Latest news with #Deadheads
San Francisco Chronicle
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Grateful Dead fans demand San Francisco concert ticket info from city officials
Grateful Dead fans are eager to secure tickets for this summer's Dead & Company concerts at Golden Gate Park. But so far, no one knows when — or how — tickets will be released. Some fans are so anxious for answers, they're showing up at City Hall to ask directly. On Thursday, the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission unanimously approved permits for the band's three-night event, scheduled for Aug. 1–3, marking the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead. During the public comment portion of the meeting, one fan, Johnny Greavu, stepped up to ask what thousands of Deadheads have been wondering. 'There's going to be massive demand for this. How are tickets gonna be distributed?' Greavu asked. 'Is there gonna be some sort of lottery, are tickets gonna go on sale at a certain date? This is going to be crazy.' Commissioners, citing protocol, told him they couldn't respond. But Greavu continued pressing them on the matter anyway. 'Where is Shakedown gonna be?' he asked, referring to the makeshift marketplace that has long accompanied Dead shows. 'That should be planned.' Though questions went unanswered, the commission's approval clears the way for what is expected to be one of the city's largest cultural events of the year. Attendance is expected to reach 60,000 people per day at the Polo Fields. In a social media post after the meeting, the Recreation and Park Department confirmed the vote, adding that further details from Dead & Company would be announced soon. A department spokesperson referred ticket inquiries to event promoters Another Planet Entertainment and Live Nation, who also said details would be shared soon but did not provide immediate information on Friday. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who introduced the concert proposal earlier this week, called the event a tribute to the city's musical legacy and a potential economic boon.
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Dead & Company Will Celebrate Grateful Dead 60th Anniversary With 3 San Francisco Shows
The Mayor of San Francisco is ready to welcome Deadheads to the Grateful Dead's birthplace: the Bay Area. On Monday, Mayor Daniel Lurie posted a video of himself in front of Golden Gate Park, announcing that Dead & Company will be performing there for three consecutive shows in August to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead. More from Rolling Stone What Do Rock Hall Voters Have Against Mariah Carey, Oasis, and Phish? Phish Didn't Get Into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. WTF? Grateful Dead Continue 60th Anniversary Celebration With 'Gratest Hits' Collection 'We have some really big news,' Lurie said in the short video. 'Dead & Co. Three shows. August 1, 2 and 3. Right here in the city that is the home of the Grateful Dead.' 'What better way to celebrate?' he continued. 'We'll see you out here in August.' Lurie's post teased that the band will be announcing the shows 'soon,' although local outlet San Francisco Standard reports that the band's events will still need to be approved by the Recreation and Park Commission at a meeting on Thursday. According to the Standard, the band is expected to draw up to 60,000 fans for each show. While it's Dead & Company's first show there, Grateful Dead played at least 14 times at the San Francisco park, including in 1967 for the Summer of Love, and in 1991 to honor the late Bill Graham. A rep for Dead & Company did not provide comment. 'Celebrating their 60th anniversary with a Dead & Company performance in the very place where the Summer of Love took root is a powerful tribute to their legacy,' Recreation and Park Department General Manager Phil Ginsburg told the Standard. 'These concerts not only honor their cultural impact but also shine a light on the park's surrounding neighborhood — its restaurants, local businesses, and vibrant community.' Rolling Stone spoke with Bobby Weir about the band potentially reuniting for the 60th anniversary, which Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Mickey Hart discussed before Lesh died. 'I think when Phil checked out, so did that notion, because we don't have a bass player who's been playing with us for 60 years now. And that was the intriguing prospect.… I think you need somebody holding down the bottom. Phil had all kinds of ideas that were pretty much unique to him. I grew up with Phil holding down the bottom in his unique way,' Weir said. He added: 'I suppose I could go back out. I wouldn't put anybody in his place, so it would be a trio at this point. It'd be me and two drummers. I'd have to think about that. I haven't thought about it — it's just now occurring to me that it's a possibility that we could do that, since you asked.… I guess we'll just see what the three of us can pull together.'Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
San Francisco Chronicle
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco approves Grateful Dead 60th anniversary concerts at Golden Gate Park
Thousands of Deadheads are expected to descend on Golden Gate Park this summer now that the San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission approved a three-day concert to mark the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead. The event will feature surviving members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart playing along with Dead & Company, their ensemble of musician friends — guitarist John Mayer, bassist Oteil Burbridge, pianist Jeff Chimenti and drummer Jay Lane — at the Polo Fields on Aug. 1-3. A spokesperson from the agency said the commission voted yes at its meeting on Thursday, May 15. It's official! @deadandcompany will perform 3 concerts at Golden Gate Park's Polo Fields on August 1, 2 & 3, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the Grateful Dead. Mayor @DanielLurie announced the proposal on Monday, which was approved by the Rec & Park Commission today. — San Francisco Recreation and Park Department (@RecParkSF) May 15, 2025 San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, who championed the proposal, emphasized the city's deep connection to the Grateful Dead. 'What better way to celebrate?' Lurie said in a social media post earlier this week. 'We'll see you out here.' The outdoor concerts will be organized by Another Planet Entertainment, in collaboration with Live Nation and the San Francisco Recreation and Park Department. The event is expected to draw up to 60,000 people per day Lurie anticipates the concerts will generate millions in economic activity, benefiting San Francisco's hotels, restaurants, and small businesses. A similar Dead & Company show in 2023 at Oracle Park contributed $31 million to the local economy. This summer's performances will commemorate the Grateful Dead's 1965 debut as the Warlocks. The event will also mark the first local performances since the death of bassist Phil Lesh in October 2024. Phil Ginsburg, general manager of the Recreation and Park Department, called the concert a 'powerful tribute' to both the Grateful Dead's legacy and the park's cultural history.
Axios
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Dead & Company to return to San Francisco
San Franciscans will have the chance to re-experience the Grateful Dead's most renowned hits at a "once-in-a-generation musical celebration" this summer commemorating the band's 60th anniversary. Why it matters: The homegrown, psychedelic rock band, founded in Palo Alto in 1965, was a pioneer in the counterculture movement and remains a Bay Area fan favorite decades later. Driving the news: Mayor Daniel Lurie on Monday announced plans for a three-day concert series with Dead & Company, a spinoff group with longtime Dead members Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, at Golden Gate Park's Polo Fields from Aug. 1-3. The event is part of a wider effort to expand cultural and musical events in San Francisco to help boost business activity. The concert series will be Dead & Company's first public performance outside their ongoing Las Vegas residency since 2023, when the band ended its farewell tour at Oracle Park. It will also mark the first anniversary after bassist Phil Lesh's death and will coincide with the birthday of late founding member Jerry Garcia. What they're saying:"Golden Gate Park and the Grateful Dead share a rich, intertwined history that helped shape a cultural era," San Francisco Recreation and Park general manager Phil Ginsburg said in a statement. "Celebrating their 60th anniversary with a Dead and Company performance in the very place where the Summer of Love took root is a powerful tribute to their legacy." The intrigue: The concert series is the first big entertainment-related initiative he has spearheaded that isn't an extension of former Mayor London Breed's portfolio. It's expected to draw about 180,000 attendees, with potential to generate tens of millions of dollars for the local economy, according to the mayor's office. The band's three-day run in San Francisco in 2023 produced $31 million in economic revenue. Catch up quick: As an offshoot of Grateful Dead, Dead & Company honors the jam band's eclectic psychedelic style by playing covers of songs that have come to define the city's 1960s counterculture era. Though the group officially disbanded after Garcia died in 1995, surviving members have gone on to perform in various offshoots, including as The Other Ones, The Dead, Furthur and, most recently, Dead & Company. Between the lines: Dead & Company pays homage to the band's non-commercial approach to music through improvisation in live performances and an emphasis on experimental sound — a blend of folk, blues, rock, reggae and more — that has long drawn diehard Deadheads while resonating with today's younger audiences.
Scottish Sun
08-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
‘Jerry Garcia was my soulmate… we relied on each other,' says Grateful Dead founding member Bobby Weir
Find out why Bob Weir says he needs 100 iPads to bring the Dead back to life STILL TRUCKIN' 'Jerry Garcia was my soulmate… we relied on each other,' says Grateful Dead founding member Bobby Weir 'What a long, strange trip it's been' for the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir – or Bobby Weir, as he goes by these days. As Deadheads among you will know, that immortal line comes from one of their best loved songs, Truckin'. 6 Legendary Grateful Dead co-founder Bobby Weir, 77, brings a symphonic spin to his music – and he's finally back on a London stage Credit: Todd Michalek 6 Weir with Grateful Dead, including his late soulmate, guitarist Jerry Garcia Credit: Redferns A Weir co-write with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh and lyricist Robert Hunter, the bluesy, steady-rolling shuffle has been recognised by the United States Library Of Congress as 'a national treasure'. The same accolade applies to Weir himself. It was he who took lead vocals on the song which references a drugs raid at the band's hotel on Bourbon Street, New Orleans, in 1970. At 77, he is chief keeper of the Dead's flame, performing their music as leader of two bands, Dead & Company and Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros. It is the second of these offshoots that us British Deadheads (yes, I count myself among them) are getting excited about. On June 21, Weir is heading to the UK for the first time in 22 years, the last time being with another of his post-Dead bands, RatDog. He and Wolf Bros — Don Was (bass), Jeff Chimenti (piano) and Jay Lane (drums) — are taking to the Royal Albert Hall's hallowed stage with the 68-piece Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. They will present reimagined songs from what Weir describes as 'the Dead songbook' and a sprinkling of compositions from his solo career. And that's the reason why I'm on a video call to one of America's most intriguing and long-serving musicians. It's a fine spring evening in London and an equally balmy lunchtime on the West Coast, where a clear blue sky frames Weir's distinctive, distinguished features. 'A sense of being' His swept-back grey/white hair with matching walrus moustache and beard, as well as his piercing brown eyes, give him the air of one of rock's elder statesman. But, before we get stuck into his symphonic London show, it's time for a Grateful Dead recap. It's important to note that they were not just a band but also a way of life. They fostered unrivalled community spirit, putting themselves and the original Deadheads at the forefront of the counterculture movement in the late Sixties. They were a rallying point for all those pot-smoking folks with tie-dyed clothes, beaded necklaces, sandals and long hair. They were — to borrow hippie parlance — far out, man! When I first heard rock and roll, I realised I had something of a calling. I was seven, eight, nine years old when Elvis Presley was a big star. He had an energy about him that I related to. Being part of a giant family gave the Dead 'a sense of being and a sense of purpose', decides Weir. At just 16, he had hooked up with Jerry Garcia, five years his senior, in the Californian city of Palo Alto to become the Dead's youngest founder member, beginning his 'long strange trip' playing the band's music. 'Number one, it's the only thing I'm equipped to do,' he tells me, choosing his words carefully. 'I'm dyslexic in the extreme, so an academic career was never a move on the board for me. 'When I first heard rock and roll, I realised I had something of a calling. 'I was seven, eight, nine years old when Elvis Presley was a big star. He had an energy about him that I related to. 'Soon, there was only one thing I was really interested in — making that kind of music.' Weir says the arrival in the US of The Beatles, as leaders of the 'British Invasion', also had a profound effect. 'The Beatles looked like they were having a lot of fun — they were bright, they worked well together and their music reflected that. 'It's pretty apparent that in three or four hundred years, people will still be talking about them. Maybe if we [the Grateful Dead] are lucky, we'll also make that cut!' Weir's imposing rock vocals and richly textured rhythm guitar provided the perfect foil to Garcia's ethereal delivery and intricate lead guitar. They conjured up a transcendent fusion of rock, country, jazz, gospel, ragtime, you name it, and were masters of improvisation on extended jams involving tracks such as the epic Dark Star. Today, Weir admits that never a day goes by when he doesn't think about Garcia, who died in 1995 aged 53, effectively ending the Grateful Dead (if not live performance of their music). 'Jerry and I were soulmates,' he says. 'I did stuff that he didn't do and he did stuff that I didn't do. We relied on each other. 'The whole deal was that we would keep doing it for as long as we were having fun — and we did.' Weir also has bassist Phil Lesh on his mind, a fellow founder member who died last October aged 84. Back in the day, when we were playing these songs, this [orchestrated sound] is basically what was going on in our heads. 'I've thought about him a lot lately and I haven't come up with any greater clarity other than he was a friend of mine — he taught me a lot and I like to think I taught him a lot. 'He was a musical mentor but, at the same time, my way was not his way. I had to sort the catfish from the trout, as they say, when ideas came up. 'Now, I'm just going to let that all pass.' It's a full 60 years since The Grateful Dead formed and 30 since Garcia's death but Weir is still pushing on by bringing his special concert to the Albert Hall, a venue he's never played before. 'I've only heard about it in songs but I'm looking forward to it for sure,' he says, surely in reference to The Beatles' A Day In Life with its line, 'now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall'. 6 Jerry Garcia was a founding member of the band Grateful Dead and died in 1995 6 Weir pictured with Wolf Bros The event follows similar outings by Weir in the States and he believes the addition of a full orchestra is not as strange as it seems. 'Back in the day, when we were playing these songs, this [orchestrated sound] is basically what was going on in our heads,' he says. 'We were hearing a much fuller representation than our instruments allowed us to play. 'So, we imagined how songs could sound and we reached for those timbres. This is an opportunity to actually do it.' For an artist so defined by improvisation, I'm intrigued by the prospect of him playing with an orchestra and all the attendant constraints. When I mention this, Weir latches on to the theme and says: 'This is the point I wanted you to remind me of. 'Right now, we have to stick to a given arrangement. What's on the paper is what's going to get played BUT that's not where we're taking this. 'What's afoot is trying to get it so the orchestra can improvise relatively freely.' 'I'll need 100 iPads' Weir explains his plans for a team of 'improv leaders' sorted into 'various sections of the orchestra with a multiple choice of riffs'. 'I'm probably going to need Apple to give me a hundred iPads to make it work,' he adds with a wry smile. 'But if it works for us, it will work for any of the composers. I'm thinking of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony — the start of the second movement. You could employ this kind of thing until hell won't have it no more!' Weir returns to matters in hand, namely the Albert Hall show and what the audience can expect — ie the unexpected as is the Grateful Dead way. He says: 'We've got a couple of dozen songs orchestrated. Right now, it comes out at roughly five and a half hours of music. We're already at the point where you don't know what you're going to hear. 'That's how we've done things all along and that's how I intend to go on. That said, there will be new additions for the London performance because they're up and ready.' Weir senses that his audience will be open-minded about orchestral arrangements and prepared to 'get with it' on this latest sonic adventure. 'This is for the folks who want to hear something that's a step beyond where it's been — and this is surely that!' he exclaims. So, are we likely to see the cosmic Dark Star, which once ran to 43 minutes but usually clocks in at about 20. 'Dark Star is orchestrated,' replies Weir. 'I won't say I'm taking requests but I'll take it into consideration. We haven't got there with the setlist yet.' When I was 15, I decided on a terribly romantic thing to do — run off and be a cowboy. I guess we'll have to wait and see if he'll play his most cherished Dead co-writes — Sugar Magnolia, Playing In The Band, Estimated Prophet, Hell In A Bucket, Throwing Stones or, of course, Truckin'. While Garcia forged an intuitive songwriting partnership with Robert Hunter, yielding Uncle John's Band, Ripple, Stella Blue and other classics, Weir fell out with Hunter when creating crowd pleaser One More Saturday Night. He confesses: 'There was a lot of tension because I write lyrics too and Hunter was not real good with that. He liked to play it closer to the vest.' So Weir turned to his pal, the late John Barlow, for collaborations. 'Barlow and I went to school together,' he says. 'We grew up together. 'When I was 15, I decided on a terribly romantic thing to do — run off and be a cowboy. 'I worked on Barlow's parents' ranch in Wyoming. Over the years, we would live out there in a little log cabin and write. 'And I'll tell you this — we're just starting to crack the nut on some of our compositions with the orchestral work.' In this free-ranging interview, full of unexpected twists and turns, a bit like a Grateful Dead live set, I ask Weir about his early visits to England. He recalls the 1972 Bickershaw Festival, near Wigan, a doomed venture partly organised by late TV host Jeremy Beadle. The Dead played a five-hour set to the mud-covered crowd and Weir says: 'I remember it well. It was a rainy occasion!' During that tour of Europe, they also did two nights at Wembley Arena (then called Empire Pool) and a four-night stand at London's Lyceum. Weir says they were a band at the peak of its powers, celebrated by the live triple album, Europe '72. 'We were young and strong but jet lag was a serious business,' he adds. 'We took it into consideration in '72 and held off for a few days. 'But we were in a phase when the band was high and we delivered the goods.' This year, Weir has also been delivering for Dead & Company (with John Mayer on lead guitar) at the state-of-the-art Sphere in Las Vegas. The venue projects moving images on to the inside of the huge spherical auditorium but, says Weir, it's still not fully prepared for the Dead's freewheeling attitude. 'Mind-blowing as it is, it's still a work in progress because a great deal of technological development needs to be done before content people can be faster on their feet. 'When that work is done, it's going to surpass opera in terms of what you can deliver from one stage.' As for this restless soul Weir, he believes that his musical journey is only just 'coming to fruition'. 'It's been complicated so it was always going to take a while,' he admits. 'I'm not sure I totally understand what it is that I'm up to but I have a handle on it now to take the next steps forward.' It seems that this line from Truckin' could have been written for Bobby Weir. 'Sometimes the light's all shinin' on me.' 6 Weir says 'Jerry (right) and I were soulmates, I did stuff that he didn't do, and he did stuff that I didn't do. We relied on each other. Credit: Redferns
