Grateful Dead Announces First Tour in Four Years: Deadhead Mania Explained

Grateful Dead has officially announced their 2009 Concert Tour kicking off April 12 in Greensboro, North Carolina and ending May 10 in Mountain View, California. Presale Grateful Dead tour tickets will be available January 13 and nationwide ticket sales will begin January 23. Complete Grateful Dead tour ticket prices and schedule can be found at the official Grateful Dead tour site (click here). The Dead lineup will be the same as the Penn State Barack Obama benefit concert including The Core Four of Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann.

Deadheads are among the most loyal musician fan base of any performing musical group in history. Some might say it is because much of music by The Dead was classified as psychedelic rock with signature colorful red, purple and green tie-dye fashion. Others might say it is because of the genius of legendary band member Jerry Garcia who wrote and performed a little bit of everything including folk rock, jam, bluegrass, country rock, classic rock and roll, reggae, gospel, space rock, rhythm and blues, and blues-rock. Perhaps Deadheads relate to the early days of the rugged, poverty-stricken band members who were brought together by chance meetings of fate and would become one of the most critically acclaimed music groups of all time.

I saw the Grateful Dead Summer Tour 1986 outside in the fields of Manor Downs in Austin, Texas. Unlike Jerry Garcia, I do not take mind-altering drugs, but my mind was altered that night as I sat in my lawn chair, wearing my tie-dye t-shirt, listening to Truckin' and feeling as if the entire world in which I lived did not really exist except under the stars of an Austin sky.

Grateful Dead music is mesmerizing. Grateful Dead music alone IS the escape. Ironically, it's not the drugs that set you free at a Grateful Dead concert. One Deadhead wrote about the Summer Tour 1986 on the Grateful Dead web site archives: the July 4^th, Rich Stadium was the best show he had seen with The Dead, Bob Dylan, and some guy named Tom Petty.

Thanks to the equally legendary talent of the Grateful Dead - The Core Four members, the spellbinding magic of Grateful Dead music will live on even though Jerry Garcia did not. After 30 years with the Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia died of a heart attack on August 9, 1995 while in a drug rehab facility. Despite two previous close calls with death, one in a 1960 car accident that claimed the life of his 16-year old friend, and the other from a diabetic coma, Jerry Garcia could not successfully battle his drug demons.

Ultimately, Jerry Garcia is now on the trip of his lifetime and his soul - half of Jerry Garcia's ashes were spread in the San Francisco Bay; the other half were spread in the Ganges River in India. R.I.P. Jerry and let the Grateful Dead live on!

Sources:

http://dead.net/dead09

http://www.dead.net/archives/1986/clippings/gd-laminate-summer-tour-1986