Grateful Dead Alum To Tour

LOS ANGELES — It looks like the old Dead are gettin' on.

Surviving members of the Grateful Dead say they'll regroup for a 19-city tour, their first since 2004, beginning April 12 in Greensboro, N.C.

The group, which now just calls itself The Dead, announced its plans Thursday.

Original band members Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann have toured sporadically since the 1995 death of guitarist Jerry Garcia, but struggled to get along personally and artistically. They told Rolling Stone in November that they've worked out their differences, aided by a successful October benefit concert in Pennsylvania for then-presidential candidate Barack Obama.

Warren Haynes joins the Dead on lead guitar, and Jeff Chimenti will play keyboards.

Comments

[RobinLandseadel]

I ran a little business recording concerts---mostly classical---in the 90's, in the Berkeley/S­.F. area. The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra [a client for many of those years] had a benefit concert with a few local celebrities waving a baton while the orchestra followed the concertmaster. There was one exception though, Phil Lesh is, in fact, trained in such things, having studied under the composer Luciano Berio. Not only was Phil adept enough as a conductor as to produce a novel interpretation of a well known work---the Danse Infernal from Stravinsky's "Firebird" [he managed to make it as slow, massive and reverberant as the Dead playing at the Oakland Coliseum]---he also commissioned and conducted a new work from Elliot Carter. If you know anything about 20th century Orchestral music, you know this is a daunting task, not for amateurs. Whatever you might think of the Grateful Dead, past and present, know that there are real musicians in the band.

[ErikW65]

The headline is more hype than news. These "Alum" have been playing together in various combinations since '97 or so, as Phil & Friends and Bob Weir & Ratdog.

The music is eternal. The existence of Deadheads who never saw Jerry play is proof. Sure makes me feel lucky to have been a part of it, to have experienced it...

"There (still) is nothing like a Grateful Dead Concert."

[stanpan]

DubiousAtBest's favorite band is Jethro Troll.

[MysteryTrain]

Sure are a lot of dopes around here

[DubiousAtBest]

Those are called "Deadheads­"...

[ElPerro]

I'd love to hear what you consider good music so we could all ridicule you for it. Chances are it takes a great deal of computer programming to produce and involves costume changes.

[daedelus]

You forgot the part about watching paint dry.

[wagadog]

Yah, they're called "Trolls" -- or maybe just one troll with several nyms, e.g. "MysteryTrain", "bubbeh", "DubiousAtBest", "ImWithStupid", "avraamjac­k"...not worth feeding, really.

[bubbuh]

The could prop Jerry up onstage. He won't mind.

BTW, is this American Bailout Tour?

[zippywpinhead]

considering that because of their intensive touring they were perennially the highest grossing act in America (despite their efforts to keep ticket prices low), my industry could certainly use this kind of bailout. It would sure beat the manufactured, flash in the pan pop stars we usually are stuck with...

[Hoisin]

No its, the "Since everything else sucks tour".

[DubiousAtBest]

I hear the Dead are putting out an exciting new LIVE album...
It's called "Watching Paint Dry".

[MaybeMilo]

Spoken like a bitter straight shirt who's girlfriend left him for a "dude with long hair."

[DubiousAtBest]

Dream on dude...

go twirl in a parking lot with a pack of balding, pot-bellied, tie-dye wearing losers.
That REALLY attracts the attractive and smart chicks. They're just lining up for one of you artifacts.

[Mort]

Isn't this like Queen touring without Freddie Mercury?

[MysteryTrain]

That is a shallow, uninformed and facile remark. First of all, Queen has toured without Mercury -- a couple of years ago and again in 08. Secondly, The surviving members of the Dead toured without Jerry every year betweeen 1998 and 2005, first as The Other Ones then as The Dead

Thirdly, you evidently need to be reminded of all of the bands who have soldiered on after a member has died or left. Using your logic, all of the following bands should have broken up and / or stopped touring due to a member leaving or dying:

Rolling Stones
Allman Brothers
Byrds
Pink Floyd
The Band

Beach Boys
The Who
Genesis
Yes
King Crimson

Traffic
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
Eagles
Fairport Convention
The Pogues
Metallica.

I am not saying I am fans of all those bands -- the Eagles and Metallica I could do without -- but just think of all of the great performances and recordings of those bands that would never have happened had they adhered to such a narrow minded and rigid "requireme­nt."

[DubiousAtBest]

You could sponsor a tour of Jerry Garcia's toilet and these m0r0ns would follow it around the country.

[avraamjack]

Beer!
Doses~
Beer!
Doses!
Beer!
Doses!

[wrenny]

I feel sorry for people who say in a snarky way that they never "got" the Dead. They've missed a lot, just as people who feel that antagonistic about any other kind of music have - but I really feel they've missed even more...a lot more.

[DubiousAtBest]

Yeah, like I feel like I "missed out" by not watching paint dry.

[Racetracker]

Buy a new joke.

[DWGRadio]

I like all the Dead's early stuff on Warner Bros. American Beauty is a classic! Once they moved to Arista and the Godcheaux's joined the band, I stopped getting the music. Lyrically it was still strong, but musically it seemed to be too much of a journey with no destination. But I am not big on jam bands anyway. Never got into Phish and I can't stand DMB. The one exception to that rule is Oysterhead. Those guys are great (yes I know Trey Anastasio of Phish is the guitar player). I am not ignorant of the Dead's music, as some of the "paint dry" posters clearly are. But I do think the dead, like many bands, had a period of particularly strong output, and it was there early period. The same thing could be said for a lot of bands. Every musical artist who achieves any kind of longevity (20 years or more) has a period of what could be considered their canonical work. Take David Bowie for example. His best stuff was all pre-Berlin, although he has put out some true masterpieces since then. For Pink Floyd it was '73 - '79. Face Dances had a couple of great tracks, but who really thinks of their '80's work when they think of The Who? And the Stones and Aerosmith should have called it quits at least 10 years ago. This of course is only my opinion and the subject is, well, subjective.

[PFflyerkid]

You're missing the point. The Dead were never about recorded material- it was just a necessary part of the business.

For your opinion of them to be based on this is a false premise. The deadheads travelled far and wide for many reasons- one of which was, to quote a review from a '78 Newsday (Lawn Gi'land's paypa) show, "to see peak moments of mythical clarity".

Listen to Morning Dew from MSG in Sept 1987 (link below)- the 8:30 min mark solo- and you'll hear how lucky the 'heads got that night. Imagine standing on the floor at the Garden and having a big friggin' lightnin' bolt go right through your forehead. It was one of those rare moments.

http://www.archive.org/details/gd87-09-18.sbd-remaster.cole.19002.sbeok.shnf

[auramac]

Sorry- but the Dead don't "live."

They're dead.

So's Jerry.

[MysteryTrain]

Simple-minded, snotty, infantile, taunting, ignorant remark.

[DubiousAtBest]

You couldn't find a more tedious, boring, over-rated band than the Dead.

You couldn't PAY me to endure a Dead concert.

[TJCole]

Gerry would have wanted the guys to keep playin...

Weir is one of the best rhythm guitarist singers in rock there are only a few that are in his league and it's thr rhythm guitar that puts the crown of their feet along with the drummer or in their case the drums and that team of drummers is unreal they push the locomotive drive the engine...

Gerry's Gone; is a great song by my pal Tom Pacheco, Google that...it says it all...

"In the attics, of my mind....."

[chinacatsunflower]

attics of my life. is how jerry & the boys sang it.

[RobinLandseadel]

In the Canyons of Your Mind is how the Bonzos sang it.

[Hoisin]

Why explain the Dead to people who question the experience with contempt and jealousy? We could all write a book on it, but in the end, if something today came close to the spectacle of the pagentry you would know about it already.

Perhaps this lack of communication is best shown by a recent South Park episode where Carmen plays a Kansas tune on Guitar Hero to a cheering crowd of children. His father looking to win appreciation by his child breaks out a REAL guitar and plays the tune BETTER then the computer recording. With blank expressionless faces the children tell their father he sucks and that real guitars are for old people, then goes back to twacking away at the plastic guitar buttons. Shorty after the children start cheering again as Carmen has demonstrated his fine ability to press buttons in conjunction with dots floating down the TV screen. He now has the ability to explain to his 27,000 myspace "friends" that he made a fake computer crowd cheer. "Well done" you might say, "but real guitars have a secret stage called getting laid." This of course is all irrelevant to the person who insisted the Dead suck, so let him press buttons on his plastic guitar!

[ElPerro]

I've seen the Dead over 250 times. That being said, I think I'll take a pass. They pretty much ran out of steam a few years before Jerry died. At this point, it looks more like a nostagia trip than a full fledged musical event

[Koreboomer]

Saw the Dead twice...bo­th concerts were in 1973.
I've been listening to them ever since up to and including this day.
Really miss Jerry's guitar....
Hope the new guy's good.

[Indubio]

Garcia was so underappreciated by those not fullfledged Deadheads. I don't consider myself a Deadhead but damn some of their music is as good as any music ever made by any rock musician. But I admit, its an acquired taste. Love Scarlet Begonias/Fire on the Mountain and Estimated Prophet. I drive my family crazu because I have about 15 versions of each and often listen to them one after another.

[gifu]

I caught them in 2004 w/ Haynes at the Gorge in George. The Allman's opened--no Betts. I had my doubts. An old friend had an extra ticket, it was the 4th of July, so I gave it a shot. I had walked out of Weir's performance at the Furthur Fest in 1998 during Playin' In the band. It just felt wrong. Mickey and Mystery Box, Hornsby doing Wharf Rat was a tear jerker-----but Bobby just seemed so cheesy that night. I never felt that way at any Weir solo/side band shows in the past. I vowed not to bother again. Well, the Dead smoked on that 4th of July Evening...­...Warren Haynes does not have Jerry's voice or style, but it works out pretty well with the rest of the crew on board. It was very nice to have Bill and Mickey together on the kits when I saw this show. Shakedown and Casey Jones really stood out from that night. Robert Hunter opened---I swear I was the only person who knew who he was. People had no clue. It is a different audience, but that was the case by the end of the eighties.