In the summer of 2015, the “core four” remaining members of the Grateful Dead set out to put a capstone on their recording and touring career which, of course had many ups and downs with the loss of several members along the way and a subsequent long hiatus Interspersed with a few variations of the band under various monikers. However, in this case it was “the Grateful Dead” augmented by other musicians including Trey Anastasio notable for his work in Phish, Jeff Chiamenti on keyboards, along with and frequent “pinch hitter” Bruce Hornsby.
Originally, three shows were scheduled in Chicago’s Soldier Field and then the intense demand (offered first to Deadheads following the old-and-trusty-but-somewhat-rusty mail order ticket scheme sent to a PO Box in Stinston Beach, CA) sparked two daytime more at a big new football stadium in Santa Clara, California, outside of the Grateful Dead’s heartland of San Francisco/San Rafael?marin County (and post office box in Stinson Beach).
My brother Dan and I headed out to see all five shows and we’re joined by a gang of old pals along the way. In the spirit of the days of yore, we did it all by road and I kept a massive analog scrapbook filled with ephemera, artifacts, ticket stubs, brochures, postcards, snippets of poetry, signatures, messages, set list and so on.
We took some tie-dye T-shirts to sell unsuccessfully along the way, however – relevant to this dispatch, took a Lomo “sardine can” film camera with a satchel of expired film.
Knowing that there would be high-quality video, sound and images from the show, I wanted to capture a more impressionistic vibe and randomness by this repurposed spy style with a lens that was warped at a night inside a psychedelic sauna made inside my old Volkswagen which is so many Grateful Dead shows in years past.
With this unnecessary introduction, what follows are not-particularly recognizable, instructional, educational or informative photos which somehow capture the fuzzy feeling I had while sensory overloaded, overwhelmed, chronically exhausted, (+ concerned about my life outside of these shows falling down around me).
Divided these snaps into sections of the Bay Area California shows, the Chicago shows (note that they were 1000 other events going on around the shows which I did not participate in), and few from stop at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison Colorado on the way back to see Neil Young and his band-of-the-hour “The Promise of the Real” featuring a couple of Willie Nelson’s boys, plus a band called “Band of Horses” opening on a chilllly night.
No doubt other GD50 Fare Thee Well artifacts abounding in here, and if you really curious about all of this, there is also a round up of digital artifacts somewhere around here but anyway, you’re super clever, you’ll find it all if you want (heck i listed a load in the bottom of this post), in the meantime, here are some fuzzy photos which may not make any sense to you or me:
Santa Clara, California
Soldier Field, Chicago
Red Rocks Amphitheater, Colorado
Further exploration:
Throughout this archive you will see other sets including: a “time lapse” created while driving across the vast Midwest Prairie with a snapshot every 15 minutes, and a few excerpts from the aforementioned scrapbook (now carefully ensconced, bulging edits well sewn, in my studio in a storehouse in provincial Japan, bits of poetry scribbled in the scrapbook, a digital round-up for articles and annotations (alas mamy broken images and links), a memory photo book (mostly of beers and doobs) for brother Dan, more Grateful Dead “Fare Thee Well” (2015), Lomo photos (colour), vol. 1 (people, mostly) & Grateful Dead rambles / “family photos” (with renegade pals & VWs)
Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead {wikipedia}: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fare_Thee_Well%3A_Celebrating_50_Years_of_the_Grateful_Dead
