The Night Bob Pulled Me from the Brink

The simple truth is that we'd never heard of Bob Marley. That's how isolated we were both culturally and physically one freezing night my freshman year of college before time was invented in 1979. Mired in the depression of a transplanted Californian in upstate New York, I was desperate to escape from my demons and a school where apparently no one even dressed up for Halloween. I slouched myself down the hill to Reed Athletic Center to see whatever band, whatever shining star our radio music director, the late Andy Dean had managed to drag into Hamilton from New York. (In '78, we later learned, Andy had brought the Grateful Dead to Hamilton.)

Tickets were $10 from the girl at the cash box. No line. She looked at me sceptically. The show had started. It was was a gamble on a student budget. When she pushed the door, a cloud of marijuana and music drifting under the door turned into pure energy. My freshman gloom supernovaed.

The stage was jammed with musicians, costumes, singers, light, pot and --what was that Jamaican music? Even reggae sounded completely new. The room was only 2/3rd full - a mix of dreadlock fans who'd driven from New York and 1/2 with Colgate students who had wandered in from the gloom.

By the second song I was euphoric. I had inched as close to the stage as I dared (those rasta guys seemed huge), and as far away from Colgate as I'd ever been. A trip out of the grey and into the sun. You didn't need to light up a smoke to feel like a love parade. And those dancing Jamaican women...

When I finally made it back to my dorm room, a couple hall-mates wondered what had happened to me . We looked the band's name up in the paper - Bob Marley and the Wailers. "You'd never believe it!" I exclaimed. Some one said "Never heaerd of him."

All that had changed for me thanks to our student music director and Bob's willingness to take Survival on an improbably amazing road show. Rumor was that Andy lost his job for blowing the whole semester budget on one concert. Undoubtably a brilliant mood. Is it true the Doors had played Colgate in the 60's?

Marley weaving his magic

In retrospect, as a child I lived a relatively sheltered life, particularly in regards to race in America. Growing up on Long Island in the sixties and seventies, I may or may not have grown up in a Sundowner town. Ultimately, there was a certain level of economic discrimination in my hometown that makes the true label irrelevant. To put it bluntly, the cafeteria in my High School had a black table...for those unfamiliar, it's the table that the handful of the black kids that attended my high school of 2300 students sat at. Needless to say, I was a bit naive, believe me, my taste in music being the least of my ignorance. However, even I knew Bob Marley. I'd visited Jamaica the summer after graduation from high school (I thing that would be 1977). My parents took us on one last family trip. What a trip it was. Beautiful Island scenery, exotic smells, and also grinding poverty. But also the amazing beauty of a distinct culture separate from the USA, in language, beliefs and music. And the nagging suspicion that the rest of the world, just might be different then America. The door was cracked a little.

I saw my first Rasta on the beach; big, black, barechested, dreads blowing in the breeze. An amazing sight. And the music, similar to American rythems, but slightly different in vibe and philosophy. Melodic and listenable, but slightly edgy. Attractive but grounded in dark deep currents. Like a sweet smelling orchid growing in a tropical rain forest.

So yes, imagine my shock when I found out that Bob Marley was coming to Colgate. At the time, Colgate was not unlike my high school. Insular, affluent and very white. So this was cutting edge stuff. It was rumored that Andy Dean, head of the social committee, had spent his whole budget on the concert. If he did, more power to him!

And what a concert experience it was. Set up in the small venue of a gym, a monster band,the exotic and distictive smells of Reggae wafting through the air. Marley weaving his magic, half musician, half wizard. Totally engaged and yet removed from the fray. An enlightened sage, engaged in the world, but above it all!...man, by the end of the night I was so high, and not only from the herb, although that was killer too (Don't forget we were just barely out of the Seventies). But it was the promise of the potential that really brought it to the ultimate level. The idea that here was a great artist, using his personal idiom to reach the universal. The universal of love, connection, engagement. The sense that no matter our differences we are all the same. We are all connected, Marley's journey was our journey. Time and distance do not matter. It is the same now, as it was then. And it is the same now as it will be 200 years from now! The world's joy is our joy, just as the world's pain is our pain. We need to love the world as we love ourselves

Tony DeAngelis (Class of 1982)

Sophomore Goes Bowling on Marley Night

A Near Perfect Game:

As a sophomore who wasn't a pot smoker and who didn't care for much of the music that my pot smoking friends enjoyed, I had no interest in the Bob Marley Concert of Hallowe'en 1979.

However, I did go down to Reed Athletic Center for my Wednesday night bowling gym class, and found the bowling alley closed. Walking through the lobby, I saw a friend from my freshman dorm working the door. He waved me over, and let me in, gratis.

So there I was, I felt, in a room full of ecstatic, writhing pot smokers. Yay. Stayed for a song or two. Went home. Go figure.

What a fun project! Would love to see some artifacts show up. Does anyone have flyers? What do the Campus and regional newspapers have? Interesting that the Colgate show is one of the only ones from the tour that does not have a extant recording mentioned on the interwebs.

- Randy Hoppe Class of 1982