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00:00I hope there are people watching this documentary who don't know the dead or just being introduced
00:20to the dead.
00:22I think you're going to ask me about, I don't know what you're going to ask me about.
00:30Are you going to have like an animated Jerry over your shoulder going like, oh, I wouldn't
00:59do that.
01:01Is that like an idea you can put in a movie?
01:04Well, I'm not a Grateful Dead scholar.
01:15I'm a Grateful Dead fan.
01:16You know, I'm a Deadhead.
01:22We caught up with the band in Hartford, Connecticut, and their fans called the Deadheads.
01:31Perhaps as important as the dead themselves, the Deadheads.
01:35Self-described Deadheads, who are undoubtedly the most enthusiastic cult in love music.
01:39A faithful following that comes here again and again for the music, but at the same time,
01:44a whole lot more.
01:45Yep, they're Deadheads.
01:47In 1984, I became the Grateful Dead's publicist.
01:58I got hired because the receptionist said, you know, the media calls and nobody calls them
02:03back and they yell at me.
02:04I don't like it.
02:07And Garcia said, yeah, get McNally to do it.
02:09He knows that shit.
02:12By the middle 1980s, the people of my generation, all these people are now in their middle 30s.
02:19They have careers.
02:20Some of them are in the media.
02:23They not only know about the Grateful Dead, they want to cover the Grateful Dead, and they
02:26want to do it positively.
02:28So they're going to send a camera.
02:32The press would arrive.
02:34They would be assaulted by this incredible scene.
02:39And suddenly, the story became not the band, but Deadheads.
02:46And everybody asked the same question.
02:48Okay, what is it about the Grateful Dead?
02:51What is it about the Grateful Dead that brings you here?
02:54Why are you a Deadhead?
02:55Why am I a Deadhead?
02:56Wow, what is this for?
02:57Is this like just for your own personal satisfaction, or is this like...
03:01Wow, that's weird.
03:05Wow, do you like...
03:06Is this fun?
03:12Mark Slate.
03:15Back to the Grateful Dead.
03:18In the 1980s, I had retired, and I wanted to write a book.
03:26And so for two years, I took this tape recorder out and started to do these interviews.
03:35Jerry, thank you for this.
03:37You know I'm doing this book.
03:38Yeah.
03:39And you're a very key player in it, so if you've got a few minutes, I'd just like to talk.
03:42Absolutely, man.
03:43You know, I have such a fond feeling for you guys.
03:46Well, this is years later.
03:48You and all the venom that had been taken out of the relationship.
03:52Why is it that this one aggregation, this one combination, can continue to do it 23, 24 years later with audiences that weren't alive the first time around?
04:01What is it that you guys got?
04:03I haven't the slightest idea, Joe.
04:05It is one of the great phenomenons of the entertainment world.
04:08I think now, during the 80s, the Grateful Dead kind of represents something like hopping railroads, you know what I mean?
04:16Yeah.
04:17Something like that, or being on the road like airwax.
04:20But you can't do those types of things anymore, but you can be a deadhead.
04:24You can get in your van and go with the other deadheads across the United States.
04:28Now, that looks like fun, you know.
04:33You have your war stories, you know.
04:36Stories about the time that you were driving through this plane in the middle of the night, got four flat tires, and some farmer helped you out and put you up.
04:43But I think that's what motivates the audience now.
04:48The spirit of being able to go out and have an adventure in America at large, you know what I mean?
04:53We're here!
04:55The whole thing is the deadheads have a certain sense of adventure, and it's tough to come by adventure in this new, lame America.
05:13Roll over, Boogaloo Shrimp!
05:16That's the first lady, Nancy Reagan, trying out some breakdance steps today on a visit to a New York rehab home for teens.
05:22Now she's ready to slip on some tie-dye and go to a dead concert.
05:27Ronald Reagan is president in the 80s, and the great reaction had begun.
05:34As a matter of fact, I have here...
05:36The reaction against the 60s.
05:38...the district attorney of Alameda County.
05:40It concerns a dance...
05:42Ronald Reagan ran as governor and as president against the 60s, and it worked.
05:47Three rock and roll bands were in the center of the gymnasium, playing simultaneously all during the dance.
05:52And all during the dance, movies were shown on two screens at the opposite ends of the gymnasium.
05:59These movies were the only lights in the gym proper.
06:02They consisted of color sequences that gave the appearance of different colored liquids spreading across the screen,
06:07followed by shots of men and women on occasion.
06:10Shots for the men and women's nude torsos on occasion.
06:14And curses twisted and gyrated and provocative incestuous nations.
06:19A certain proportion of Americans say,
06:22no, we don't think so,
06:23and run away to join the circus and follow the Grateful Dead.
06:27The whole world that, you know, kind of Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation had risen up against
06:46was still kind of there, you know, pressing everybody, but in new forms.
06:51But when you went to a Grateful Dead show,
06:55you glimpse over a kind of horizon of, you know, American crap that was usually all you got to see.
07:04Come on, pretty mama, let's get on the road again.
07:06It wasn't for everybody, you know.
07:09It was an acquired taste.
07:12In the early 1980s, the Grateful Dead were still very much an underground phenomenon.
07:19Deadheads became deadheads by being mentored.
07:24You'd have an elder sibling or friend,
07:27and he would turn you on to the dead.
07:32I had friends who would give me acid and then play Oxomoxo,
07:36one of their most wild experimental albums.
07:41And then I had another friend who would play me Europe 72.
07:44And I remember listening to the transition where out of the chaos condenses the morning dew.
07:56And so that sort of beguiled me enough to go to my first show.
08:03And I remember, like, 20 minutes into the show,
08:14I'm hearing this incredible improvisation on electric bass
08:18played through quadraphonic speakers
08:21and Phil moving notes around in three dimensions through the audience.
08:27Like, I had never seen anybody do that.
08:41And I remember thinking, like,
08:43my God, this is, like, the best music I've ever heard in my life.
08:48This is for me.
08:49I want to see this as much as I can.
08:53Sometimes we live in no particular way, but our own way.
09:00And so I basically started going to see them whenever I could.
09:03Sometimes we visit your country and live in your home.
09:09Sometimes we ride on your horses.
09:17Sometimes we walk alone.
09:22Sometimes the songs that we hear are just songs that we're all.
09:30Take a goodbye now.
09:33You know, I was surrounded by this incredibly complicated
09:37and incredibly well-established social structure.
09:43The physical layout of a Grateful Dead show
09:47was like a mandala with different regions.
09:54And if you look at a mandala in traditional Tibetan Buddhism,
10:00there are, like, these different sectors of the mandala.
10:03You know, here are the angry gods.
10:07Here are the people suffering.
10:12Grateful Dead shows were like a mandala.
10:18You know, people knew where they would sit.
10:22There would be, you know, the Philzone people out here.
10:25And the, you know, the Jerricide people over here.
10:28There would be the deaf zone where people would be holding balloons
10:33that vibrated with the music because they could not hear.
10:39But by holding the balloons,
10:40they could literally sense the vibrations of the music.
10:43And they would dance.
10:45And there would be a live sign language interpreter
10:47providing interpretation of the lyrics.
10:50There was, you know, a whole crew of warp rats
10:57who were people following the 12-step path
10:59who would have meetings during the set breaks.
11:02Spinners would be out in the hall, you know,
11:08having literally religious experiences
11:11because they thought Garcia was a prophet
11:13and they'd be bowing down.
11:17Or they were tapers.
11:19They would, you know, go there with all their gear
11:21and set up their gear.
11:22When I first started going to Dead Shows,
11:51they didn't yet have explicit permission from the band.
11:56So it was still, in a sense, a form of bootlegging.
12:01Portable recording equipment was getting pretty good.
12:05And people started showing up at our shows
12:07with expensive equipment, nice microphones,
12:10all that kind of stuff, recording the shows.
12:12And the record company wanted to, you know,
12:15well, we've got to shut that down, you know,
12:17because those people are going to record your shows
12:19and then they're not going to buy our records.
12:21We were confronted with two options.
12:23We can either be cops or we can let them in.
12:27We didn't want to be cops.
12:29How do you feel about people taping Grateful Dead concerts
12:41and trading the tapes?
12:43Hey, when I'm done with it,
12:44if somebody can find a useful music
12:45after it's been performed, fine with me.
12:47As it turns out, we get credit for all kinds of visionary business practices
12:56and stuff like that.
12:57We were just doing the easiest thing.
12:59In fact, what happened was this is the greatest promo tool
13:02in the history of music.
13:04You give away your music, your recorded music,
13:08you make your money on selling tickets.
13:13And since every show is different,
13:15you record every show and you still wouldn't have heard it all
13:18and you'd still want to go to that next show.
13:22We doubled or tripled our audience.
13:24Why?
13:25Largely because of tape.
13:32My generation got into it mainly through tapes.
13:36The core of the canon reached people
13:39through this hand-traded stuff.
13:42If this plays, it's a miracle.
13:48I went to boarding school.
13:50You know, we were in a place where there wasn't much else to do
13:52besides, you know, sit around and listen to music and talk.
13:56You start to discover that some people, the older people,
13:59have, you know, 100, 150, 200 Grateful Dead tapes.
14:03Well, you listen to one and you begin to understand
14:06what's going on in that tape.
14:08And you become interested in it.
14:09You listen to it over and over again.
14:10And then you get another one and you begin to learn
14:12what's going on in that one.
14:13You understand the language of that one.
14:16Play.
14:19And, you know, over time,
14:21you build up this collection and you listen to them enough
14:24so that you begin to see an arrangement and a sequence
14:27and a narrative of the band's performances
14:29as they're represented by these tapes,
14:31which, you know, are little snapshots
14:34from each year, each tour.
14:41To start with, you know, you're not really aware
14:43of one year being different from another.
14:47But after a while, you begin to say,
14:48oh, you know, 1971 sounds like this.
14:591973 sounds like this.
15:00Later, you learn that there was variation
15:08even within that year, within that week,
15:10within each night.
15:13I think that's part of the appeal.
15:15You start to understand what's going on in the music.
15:16You hear the patterns.
15:18You hear the deviations from the patterns.
15:21The differences between recordings
15:23makes it seem alive.
15:25You're really hearing how each musical performance represents an evolution
15:35or devolution of the band over time.
15:37Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets.
15:41Dancing, dancing, dancing in the streets.
15:45For the discerning dead, it's sort of an endlessly fascinating body of work.
15:50To say, oh, this one, this one's good in this way,
15:53and this one's not good in this way.
15:54You know, this one, this one's really good, and this is why.
15:57There's an essential irony to the whole thing,
16:04which is the band that was sort of most dedicated
16:07to the ephemeral experience of playing live,
16:09performing something once in a certain way,
16:11is the band that's been sort of most obsessively recorded
16:14and catalogued in history.
16:16You know, I never had a great collection.
16:26In fact, some of the people that had the great collections,
16:28I mean, they were, they're weird, you know.
16:37You know, I mean, I've listened to a million Altheos.
16:41Now, I very much focus on, like, what year, when an Althea was played.
16:49The Althea, from, I think it's May 1980,
16:55Nassau Coliseum, to me is, like, the most hair-raising solo.
17:04My God, that solo is unbelievable.
17:07It was so unbelievably great.
17:17You tell me, Hampton is one of your favorites, right?
17:27So I listened to the Althea from that,
17:30and that has the flavor of that one.
17:34But it ain't that one.
17:37Did you listen to it?
17:56Yes.
17:57Am I right?
17:58Yes.
17:59Only deadheads.
18:07With, like, thought my dad.
18:14Believe me, after you'd heard 150 versions of a particular song,
18:19you'd have a kind of platonic form of the leads or whatever,
18:22like, in your head.
18:23And then Jerry would play something that was slightly better.
18:30So I would have to sort of negotiate with myself.
18:32I would be like, well, I saw the last six shows,
18:35so do I really need to see the next two, you know?
18:38But inevitably, I would end up, like,
18:39hearing about what they played on the night that I didn't go.
18:42And Dan had a way of sort of frustrating her attempts
18:46to moderate the obsession.
18:47Do you have any extra tickets for tonight?
18:51You know, I don't have any extra ones for tonight myself.
18:53You don't?
18:53But I'm sure they'll be around.
18:54You going?
18:55You know how it is.
18:55Oh, of course we're going.
18:56Sure.
18:56All right.
18:57You go last night?
18:58Oh, yeah.
19:00Well, that was some good jam, wasn't it?
19:02Where did you guys come from?
19:12Rhode Island.
19:13All the way from Rhode Island to see you today.
19:15It took us a week to get here.
19:17We had a hell of a time, man.
19:18It's going to take us a few months to get back home.
19:21I left last week, and it took six days to get here.
19:25It was pretty fun on the way.
19:27I spent Christmas in Arcata.
19:28Anything within 600 miles is automatic.
19:31You can make that in one night and still make it to work in the morning.
19:35Last night was my 45th show this year.
19:37I make almost all the shows of the year.
19:40I drive that big Ford.
19:43And you guys are off the record all the way up.
19:46I really need a miracle for tonight, you know?
19:50I'd like to be holding a ticket.
19:53You know what I mean?
19:54I really would.
19:55I need a miracle every day.
19:58You can't stand a line to get me.
20:01You can't stand a line to get me.
20:03Too much everything is just in now.
20:07One more thing I've just got to see.
20:10I need a miracle every day.
20:14You know, I started going to see them in 1984, and I remember, at that point, they still were a strange, forgotten, almost 60s cult that was sort of shambling around America.
20:28Pretty much ignored by the culture at large.
20:30It was a pretty intense, small scene.
20:36It was overwhelming.
20:37It was kind of scary.
20:38We were 15.
20:40You know, I was sort of a clean-cut kid.
20:42It was not a clean-cut scene, necessarily.
20:44What you need?
20:45The sense of menace was always there.
20:50Which I didn't quite understand myself.
20:52You know, the bikers, they were rough guys, they were drunks.
20:55I didn't kind of get that part.
20:57Fuck off, you.
20:58You know, I'm a very, you know, gentle person.
21:01And sometimes it was just a madhouse.
21:04So that aspect of it, I'm just frightened.
21:09I remember sort of survival was sort of a thing when I was on shows.
21:14Surviving the crowds and the bathroom lines.
21:18I couldn't go to the bathroom there.
21:21And I remember, like, deadheads who were barefoot, like, going in to go to the bathroom.
21:27And I was, like, going, like, I can't handle that.
21:34Thank you very much.
21:39Don't run, don't run.
21:44It was not like, you know, being a middle-aged guy going to see a show with your seat number
21:49and showing up and maybe getting an IPA and being shown to your seat and sitting there
21:54and being like, oh, this is a nice presentation of decent music.
21:57It was an adventure.
22:04Well, it's feeling so bad now.
22:10Asked my family doctor about what I had.
22:15I said, now, doctor, Mr. Andy, can you tell me what's in me?
22:24Oh, you said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:29Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:31Oh, you need it.
22:34Oh, yeah.
22:35Yeah, yeah.
22:37It's good love.
22:38You got to have a love.
22:39And as the years went by, we just got better at it.
22:44It's a little good love, a good love.
22:46And then when Brent started playing with us, we had three really good, strong singers.
22:52We could really knock it out of the park with our choral vocals.
22:56Don't you want your dad to be all right?
22:59After Keith and Don and Gene got shot, left the band, they brought in Brent Midland.
23:04He's a fabulous keyboard player and a wonderful singer, actually.
23:09He really revitalized the backup singing for the band.
23:11He gave it some muscle.
23:13He made the sound bigger.
23:14You know, it seemed like for a while that they were feeling it.
23:22There was something that was uncanny
23:49about the waveform of the Grateful Dead show.
23:54You know, there were two sets.
23:56The first set was usually more contained musically.
24:00There would be more kind of chorus, verse, you know, structure of the songs.
24:07But then in the second set, almost anything could happen.
24:15There would be a period in the second set
24:18where you would be actually brought back
24:20to the very elemental essence of music
24:24by the drums and space sections.
24:36Percussive rhythms from the jungle
24:37or from the desert in the Middle East.
24:42The idea is to take the audience
24:49on a trip, you know, on a journey.
24:59If you asked me what business I was in,
25:01I would say transportation.
25:06We're in the transportation business.
25:07I think that what made Grateful Dead music
25:28so appealing for people who were tripping
25:30was that it was a way of having experiences
25:35that were almost a primordial initiation.
25:46Like in cultures where young men would be
25:49taken away from their parents,
25:51often by a shaman.
25:54You know, they would have to spend like three days
25:56in the wilderness, fasting, learning that the world
26:01was serious instead of superficial.
26:07Learning that things like life and death were real.
26:13Becoming an adult.
26:14That's not to say that, you know,
26:26people couldn't enjoy Dead Shows while they were sober.
26:30But for people who, you know,
26:32were taking psychedelics like me,
26:34which I did hundreds of times at Dead Shows,
26:37it was an absolutely exquisite opportunity
26:40to explore this rich musical tradition
26:44that they were sort of serving up,
26:46you know, nightly in this incredibly well-architected form.
27:00And then you'd be returned to the kind of human world
27:03through the ballads that Jerry would sing.
27:06Like Jerry would often come out of space
27:10with Stella Blue.
27:14It was as if he had found a place to stand
27:17in the middle of the universe
27:20where he could look at everything outside of him
27:24and utter something meaningful about it.
27:27You know, a very common experience
27:55about psychedelics
27:57is that you feel like you're on the verge
27:59of sort of cracking the cosmic koan
28:02or getting the cosmic joke or something.
28:06And then it would slip away.
28:07It all rolls into one
28:11And I think the lyrics kind of flirted with that.
28:16Where they would almost hand you
28:20something that sounded like the big answer,
28:23but then it was, you know, ever so slightly slippery.
28:27There's nothing you can hold
28:32For very long
28:36The lyrics for me
28:38The good ones
28:40They do hang around like scraps
28:42of important poetry.
28:47There's something ingenious about Hunter
28:50where the lyrics all have these levels
28:52of involving the listener
28:53in whatever story is being told.
28:55Robert Hunter was a very subtle lyricist.
29:05He was part of the Grateful Dead
29:07because he was creating the words they sang.
29:13Always referring back
29:15to those roots that we shared
29:18in the early 60s.
29:21Hunter was Jerry's partner on every level.
29:25They were close enough
29:26and went back far enough
29:28that Hunter could be the source of the words
29:31and Jerry could be comfortable singing them.
29:35I can't get on stage and sing a song
29:36that doesn't have some emotional reality for me.
29:40Hunter is very good about
29:41writing into my beliefs.
29:44You know, he understands the way I think.
29:48His lyrics seem to come out
29:51of a much older world
29:52than they literally came out.
29:54It was like those songs came from
30:04some kind of subterranean
30:07old weird America.
30:10I beg of you, don't murder me
30:13One that had important information in it.
30:16Don't murder me
30:18You would kind of have to live your way up
30:20to understanding.
30:23Hunter's got his own window
30:25into what those songs are about.
30:29What they mean to him.
30:32He's notoriously reclusive.
30:36So I doubt that he would be willing
30:38to sit for an interview, but he might.
30:40I could call him
30:41or text him or something.
30:44If you can get him to talk
30:45and it'd be interesting to see.
30:51I think a lot of times
30:52people want to know
30:53what he meant by this or that line.
30:58No artist wants to sit there
30:59and explain why he did what he did.
31:01It's sort of counter
31:06to the whole point
31:07of doing something artistic.
31:11Well, it is fun to learn
31:12how songs are written.
31:14Right?
31:15I guess.
31:17Generally speaking,
31:18when I listen to a song
31:19I don't ponder
31:21what was he trying to get at here.
31:22I always do that.
31:25I always try to figure out
31:27what the words mean.
31:29What do they mean?
31:32But it takes all kinds, right?
31:36So he knows we're coming, right?
31:37No, he does not.
31:39Ah, okay.
31:41You know, Robert Hunter
31:42was a very elusive person.
31:46He did not like photographs
31:48circulating of him.
31:49He wouldn't even appear
31:52in public for many years
31:54because he wanted
31:55to retain his anonymity.
31:58Hunter would just kind of appear
32:00or he would disappear
32:01whenever he wanted to.
32:04That's who the guy is.
32:07And that's why his lyrics suggest
32:09I'm anywhere you want me to be.
32:14You can't catch me.
32:15This is a man
32:20who will pull out a gun
32:21and shoot you
32:22if you start, you know,
32:24analyzing his lyrics.
32:25He will not answer questions like that.
32:27No, you can't explain...
32:28Nobody won't.
32:29I can't explain his songs, no.
32:32He won't do it, no shit.
32:34If he did,
32:35the illusion would be gone.
32:38And there ain't no fun,
32:39you know.
32:39His lyrics
32:43were not easily cast
32:47into some narrow range of meaning.
32:52You know, it's like,
32:53I love the lyric to Dark Star
32:55even though it's one of the most,
32:57you know,
32:58you can't explain what it means.
33:02Let's see.
33:02Dark Star crashes,
33:05pouring inside the ashes,
33:07wreaths and tatters
33:08that forces tear loose
33:09from the axis.
33:12Searchlight casting
33:13for faults
33:14in the clouds
33:15of delusion.
33:16Shall we go,
33:17you and I,
33:18while we can
33:19through the transitive
33:20nightfall of diamonds?
33:22What is unclear about that?
33:24I mean,
33:24it says what it means.
33:29Dark Star crashing
33:31The lyrics are worded
33:44in such a way
33:45that anybody
33:48who hears
33:49a Grateful Dead song
33:50can interpret it
33:52so that it becomes
33:54meaningful
33:55to their own life.
33:58It is so personal
33:59to each and every person
34:01who listens to it.
34:03It belongs to you, honey.
34:06It's yours.
34:07Shall we go
34:09You and I,
34:13while we can
34:16And that's the key.
34:20And that's the genius
34:21of the Hunter Garcia
34:23collaboration.
34:24The transitive
34:28nightfall
34:30of diamonds
34:32Both Robert Hunter's
34:37and John Barlow's
34:38best lyrics did that.
34:41Those songs would become
34:42like good,
34:43wise advisors
34:45that you could take
34:47with you
34:47through decades
34:48of life.
34:49Right here
34:52it's all about this
34:52See you at the next show.
34:55When this one's over
34:56we're not going anywhere
34:57until the next show.
34:58How long are you
34:59going to keep doing this?
35:01Like the band does
35:01another 20 years
35:02I'll do another 20 years
35:03It was really profound
35:06to keep coming back
35:07over the years
35:08because you would see
35:09people, you know,
35:10get older
35:10eventually they'd be
35:12coming with their spouse
35:13and maybe their kids.
35:15Eventually they'd be
35:15getting gray hair
35:16It's like we would all
35:18be growing old together
35:19in this place
35:21that kept
35:21recreating itself
35:23in a way that was
35:24both reassuringly familiar
35:26and excitingly new
35:28every time.
35:31I think for a lot of people
35:32Grateful Dead shows
35:34were experiences
35:35of renewal
35:35in the same way
35:37that it would be
35:39within an established
35:41religion.
35:44I want to tell you
35:45how it's gonna be
35:47You're gonna give
35:51your love to me
35:52I'm gonna love you
35:57night and day
35:58No, our love
36:02will not fade away
36:03No, our love
36:07will not fade away
36:09Not fade away
36:12It is more like a ritual
36:19than a concert
36:21Everybody's ecstatic
36:25together
36:25I always said
36:29every place we play
36:32is church
36:32It says it in a nutshell
36:36You know, there really was
36:46a holy thing
36:47that happened there
36:48There's no question
36:49But it wasn't coming
36:53from Garcia
36:54It wasn't coming
36:55from the stage
36:56actually
36:56It wasn't coming
36:57from any particular place
36:58It never does
37:00We realized that
37:04we had to be
37:05really very careful
37:07Because
37:09if the Grateful Dead
37:11was gonna form
37:12a religion
37:13beyond just having
37:14a religious-like thing
37:16that was falling around
37:17It would constrain
37:20our ability
37:20to get into
37:21the future properly
37:22I was gonna try
37:28to meet
37:31your friend
37:31and the sun
37:31you know
37:32I would call
37:32your love
37:33to have
37:34you
37:35you
37:36know
37:37you
37:38know
37:47Bop bop bop bop
38:17Bop bop bop bop bop
38:47Bop bop bop
39:17Bop bop bop
39:47Bop bop bop
40:17Bop bop bop
40:47Bop bop bop
41:17Bop bop bop bop
41:47Bop bop bop
42:17Bop bop bop bop
42:19Bop bop bop bop
42:21Bop bop bop bop bop
42:23Bop bop bop bop
42:53Bop bop bop bop
43:23Bop bop bop bop bop bop

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