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Interviewer: “…[How much do you think that] official pressure had to do with it turning into weirdness? That is in terms of the cops coming in popping everybody….do you remember the sweeps up and down the street?”
Jerry Garcia: “Well, that was one level of it. But I think there was another level of it too. There were people who wanted to see that kind of confrontation and were anxious and happy, really, to get that kind of forum to work in. You know, ‘street theater’ so to speak… It meant having a big crowd to be able to intimidate in one way or another – either – for whoever was playing the game. For the cops on their half of it, for the people on the street who were into organizing… You know, there was always the first guy who threw the bottle. There was always that guy who just decided, ‘Let’s convert the potential of this crowd to violence, right now. Let’s not wait.’ And that would be the guy. As far as I was concerned, that one guy, whoever he was, whoever he was in any of those situations, was the Main Asshole, regardless of who else was playing in the game. Whether it was the cops or the National Guard or any of that. But whoever was dumb enough to provoke such an obviously violent thing. I mean… you know, what’s the point? That always seemed stupid to me…. It was exciting for a while. That time the National Guard came down the street was about as weird as it could get. I’m from San Francisco and I never experienced anything at that level of real weirdness. It was almost enough to make you want to hate. But not quite, not really. But that was weird. National Guardsmen with bayonets coming down Haight Street. It’ was so crazy, it was like, what’s this for?'”
BY PATRICK BYRNE