Issue Date: 7/13/96
A quarter-of-a-century is a long time. Empires can rise and fall; stars can change their alignment. Waistlines expand, hairlines recede, and fashions make a full cycle. A generation passes.
So do heroes, role models, guides through life's black forests. When Jerry Garcia died last summer, he left a lot of people stranded. And with his passing, the question legions of Deadheads had dreaded for decades finally had to be answered, sooner than we'd hoped: Is there life after the Dead?
And so I went, somewhat hesitantly, to what was dubbed the "Further Festival" a few weeks ago, to find out for myself. Twenty-five years after my first Grateful Dead show, I was afraid to be disappointed, scared that a poor imitation of the original would make me face reality -- that something precious was gone forever.
After Garcia's death, the rest of the members of the Dead had decided, rightly, that, rather than trying to replace what was un-replaceable, the band's ashes had to go with him, scattered into the holy waters of the Ganges River. Mickey Hart and Bob Weir, though, weren't ready to retire. Hence the Further Festival -- as in, "further on down the road." It made it's second stop of a summer-long processional debut at Blockbuster Pavilion, a full afternoon and evening for the family to gather. It might have been a wake; it became a party. And it didn't take long for me to remember what it felt like the first time, all those years ago:
It was late Spring, 1971. "Joe College" weekend at Duke, and we loaded into the car and left Chapel Hill for the short ride over to Duke's football stadium. It was another scorching Saturday, under a blazing sun, which faded slowly into a moon-lit evening, as we jammed the field and stands. Garcia came out early and played pedal-steel with the New Riders of the Purple Sage, before the Dead took over, and the real magic began.
Someone dancing and writhing to the music next to me leaned over and asked if I'd like a hit -- of acid. Orange Sunshine. I'd never done that before, but it seemed like the thing to do. Only she didn't tell me the tab was a "four-way," that I shouldn't take the whole thing by myself.
On stage, while the crew changed sets between acts, some guy who called himself "Doctor Trips," or something like that, entertained us. Or maybe it's more appropriate to say he was the guide for the day. His job was to keep us occupied, to smooth out the rough spots. He was the tour director, or maybe the puppet-master, his presence as significant to the energy-flow as the music, which progressed through the Dead's three-hour set to the Beach Boys as the sun set, into the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, a nd finally, under the stars, Mountain.
When I got back to the dorm late that night, I clutched my precious souvenirs of the day in my hand, which I proudly showed to my roommate, who wasn't amused: I was holding on to the metal ring from the top of a can of Coke, and the torn pieces of a red balloon. I don't remember what they meant -- only that they were important.
I still have those souvenirs tucked away in a drawer somewhere.
Except it was June, 1996. And I made the mistake of going a little late. I missed Hot Tuna and Los Lobos, and heard the last strains from Bruce Hornsby's band trailing off as I made my way through the parking lot to the gate. It looked the same, though, hordes of tie-dyed, dread-locked, sandal-clad wayfaring souls wandering around "looking for a miracle" -- a free ticket to get in. And there were the vendors, grilled cheese sandwiches being hawked alongside T-shirts, beads -- and a few less-legal wares.
Inside, there might have been less people than would have showed up for a "real" Grateful Dead show, but other than that, there was no difference. Down front, under the roof, thousands twirled to the music, while, farther back, on the lawn, blankets were spread, bodies sprawled out. In the middle, right where the sound would be the best, stood a grove of twenty-foot-tall microphone stands, for the "tapers."
Something new was being honored like the old, preserved for posterity.
Those gathered spanned generations. Grey-bearded, long-haired relics like myself mingled with their children -- and their grandchildren. The only differences between them were the age, and waist-size, of their jeans. And maybe the number of tattoos, or pierced body-parts.
On-stage, like the first time, a master-of-ceremonies told stories between acts, bridging the empty spaces. One guy about my age came up to me and asked what I thought. He had a wistful, quizzical look on his face; he wanted me to tell him that the trip had survived, that the ride wasn't over. I told him I wasn't sure yet.
Back near the gate, some structure had been imposed on the tradition of selling goods. Tents had been erected along the walkway, with tables full of "authorized" items for sale. There were the expected racks of clothing, caps, display cases full of jewelry, books, audio and video tapes, and long lines of people browsing. History was for sale; Ken Kesey-autographed copies of "One Flew Over The Cookoo's Nest," alongside reprints of Tom Wolfe's "Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test." And there was one booth selling products manufactured exclusively from hemp. (The non-smokeable kind.)
And there was the latest example of mind-altering technology available. For a buck, you could sit and try out a new gadget that was sort of a cross between an old view-master, and a kaleidoscope. You put this plastic mask-like kind of thing over your face, and blew gently into a little hole, with your eyes closed, pointed towards the sun -- and, voila! -- swirling visual images reminiscent of that caused by the orange sunshine all those years ago flashed before my eyes, while the "vendor" talked to us about "synchronized brain waves," and "meditational energy." It was a pretty cool toy, it was legal, and you could buy your own for only $18. I passed on the offer.
So the trappings hadn't changed much. But what of the music -- the real "acid-test?" By early evening, Mickey Hart's Mystery Box took the stage, a full troupe of people shaking and rattling myriads of percussive-type instruments, more ethnic, more "rhythm and blues" than anything the Dead had ever done. Cool, but not startling. I wasn't quite boogeying yet.
When they were done, the Flying Karamozov Brothers juggled and joked around, before Bob Weir's Ratdog took over. With the first notes, I felt something stirring; the crowd felt it too; it was the closest thing yet to feeling right. Ratdog plays mostly old, gently-rolling R&B tunes, and it reminded me of the kind of prelude to the main event that the New Riders had been years before. It was good. The sun had gone down, a cooling breeze had begun to wist through the air, and a crescent moon had risen in a clear sky overhead. The stage was set.
But it wasn't the Dead. Half-way through Ratdog's set, the final act of the day, I had to face the truth: I missed Jerry Garcia. Right at the point where the Dead would have kicked into another gear, shifted into over-drive, fueled by Garcia's soaring leads, Ratdog sputtered.
There was no blast-off, no "next dimension." Maybe I just missed the acid, or maybe I'm finally getting too old -- but right when I thought we were all about to rock, just when the crowd had begun to believe that the dream hadn't died -- it did.
The best Dead shows, Deadheads will tell you, were the ones when Garcia was "front and center," present-and-accounted-for. Usually, mid-way through the first set or so, Garcia would begin to take control; the "noodling around" would give way to a purposeful quest. He'd say, "Follow me, guys," and we would -- us and the rest of the band. He pulled us out of ourselves and into something else. He made us a family.
There was only one Babe Ruth, there is only one Michael Jordan. And only one Jerry. And he wasn't there. He was somewhere else, alongside of Timothy Leary, transmigrated souls moved "further along" than we can quite follow, at least for now.
I left just before Ratdog finished. The Further Festival wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but it fell short of what I'd hoped. There's no way I can tell how much of an impact the day had on the first-timers, on the kids who missed the real thing. Maybe they got it; maybe, for them, there was enough of a surviving feeling of community for them to latch onto. Maybe, a few years down the road, if the "Further" format survives, it will find the rest of the magic of the past. This was, after all, a new beginning, and we all know that nothing stays the same. Given time, maybe something new will evolve.
Or maybe it will shift over to another Dead-related offspring: Phish, which even before Garcia's death had begun to develop it's own caravan, somewhat derivative, but with its own energy. Sans Garcia, though, Bob Weir and Mickey Hart, and the others, simply aren't the same.
Will I go back, again, year-after-year, like we've done for a quarter-century? Maybe. But there's not the same drive. "They just don't write songs these days the way they used to." (Ugh, I sound like my grandparents.)
Sometimes "movements" survive their founder's passing. The Further Festival deserves to be congratulated for trying to keep the spirit alive, and I can't think of anything more that could have been done to honor what had come before. But time passes, and -- here's the cliche -- the only thing in the universe that's constant is change.
Even so, I miss Jerry Garcia. There's a hole left unfilled. "He's gone -- gone, and nothing's gonna bring him back." (Insert heavy sigh here.)
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