Grateful Dead plan last resurrection

Surviving members of the Grateful Dead have reunited before, including for a benefit show in 2008 for then presidential candidate Barack Obama, which led to a series of full concerts.

Surviving members of the Grateful Dead are planning a reunion in a likely finale to the band that spawned a countercultural movement through their legions of travelling fans. The Grateful Dead, who emerged from the hippie movement in California in the 1960s and whose fans include late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, will celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary with shows on July 3, 4 and 5 at Soldier Field in Chicago.

The stadium — the oldest US football stadium still in use and home to the Chicago Bears — was the site of the Grateful Dead’s last show with frontman Jerry Garcia after decades of touring in July 1995.

Garcia — who sang, played guitar and wrote songs — died one month after the concert, signalling an end to a cultural era in which free-spirited “Deadheads” followed the band from show to show and swapped bootleg recordings.

The reunion will feature the band’s surviving members — Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir — with three guests to fill in for Garcia.

“These will be the last shows with the four of us together,” Weir told the industry journal Billboard.

Surviving members of the Grateful Dead have reunited before, including for a benefit show in 2008 for then presidential candidate Barack Obama, which led to a series of full concerts.

But the Dead members have increasingly looked weary after years of marathon shows — which were famous for the wide consumption of drugs. Weir in August cancelled an entire tour of his RatDog band including a show due this month in Jamaica.

“It is with respect and gratitude that we reconvene the Dead one last time to celebrate — not merely the band’s legacy, but also the community that we’ve been playing to, and with, for 50 years,” Lesh, who turns 75 in March, told Billboard.

The Grateful Dead achieved a wide cultural influence despite never having commercial success in the music industry’s traditional sense. Only one song — Touch of Grey, a concise pop track that the band had played for years live before releasing it in 1987 — ever made the top 10.