Grateful Dead break attendance records with final farewell shows
The re-formed San Francisco psychedelic rockers were at their improvisational best at last week's shows in Chicago
As the Grateful Dead performed in Chicago on July 3, a film camera swooped through the front row of the audience and projected on large screens what it saw: rows of people recording on their smartphones.
The distraction of constant connectivity didn't exist in 1995 when the Grateful Dead, possibly the most American of American bands, played their final show at Soldier Field in Chicago with founder and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia. Things have changed. These three Fare Thee Well shows, which concluded last Sunday once again at Soldier Field, were billed as a final farewell and a celebration of the band's 50-year anniversary. The weekend's success was a testament to the music's enduring cultural currency - more than 210,000 tickets were sold and the band earned about US$50 million, according to reports. All three nights broke attendance records for the venue, with Sunday's tally of 71,000 people the highest in its 91-year history.
The audience sported requisite tie-dye wear and were ready to reboot the party, but they arrived more in a state of blissful appreciation than they were boisterous. Contrary to speculation, the crowd was comprised not just fans who are as aged as the band itself, but a good portion of younger people who showed up to catch a wave of something they missed the first time around.
Cody Steenbergen from Illinois was born in 1994, one year before the Dead flamed out. He discovered the band through a late friend's old vinyl record collection that was passed onto him. Back then, the possibility of attending a Dead show in his lifetime was absurd. "I'm still waiting to wake up," he says.
"I'm in it for life. You can't help but smile when you hear the Dead. It doesn't matter what mood you're in. It's magical."
Fans showed up in full Dead regalia, wearing worn concert T-shirts from past tours and other clothing adorned with red, white and blue stripes. The city's museum campus, which includes the mighty entrance steps to the Field Museum of Natural History, became a temporary staging area for fans to enjoy a bacchanal hours before doors opened. For them, there was finality in the air. Moments after getting their ticket scanned for entry, each fan received a gift in return from the band: a single long-stemmed rose.