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The following letter was handed out as we left the first St. Louis show:

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                           [GD skeleton logo]

                        The Darkness Got to Give

                                                               7/5/95

Dear Dead Heads:

               This is the way it looks to us from the stage:

               Your justly-renowned tolerance and compassion have set you 
up to be used.  At Deer Creek, we watched many of you cheer on and help a
thousand fools kick down the fence and break into the show.  We can't play
music and watch plywood flying around endangering people.  The security and
police whom those people endangered represent us, work for us -- think of
them as us.  You can't expect mellow security if you're throwing things at
them.  The saboteurs who did this can only do it if all Dead Heads allow
them to.  Your reputation is at stake.

               Don't you get it?

               Over the past thirty years we've come up with the fewest
possible rules to make the difficult act of bringing tons of people together
work well -- and a few thousand so-called Dead Heads ignore those simple
rules and screw it up for you, us, and everybody.  We've never before had
to cancel a show because of you.  Think about it.

               If you don't have a ticket, don't come.  This is real.  This
is first a music concert, not a free-for-all party.  Secondly, don't vend.
Vending attracts people without tickets.  Many of the people without tickets
have no responsibility or obligation to our scene.  They don't give a shit.
They act like idiots.  They think it's just a party to get as trashed as
possible at.  We're all supposed to be about higher consciousness, not
drunken stupidity.

               It's up to you as Dead Heads to educate these people, and to
pressure them into acting like Dead Heads instead of maniacs.  They can only
get away with this crap if you let them.  The old slogan is true:  if you're
not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

               Want to end the touring life of the Grateful Dead?  Allow
bottle-throwing gate crashers to keep on thinking they're cool anarchists
instead of the creeps they are.

               Want to continue it?  Listen to the rules, and pressure others
to do so.  A few more scenes like Sunday night, and we'll quite simply be
unable to play.  The spirit of the Grateful Dead is at stake, and we'll do
what we have to do to protect it.  And when you hear somebody say "Fuck you,
we'll do what we want," remember something.

               That applies to us, too.

   [signed]

         Billy    Jerry      Phil      Mickey      Bobby     Vince


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