The long, strange trip is almost over.
Some fans say the run of the Grateful Dead ended 20 years ago when the brilliant guitarist and reluctant icon Jerry Garcia died, just a month after his final concert with the band on July 9, 1995, at Soldier Field in Chicago.
Others, such as Jeff Wagner of Lake Stevens, remained faithful to the rest of the band, who after Garcia’s passing alternately called themselves the Other Ones, the Dead and Furthur.
The band will appear as the Grateful Dead this weekend with a return to the Windy City for three 50th anniversary “Fare Thee Well” concerts at Soldier Field. Rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, bassist Phil Lesh and drummers Bill Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart say these will be the last shows they play together.
The reunion concerts are the biggest geezer rock event of the year. Fans have paid small fortunes to attend.
The fact that it’s happening on Independence Day weekend is intentional. It acknowledges the time and place Garcia last performed, but it also celebrates the band’s devotion to American stories and Americana music bluegrass, old time rock ‘n’ roll, the blues, gospel, country rock, cowboy songs, traditional ballads and folk music.
“I’m Uncle Sam /that’s who I am
Been hidin’ out/in a rock and roll band …”
“Wave that flag
Wave it wide and high …”
— from “U.S. Blues,” the Grateful Dead
Wagner, 50, a longtime Boeing employee, saw the band about 44 times, 36 of those while Garcia was still alive. A guitarist himself, Wagner enjoys the band’s rock ‘n’ roll material best, but he also appreciates its renditions of traditional songs, as well as the live psychedelic jams.
“I knew very little about the Dead as a teen,” said Wagner, a 1982 graduate of Marysville Pilchuck High School. “A cousin gave me albums by the Doors, Pink Floyd and Dylan. So when a co-worker at Boeing turned me on to the Dead, I was ready. I think I’m just an old soul.”
Wagner was 26 when saw his first Grateful Dead show June 23, 1990, at Autzen Stadium on the University of Oregon campus in Eugene, which is home to a lot of Dead fans.
“I got on the bus and joined this massive love affair with the band and the camaraderie that came with it. It was so fun, it was like we were getting away with something,” Wagner said. He was also upset for missing out. “I realized this had been going on for years and I was just then finding out about it.”
Dead fans are legion. They come in all ages. They obsessively keep track of set lists. They include basketball great Bill Walton and some Republicans. And, no, many are not drug addicts, tie-dyed “twirlers” or hapless “freaks” who trailed the band on tour, causing trouble and begging for “miracle” tickets.
It turns out that Snohomish County has many fans. On Labor Day weekend in 1968, some of those people were at the Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair on a farm near the banks of the Skykomish south of Sultan.
The festival reportedly featured Santana, Big Mama Thornton, the Youngbloods, Muddy Waters, Buffy St. Marie, Pink Floyd, Country Joe, It’s A Beautiful Day, Richard Pryor and the San Francisco Mime Troupe.
The Grateful Dead wasn’t on the bill, but Seattle historian Paul Dorpat, one of the festival’s organizers, remembers that the band “appeared spontaneously” Sept. 2 to play a set.
Buck Dawson, 77, of Stanwood, was there.
“It was great,” said Dawson, who grew up in Everett. “They played tunes from their album ‘Anthem of the Sun.’ It was a beautiful afternoon and pretty surreal. Those were the ultimate stoner tunes and I was definitely stoned. I wore out a couple copies of that album. It was the best.”
The summer before, Clay Spencer, 67, of Granite Falls, saw the Dead perform on the back of a flat-bed truck parked at Golden Gardens in Seattle.
“There were about 200 of us watching, and a lot of straight people standing around staring at us,” Spencer said. “They called us fringies, not hippies, I guess because fringed leather jackets were popular. Afterwards, we followed the band downtown to the Eagles Auditorium for a concert that cost $3. It was definitely a smaller crowd and a lot cheaper than what you’ll see at these final 50th anniversary concerts. It always has surprised me that the Dead lasted as long as they did.”
The Grateful Dead engendered the loyalty they received from their multigenerational fans, Dawson said. They needed the energy from the crowds as much as the Deadheads needed the shows.
Wagner agreed.
“The Dead’s music forms the soundtrack for my life,” Wagner said. “After Jerry Garcia died, I took a little break. But because the Dead wasn’t just Jerry, the music won out.”
For Kay Riley, the Grateful Dead was family.
Her sister, Brenda, was drummer Bill Kreutzmann’s first wife. Riley, now 64, of Everett, spent her childhood in the San Francisco Bay Area where the band got its start in 1965. The San Francisco scene at the time also produced Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, Quick Silver Messenger Service, Steve Miller Band, Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks, and Country Joe and the Fish.
“I can’t even remember all the Grateful Dead shows I attended,” she said. “Pigpen (the late Ron McKernan, the band’s first keyboard player) was one of my niece’s baby-sitters. He loved the blues and that’s the music I’ve loved as an adult.”
The band’s best-known tunes are “Truckin’” and “Touch of Grey,” neither of which are favorites of most fans.
As Wagner says, the Grateful Dead was the best and the worst of bands; often brilliant, sometimes glaringly out of tune.
Dennis Newman, 62, of Everett, grew up in Arizona listening to recordings by the band. However, he only saw them once.
“It was their last show in Phoenix in 1994,” Newman said. “It wasn’t very good and I wasn’t impressed.”
Michael Menton, 48, also of Everett, was introduced to the Grateful Dead at an early age by his disc jockey aunt. He likes talking about his 62 concert experiences, including his first show at the Nassau Coliseum on Long Island when his brother pushed him up front to get a close look at Garcia and his guitar.
However, Menton seems most proud that his adult children are Deadheads.
“I keep on listening to the band’s recordings and their music just gets better with age,” Menton said.
He won’t be in Chicago this weekend, but Menton holds tight to the adage that “there is nothing like a Grateful Dead concert” and he wishes he could be there.
“I am grateful for all the times I did get to see them,” Menton said.
In Chicago, as with the concerts this past weekend in the Bay Area, the band will be joined by pianist Bruce Hornsby, who played with them in the early 1990s; keyboardist Jeff Chimenti, who played with the post-Garcia groups; and guitarist Trey Anastasio, of the jam band Phish.
Garcia is not the only member of the band to die before the end. Most of the band’s keyboard players checked out early, too, including McKernan, Keith Godchaux, Brent Mydland and Vince Welnick. Previous members of the band who won’t be performing at the shows include singer Donna Godchaux, pianist Tom Constanten and lyricists Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow.
Wagner and his wife, Linda, (“a fan by marriage”) are hosting a party Friday at their home for friends who want to watch a pay-per-view showing of Friday’s Chicago concert. Grateful Dead memorabilia will be displayed, band T-shirts will be worn and perhaps a little dancing will be part of the bittersweet evening.
“You know this wasn’t just a thing,” Wagner said. “For many of us, the Grateful Dead was sort of like a gift from God.”
“Fare thee well, fare thee well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul”
— from “Brokedown Palace,” the Grateful Dead
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege.
Fiege was 11 when she saw the Grateful Dead at the Sky River Rock Festival near Sultan. Her dad wanted to “go out and see what those hippies are up to.” The next time she saw the band in concert was in September 1977 at the Paramount in Seattle. Unlike most fans, Fiege did not keep track of all the shows she attended.
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