Woody Roberts: I thought their coolest show at Manor Downs was the Fourth of July [1981]. Frances had gone ahead and sprung for a first-class fireworks display. The Dead took their break and came back to start their jam. When it got to drums, they set the fireworks off. There are Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart, and they're playing with the fireworks – boom boom – and they'd beat along on the drums – boom, boom, boom. It was a trip.

Jay Trachtenberg: In 1983 I interviewed Mickey Hart. I called their publicist, Dennis McNally, and said, "The Dead are coming to Austin. I'd like to do an interview with Mickey Hart." He said, "Mickey's not doing interviews." I said, "I'd like to talk to him about the Diga Rhythm Band [Hart's world music side project]." He said, "He'll do the interview." Just like that.

We were supposed to meet him backstage at 5 or 6pm, whatever time it was. I get there with my friend and we drop a tab of acid, thinking I'd do the interview and then come up afterwards. There wasn't anything backstage at Manor Downs. I just went up and said, "I'm supposed to do this interview." I didn't have any credentials. They could have easily said, "Fuck you, you're not getting back here." Somehow we got through two or three of these – no name at the door, nothing.

So we're waiting back there and coming up and all of a sudden from the west, on a back road, there's a limousine flying up in all this dust. Two doors fly open, Jerry Garcia gets out of one door and Mickey Hart gets out the other. I went up to Mickey and told him Dennis had set up the interview. He says, "Okay, let me get settled."

We went back to his dressing room and the acid was really starting to come on and he's got this little practice pad and he's getting zoned out on playing. I ask him some nebulous thing about the Dead and he kind of blows it off. Then I say, "So tell me about the Diga Rhythm Band," and he engaged. Once I zeroed in on him, I didn't feel like I was tripping my brains out. We sat there and talked for 20 or 30 minutes and he went through the whole thing about world music and then he said, "This is the last night of the tour. This is really gonna be a loose kind of show."

We finish the interview and I step out of the trailer, and my head just kind of explodes! I'm on, plus the rush of having just spoken to him. Sure enough, it was one of the spaciest shows. They opened the second set with a 25-minute "Scarlet Begonias/Fire on the Mountain," and the middle of that was the Diga Rhythm Band song "Happiness Is Drumming." And I'm thinking, "He's playing it for me! We talked about it and now they're playing it!"

Later I found out they'd played that same transition earlier on the tour.