Mosquitoes, Bats, Bedouins with Guns: Grateful Dead In Egypt '78 [Highlight From Episode 337]

Author Harry Angus reads a quote from Grateful Dead's Bob Weir, who recalled the night the band performed in Egypt in 1978. The quote comes from Angus's book 'The Encyclopedia of Jerry Garcia Music Venues'.

Listen to Episode 337 - The Legendary Venues of Jerry Garcia & The Grateful Dead

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's a highlight from a recent episode of Book on
Rock Harry Angus. He is the author of the Encyclopedia
of Jerry Garcia Music Venues. I wanted to finish with
some of the shows that The Dead played in Egypt
in seventy eight. There's a color photo of the Sound
in Light Theater in Giza, Egypt. There are some great

(00:20):
stories in there, and one about Jerry climbing to the
top of a pyramid. There's another one if you could
share the story that Bob Weir talks about when The
Dead played at the foot of the Great Pyramid, and
he describes the scene and what he sees.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Yeah, this is a gig where Mosquito starts swarming the
band that starts flying in the full moon's rising and
the pyramid is lit up with the Doin's on camels
with guns. It's great story. I don't have it in detail,
but I'm gonna read what I have in the book
of it. I'm sure there's more that I'm not aware of.

(00:57):
But the night before The Grateful Dead's first show at
Geeza Sound in Light Theater at the foot of the
Sphinx and the Great Pyramid, singer guitarist Bob Weir took
a stroll around the open air venue during soundcheck. Some
of the Egyptian drummers we played with were rehearsing where
we caalls and I got to a point where the
head of the Sphinx was lined up at the top

(01:18):
of the Great Pyramid, all lit up. All of a sudden,
I went to this timeless place. The sounds from the
stage they could have been from any time, and it
was as if Weir says, I went into eternity. So
you got to think back to that tune into eternity
or under eternity, And I don't know, to me, that

(01:40):
sounds like that's where he started that thought. Anyway, there's
a little bit more. One moment stands out from Bob
Weir and I don't know why it's coming to me now,
But we were in Egypt the first night of three.
We were playing on an amphitheater at the foot of
the Sphinx, in the foot of the Great Pyramid. They
lit it up really nice. There was a light show
and all that kind of stuff. It was pretty spectacular.

(02:02):
We were not that far from the Nile River, but anyway,
the sun was going down and we start playing. Lights
came on and I hear a mosquito buzz in my ear.
One lands on my arm, and as we're playing, I
realize it's dusk, and I look around and there's mosquitoes everywhere.
I'm figuring, okay, this is going to be a welcome
to Hell and I'm not going to be able to

(02:23):
play a note. I'm starting to swat at mosquitoes and
I'm like, how the hell am I going to do this?
And just as I'm thinking that, a shape goes by
my head real fast in the full moon starting to rise.
Now it's going to be an eclipse pretty soon. Backlit,
you can see on the bluffs on either side of
the theater there's these sand dunes, and these bluffs are now

(02:47):
ringed with badoons on their horses and camels with their
rifles over their shoulders, hundreds of them on either side.
They had heard that this was going on and came
to check it out. Meanwhile, back on the stage, you've
got a cloud of mosquitoes, And as it turns out,
that shape that flew by my head, another one flies by,
and then another. I look around again and there are

(03:09):
these bats about a foot and a half across big fellas,
lots of them going after the mosquitoes. So if you
back off from this, what you see is the Great
Pyramid lit up golden magenta, whatever color it was at
that moment, and the Sphinx also lit up, and the
theater surrounded by these badoons, and on the stage is

(03:32):
the band all lit up, surrounded by a cloud of bats.
It had to be one of the most sublime moments
that ever occurred. I left my body, he laughs. If
I had to freeze a moment in time, this is it.
Take me, Lord, this is how I want to remember it.
And then there's a little Jerry one that was really

(03:53):
a mind blower. I can honestly say I was a
different person before and after those shows. It was a
really profound experience. Wow, playing right in the middle of
the pyramids, what a totally beautiful things like a psychedelic dream.