7/28/25. Today is the anniversary of the epic Watkins Glens Summer Jam. Held 7/28/73, Shows was able to attend and it changed his life. He subsequently wrote about his experiences in his book “The Footless Girls Of Camp C.”

Here is a short blurb – We left the tent around noon, casually walked an hour or more, getting to the top of the hill, and wedging ourselves between others. We did not bring the cooler, but we carried the orange juice, a few six-packs, a gallon of water, the rest of the ‘Gorp’, and all the fruit. Basically, all of the food we had left after cold-cut sandwiches for breakfast.

The sights and sounds we saw that day? Well, besides the LSD and pot-enhanced music by all three bands, the Allman Brothers keyboard looked like it caught on fire. Naked men and women skipped about freely. A skydiver on fire….and looking dead…fell from the sky. His back was in flames. It looked like he landed in woods near the site. We never saw the police. The rows of porta-johns were disgusting but what can you do? Water trucks sprayed people and filled bottles. Trash cans? None.

All day, helicopters landed and took off from behind the stage. I would love to ride a helicopter someday. Rain, rain, and more rain interspersed with one-hundred-degree muggy sunshine.

For the second day in a row, nobody took our tickets. Twenty-three blissful Dead songs later repeating only two from the previous night, we could not be happier.

The Dead played a song, Looks Like Rain, that could not have been more foretelling for later that day. It rained so hard that The Band had to stop playing for a while. Eventually, they finished their set. The Allman Brothers were last. The night culminated with a massive jam including members of all three bands.
I dug this band called The Grateful Dead. I did not even know why. I could not hear all the words being sung nor in fact a lot of the actual music being played. The overall sense and feeling I got was mellowness, a groove underlying the songs. A groove that guided the day and the good feelings. A groove that would be with me for the rest of my life.

Late Sunday morning we woke to our tent having caved in on us. We had not even felt it. The tent was drenched. The blue tarp ground cloth was drenched. We were drenched, sunk into the mud of the soft field. We were also out of all drinks and food.

We packed the tent; and made our way back to the car where we sat wet and hungry in another massive traffic jam for hours trying to get out of town, which we did eventually.

Thankfully, we had gotten gas before we arrived on Friday. Otherwise, the car would have run dry in the traffic jam. This did not bother me. I can always get dry, I can always eat.

Crowd photos ripped off from Dead.net