Taping

A Poem by Andrew Shields

Until the Halloween concerts of 1984,
the fans who wanted to tape The Grateful Dead
had to smuggle their microphones and taping gear
into the venues. They were always a step ahead

of the guards, and shortly after the doors were opened,
a forest of microphone stands would already have grown
in front of the soundboard. It got to the point where the engineer
could hardly see the band for all that gear!

So for those Halloween shows, you could buy a ticket
if you were a taper; the extra trick
was that the special seats were right behind the board,
so the soundman could see the band, and the taping horde

was allowed to take the music from the air—
not to sell it, just to trade and share.

Taper Section, David Gans, October 27, 1984