Dead members keep saying their bands are terminal — then they resuscitate them

Six months after what Dead & Company declared was their final tour, most of the band is holding a festival in Mexico and will reportedly play shows in Las Vegas.

After Rolling Stone reported in April 2022 that Dead & Company, the band featuring three of the surviving Grateful Dead members and John Mayer, would stop playing together after that summer tour, I shared the story on a text thread with friends.

One friend responded that this was a marketing scheme typical of jam bands.

I disagreed, as artists across the music industry regularly do farewell concerts and tours — and many of them then get back together.  (The Rocket Man, Elton John, took it real slow on his final tour, which lasted from 2018 to 2023.)

And while I still don’t see a trend of repeated goodbyes specific to bands that like to turn off the GPS during a song and then switch it back on 32 minutes later, I have started to become more skeptical of the Dead’s intentions.

It turned out that Dead & Co were not breaking up in 2022, as Rolling Stone reported — at least not then. (The breakup news, which the reporter attributed to sources close to the band and members then denied, came out the same day tickets went on sale. Make of that what you will.)

Then about five months later, after that tour, the band did announce that they would tour for the last time in 2023.

And yet now, just months after a tour in which, according to Billboard, they grossed almost $115 million, five of the six band members from the final tour — which did not include drummer Bill Kreutzmann — are preparing to play a festival together in Mexico. And the band is reportedly considering performing next summer at the new, much-hyped Las Vegas venue, the Sphere.

Given these quick reunions after such a lucrative final tour, I think it’s at least worth asking the question that many popular artists face: has a craving for money and attention overtaken a desire to create great music?

First, a bit of background: after the center of the band, guitarist Jerry Garcia, died in 1995, the band decided to stop touring and using the name the Grateful Dead, an understandable move given the way Garcia’s death shocked Deadheads.

“After four months of heartfelt consideration," the group then said in a statement, “the remaining members of the band met yesterday and came to the conclusion that the 'long strange trip' of the uniquely wonderful beast known as the Grateful Dead is over. Although individually and in various combinations they will undoubtedly continue to make music, whatever the future holds will be something different in name and structure."

Then the four surviving members —  Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Kreutzmann — toured as “The Other Ones” and then “The Dead.”

Sometimes it was just three of the members; other times it was all four. According to journalist Joel Selvin, author of “Fare Thee Well,” this was because of squabbles among the band members.

Then in 2015, after not all playing together since 2009, the four band members announced that they would celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the band’s formation by playing their final shows together, billed as a Fare Thee Well series, over the July 4 weekend in 2016 in Chicago.

Oh, but then due to somehow surprising, overwhelming demand, the promoter, Pete Shapiro, announced two more shows in California prior to the ones in the Windy City.

Meanwhile, not long after the Fare Thee Well announcement, Billboard reported in April 2015 that Weir and Mayer could do a tour that fall. And that turned out to be true, as the two guitarists and two Dead drummers, Kreutzmann and Hart, did indeed form Dead & Co and begin touring. The only one not in that band was the bassist, Lesh.

If that was all a bit difficult to follow, now you know what it’s like for the guy who says he doesn’t know much of the Dead’s music but is excited to see his first concert. Then after a couple cocktails, he decides to eat mushrooms and loses track not only of what song it is but whether he is in a concert venue or on a ship lost at sea.

But you likely have gathered that in the most generous take, the band members are just indecisive or that it is just a matter of the breakups and reunions that sometimes occur in difficult relationships. Perhaps it’s still lingering distress over Garcia’s death. Or maybe they made the announcement about the last tour because of Kreutzmann’s health issues but then since he didn’t join them on the last tour — it’s unclear why — the remaining members can still play together.

Or in a more cynical take, you might conclude that ego and greed have played at least some role in shaping the band members’ decisions since Garcia died. (I am largely not complaining, as I attended and thoroughly enjoyed a couple shows on Dead & Co’s final tour, in addition to earlier shows featuring Dead members.)

I would give these musicians the benefit of the doubt if it had happened once or twice but there have now been news flashes about “final” Dead shows before the 2016 concerts, before the 2022 concerts and before the 2023 tour. Imagine if this same pattern occurred in a different medium, say television.

“This fall, ABC returns with the eight revival of ‘Lost,’ ” a news story might read. “As it turns out, the island is actually just something ChatGPT dreamed up in between giving directions for making brisket. Now Jack must figure out how to escape.”

“Lost” fans might roll their eyes, as I do when thinking about the Dead members’ decisions.

If they are truly more interested in making music than making money, and if they love a band like Dead & Co enough that they just can’t quit it, then why not give fans something new, like recording an album of new music together?

Otherwise, it was just yet another random combination of Dead musicians, not including Garcia.

Why not play more shows like their 2023 one at Cornell University, where they donated all proceeds to charity?

Otherwise, it makes sense that the city where Dead & Co would reunite is Las Vegas, home of every possible way to take your money.

And then why stop there? I smell a fall 2024 reunion tour. (If they come near me, I would still attend.)

But hopefully, for the band members’ legacies, what happens in Vegas...

You know the rest.

Thanks for reading.