Theee 13 point Grateful Dead lightning bolt is located inside of the stealie. The logo was always on the bands equipment and eventually symbolized the band itself. When you see the 13 point bolt(or of course... the stealie) you have encountered a fractal of the Grateful Dead'
s essence, a
piece/part of them. SMILE!!!
The 13-point lightning bolt was derived from a stencil Owsley
Bear(along with his close friend
Bob Thomas)created to spray-paint on the Grateful Dead's equipment. Owsley was an underground
lsd cook/ longtime soundman and financier for the dead)
The Dead in those days had to play in a lot of festival style shows where the equipment would all wind up at the back of the stage in a muddle, it was created to
help the crew find the Dead's equipment in the jumble of multiple bands' identical
black equipment boxes at festivals.
The lightning bolt design came to him after seeing a similar design on a roadside advertisement: "One day in the rain, I looked out the side and saw a sign along the freeway which was a circle with a white bar across it, the top of the circle was
orange and the
bottom blue. I couldn't read the name of the firm, and so was just looking at the shape. A thought occurred to me: if the
orange were red and the bar across were a lightning bolt cutting across at an angle, then we would have a very nice, unique and highly identifiable mark to put on the equipment."
I got a 13 point Grateful Dead bolt tattooed behind my left ear to show my everlasting love for
jerry, the band, and the rest of the
crew.
Peace love Space.
