved to the Bay Area and took up construction. He still remembered drinking under the only traffic light after they turned it off. He wrote that if you ever get to Western New York, that bar is still there.
A reply in the same thread, signed AugustWest7120, added the local color without claiming the napkin: Jerry loved the WNY area, especially the scenery — the gorges near Ithaca, the Oneonta country, nature for days. Those sentences are other people's. The handshake is DrSukmibals'.
I have no second source for the napkin. It lives in the same post as the grape-farmer line. I am leaving it attached to his name.
SET II — Same Country, Jerry's Other Payroll
Four years after that Fourth of July stadium book, Jerry's own band took Buffalo again.
November 5, 1993. Buffalo Memorial Auditorium. Jerry Garcia Band. Melvin Seals on keys. David Kemper on drums. Jacklyn LaBranch and Gloria Jones on vocals. John Kahn on bass. JerryGarcia.com still prints the set: Cats Under the Stars. Mission in the Rain. Simple Twist of Fate. That's What Love Will Make You Do. Ain't No Bread in the Breadbox. Like a Road Leading Home. Deal. Then Shining Star, The Maker, Think, Reuben and Cherise, Gomorrah, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, How Sweet It Is to close.
That night is not Brocton. It is not Rich Stadium. It is Jerry's other band in the same metro the kid was driving toward on Milestrip Road, playable on this site without leaving.
If you want the quieter Western New York shelf beside the stadium years, November 27, 1984, at the Auditorium Theater in Rochester is still on the official pages — Garcia and Kahn, Deep Elem into Ripple, Robert Hunter opening. Two chairs. Same state. Different payroll.
DRUMS/SPACE — Napkin, Book, Traffic Light
Three documents again.
A named first-person bar night: seventeen, underage beers, a grape-farmer face at the St. Stephen, a napkin for Jamie, a handshake that landed late.
A July 1989 East Coast shelf with Foxborough on the 2nd and Rich Stadium on the 4th, Morning Dew and U.S. Blues still in the official Buffalo book.
A Buffalo Memorial Auditorium Jerry Garcia Band set from November 1993, Cats into Mission into a second set that ends on How Sweet It Is, still on the tape shelf here.
The napkin does not prove July 4. July 4 does not prove the traffic light. They sit next to each other the way Goldberg's side-door thank-you sat next to an early Winterland book — separate papers, same attention paid. A kid said you look like Jerry Garcia. Jerry said that's funny — I am. They shook hands. The kid went looking for Milestrip Road. The meaning waited.
ENCORE — What to Play
If you want the stadium night the Brocton kids were pointed at, start with July 4, 1989, at Rich Stadium — Touch of Grey into the second set, Morning Dew in the rain, U.S. Blues for the Fourth. The official pages are easy to find, and the Truckin' Up to Buffalo release still carries the night. If you want the show two days earlier on the same run, July 2 at Sullivan Stadium in Foxborough opens Playing into Crazy Fingers.
On this site, the playable night from that same Western New York country is November 5, 1993 — Jerry Garcia Band at Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, Cats Under the Stars into Mission in the Rain into a set that closes How Sweet It Is. Press play there if you want Jerry's band in the city the napkin was pointed toward. DrSukmibals' full post is still on Reddit under the St. Stephen Hotel thread. The grape farmer is still in it. So is the napkin. So is that's funny — I am.