Chicago — I was lucky enough to spend the July 4 weekend here for the final two shows of Grateful Dead’s Fare Thee Well tour. Three concerts here, and two engagements the previous weekend in Santa Clara, Calif., were billed as the first and last time that the band would perform beneath the banner Grateful Dead since the death in 1995 of its late and beloved co-founder, lead guitarist, and éminence très grise, Jerry Garcia. These dates also mark the 50th anniversary of the band’s launch in San Francisco and 20 years, to the day, since its last show together, also here at Soldier Field. These, as well, became my 70th and 71st Grateful Dead shows.
Chicago tickets sold out almost instantly and began appearing in the aftermarket at four-digit prices. I soon gave up all hope of participating. I arranged to watch a closed-circuit simulcast of Friday night’s splendid show on the wide screens and excellent sound system at Brooklyn Bowl, and leave it at that.
However, just ten days before show time, Mark Dobbrow, a very entertaining friend from San Francisco, offered me extra tickets at face value and half-off accommodations at the Westin Hotel on Michigan Avenue, right beside the Hancock Tower. United Airlines had round-trip seats available for just under $500. Game on!
The staging ground for these festivities was Soldier Field, just south of the city’s Loop and central business district. The stadium’s classical, Doric-column-filled limestone façade from its 1924 original design thankfully survived a 2003 renovation. Into that, architects placed an up-to-date glass-and-steel sports arena. The result is comfortable and modern inside. From the outside, it looks as if a UFO just landed within an ancient Roman temple.
After what Chicagoans described as a wintry and wet summer so far, Independence Day weekend was like Malibu on Lake Michigan. Strong sunshine warmed the air to the low-to-mid 80s by day. Mild breezes cooled things down to 75 at night. A hint of humidity barely hindered the near-perfect conditions. The climate suited everyone’s clothes.
And what about the music?
After opening July 4 with a vigorous “Shakedown Street,” the band reflected the spirit of the day with a song called “Liberty.” In words that should be sung out in Washington daily, the tune goes, “Ooo, freedom / Ooo, liberty / Ooo, leave me alone / To find my own way home.”
“Tennessee Jed” amusingly described the travails of a man and his loyal canine. With one mishap preceding another, his doggie keeps urging him: “Let’s get back to Tennessee, Jed.”
“Cumberland Blues” and “Deal” also were first-set highlights.
The second set included a mellow “Lost Sailor” into a sparkling reading of “Saint of Circumstance.” Its incredibly optimistic lyrics should cheer anyone down on his luck: “Sure don’t know what I’m going for, but I’m gonna go for it, for sure.”
A thunderous “West L.A. Fadeaway” and raucous “One More Saturday Night” set closer preceded the perfect encore.
The band wrapped up with a fun and lively “U.S. Blues,” about the adventures of Uncle Sam. “Shake the hand that shook the hand of P. T. Barnum and Charlie Chan,” the tune goes. “Wave that flag. Wave it wide and high,” we sang. Projected onto the stage’s giant video screens were images of this piece being interpreted by the Empire State Building’s LED system. This temporarily turned the world’s most famous skyscraper into Grateful Dead’s personal lava lamp.
This red-white-and-blue moment, matching the attire of almost every fan, was followed immediately by fireworks exploding above the stadium. Rockets and Roman candles climbed into the skies over the parking lot after the show, thanks to Deadheads who added their own brilliant salutes to America’s 239th birthday.
“China Cat Sunflower” and “I Know You Rider” opened Sunday’s program, which featured several typically second-set songs performed in the first set. A bouncy “Samson & Delilah” eventually followed, complete with its big, drum-laden overture. A chilling “Mountains of the Moon” probably terrified anyone seeing the Dead for the first time. (There’s at least one in every crowd.) That nerve-wracking mess mercifully yielded to an infinitely more comforting “Throwing Stones.”
A thoroughly unforgettable second set erupted with “Truckin’,” which felt especially meaningful for so many of us who had journeyed to Windy City, U.S.A., from every direction and far away. A very sweetly rendered “Althea” flowed gently into a muscular “Terrapin Station.”
After an especially, perhaps overly, gentle “Days Between,” Grateful Dead detonated a blistering rendition of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away.” “I’m gonna tell you how it’s going to be,” band and crowd roared in unison. “You’re gonna give your love to me!” The incredibly strong strumming on stage fueled equally hard dancing on the field and in the stands. More than any other, this selection forged performers and audience into one molten, amalgamated mass.
The audience’s sustained, rhythmic clapping after “NFA” brought the band out for a high-energy “Touch of Grey” encore. Even more such structured applause lured them back for the weekend’s final song: A serene, acoustic “Attics of My Life.”
Left to right: Trey Anastasio, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, and Bob Weir wow the crowd at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
Among the surviving original members, Bob Weir still sings and plays just fine. His ample gray hair, beard, and thick moustache needlessly make him look far older than his 67 years. (He co-founded the band at the tender age of 16.)
Bassist Phil Lesh, conversely, looks young for a 75-year-old man. As he reminds every audience, he is alive today thanks to a liver donation from a young vehicle-accident victim named Cody. Lesh urged Deadheads everywhere, and those who love us, to become organ donors. As he likes to say: “Save the life of someone you’ll never meet.”
When Garcia was alive and sang half the band’s tunes, Lesh stepped up to the microphone on only a few songs, such as “Unbroken Chain.” While his low-note-plucking talents exceed his crooning, fans appreciate his joy and warmth as he now sings one tune after another.
Drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, the so-called Rhythm Devils who performed on the brooding soundtrack of Apocalypse Now, faithfully let the band’s heart beat out loud.
Occasional band member Bruce Hornsby, who filled in after the untimely death in 1990 of the incredibly gifted keyboardist and vocalist Brent Mydland, played beautifully on a huge, Carnegie Hall–style Steinway concert grand piano. While he stumbled a little on several lyrics, his cheerfulness shone through, and his instrumental solos basted an elegant sauce atop the musical meat.
Jeff Chimenti, a frequent collaborator of Weir and Lesh, contributed on keyboards as well. On the side, Chimenti co-invented a medical device for sleep-apnea patients.
Anastasio smiled like a five-year-old on Christmas morning while strumming and picking with the force of a fighter-jet engine.
Soldier Field’s most valuable player was, no doubt, Trey Anastasio. Given the unenviable task of bringing the lead-guitar goods previously and phenomenally delivered by the deeply missed Garcia, Phish’s chief luminary more than stepped up to the occasion. Despite an already graying beard, the 50-year-old still appears boyish. Anastasio exuded that quality as he played before a stadium-record 71,000 people with the co-founders of a band to which he likely began listening when he first grabbed his guitar in grade school.
Anastasio smiled like a five-year-old on Christmas morning while strumming and picking with the force of a fighter-jet engine. His solos helped propel the already powerful GD members to ever loftier and more intense heights through one head-spinning instrumental free-for-all jam after another. These musical flights and loops-de-loop are what we Deadheads came to Chicago to experience. And we did — time after devastatingly beautiful time.
Beyond thousands of iridescent tie-dyes and vibrantly colorful prints, Deadheads wore a wealth of eye-catching T-shirts. Incongruously, one simply read, “Frank Sinatra.” Its owner looked around, laughed, and pantomimed a couple of steel locomotives racing into each other.
A very tall man from Minneapolis wore a shirt that he acquired at a Jerry Garcia Band concert in St. Louis. It read “JGB” and mimicked KFC’s logo with Garcia’s face where Colonel Sanders should be. On the back, it read: “Finger-Pickin’ Good.” Apparently worn scores of times, this poor item seemed to have survived the War of the Roses — barely. It was more holes than garment.
Despite its huge problems with crime and Greek-style public finances, Chicago could not have looked more clean, scrubbed, and self-confident. The downtown area remains one of America’s premier urban centers, with old and new architecture boldly standing shoulder to shoulder in impressive and attractive harmony. The office towers along East Randolph Street were illuminated in red, white, and blue. One building’s lit windows spelled “GO USA.”
The Chicago Police Department and security guards were relaxed inside and outside the venue. This has not always been so throughout Grateful Dead history, prompting an array of buzz-killing episodes. Last weekend’s low-key law-enforcement situation was a two-way street.
“I have worked here for ten years, and this is the most peaceful crowd I have seen — ever,” said one security guard. Looking equally relieved and astonished, he added: “I love you Deadheads!”
A number of bands have staged farewell tours and sold thousands of tickets to “last-ever” shows. A few years later, they change their minds and go back on tour.
That usually feels like a bait-and-switch. But the profoundly loyal members of the tribe who converged on Chicago and were deeply moved by the band’s epic performances, stirring group hug, and final bow after Sunday’s show would not feel cheated if these farewell concerts turn out not to be Grateful Dead’s last.
“We’re coming back tomorrow!” said one fan, clearly thrilled by all that he had seen and heard.
Grateful Dead’s luscious sounds and the palpable spirit among its devotees are nearly impossible to find anywhere else in music or beyond, except perhaps within a revival tent full of congregants consumed by a charismatic gospel choir. The focused, concentrated, intense bliss shared inside Soldier Field is tragically rare. It is painful to ponder that those elements will not intermingle again. And, so, they should.
Until that happy day, we have the final words the crowd heard before the band beyond description walked off stage, for now.
“We leave you with this,” Mickey Hart said. “Be kind.”
— Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News contributor and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University.