Avett Brothers Bob Crawford On Grateful Dead 50 Finale
By Scott Bernstein Jul 11, 2015 • 6:00 am PDT
On July 5 The Avett Brothers bassist Bob Crawford was one of the 70,000+ to attend the Fare Thee Well -Celebrating 50 Years Of Grateful Dead finale at Soldier Field in Chicago, where the Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann shared the stage with Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti. The show has been billed as the final time the Dead’s “core four” will perform together. Crawford wrote an essay about his Fare Thee Well experience for JamBase.
From the downbeat of “China Cat Sunflower,” Chicago’s Soldier Field erupted into a sea of movement and color. This was it. The final Fare Thee Well Grateful Dead concert. I could immediately tell that it was going to be different than any other Dead show I had ever seen before. How could it not be? The stakes were so high. When Trey sang the first line, “Look for awhile at the china cat sunflower…” he kicked off what can only be described as a 70,000 person sing-along. I turned my head, surveyed the scene, and saw people hugging, dancing, singing and twirling. Mixed amongst the horde, I saw well-known actors, actresses, musicians, senators, congressmen, mayors, and even a national financial news reporter.
>In the egalitarian world of the Grateful Dead, everyone is alike -equally receiver and interpreter of the sound. As I completed my circular survey of the stadium, I noticed Annabelle Garcia, one of Jerry’s daughters, standing behind me. She was looking up toward the sky with her hands lifted, crying. I know the father-daughter relationship from my own experience, but watching Annabelle made me feel like I was seeing a whole new side of it. It was sad, but also beautiful in the way that only sadness can be. She was there with her mother, Carolyn (Mountain Girl) and sisters, Trixie and Sunshine. I was there with my brother (one of them at least) The Avett Brothers cellist, Joe Kwon.
We were honored to share the stage with Bob Weir at last year’s Mountain Jam and Red Rocks shows and Joe wanted to know what this whole Grateful Dead thing was all about. I had recently been talking about how excited I was about the final Fare Thee Well Grateful Dead show on July 5th at Chicago’s Soldier Field. Last Wednesday night, while walking onstage to open for The Rolling Stones at Raleigh’s Carter-Finley Stadium, Joe asked me if I could get him a ticket. Scott began singing the first words to “Down with the Shine” before I was able to fully process how difficult this would be.
https://twitter.com/joekwon80/status/617737550401261568It was amazing to open for the legendary Rolling Stones, who have been around for 53 years. In his new biography Deal: My Three Decades of Drumming, Dreaming, and Drugs with the Grateful Dead, Bill Kreutzmann notes that when the Grateful Dead began their long strange trip, “The Rolling Stones had only been around for three years. The Who had just formed. Pink Floyd were just forming. Led Zeppelin didn’t exist yet.”
Because Joe and I are in the music business, we are usually able to obtain concert tickets without too much difficulty. However, this show was different -it was the FINAL Grateful Dead show, the end of the line for a 50 year long strange trip. Everybody wanted to go to, and I had the task of finding Joe his miracle.
Joe joined the Avett camp as a classically trained cellist who knew little else, except maybe about food. Over the years, Scott, Seth, and I have found joy in educating Joe on everyone from Bob Dylan to The Rolling Stones, and yes, even the Grateful Dead. Fortunately, we were able to find a ticket for Joe. As far as we knew, it was the last ticket for that final Grateful Dead concert.
Our journey began on Saturday night, July 4th, at the conclusion of our concert in Milwaukee. We walked off stage, jumped into a rental car, and made the 90-mile drive to Chicago. The hour-and-a-half we spent in the car gave me a chance to give Joe a quick Grateful Dead primer, thanks to the Sirius/XM Grateful Dead channel’s rebroadcast of that night’s show. Guided by Joe’s questions, I gave him detailed explanations on the essential elements of any Dead show. First, there is The Dead show structure: first set, second set, encore. Then there is “Drums” and “Space,” and finally, the “into” concept. “China Cat Sunflower” goes into “I Know You Rider,” and “Scarlet Begonias” goes into “Fire on the Mountain.”
We arrived at our hotel at 2 a.m. The lobby was filled with wild-eyed hippies dressed in tiedyed… everything; everyone was still beaming from the show. While I was beginning to worry that Joe might be having second thoughts about going on this adventure with me, I was beginning to feel stirrings within myself that had been dormant since 1995.
In the 1990s, I went to 20+ shows -what was important to me was what the band and those shows represented for me. Most people experience the years immediately following high school as a period of wandering as they wrestle with the possibilities of their newly discovered freedom and the responsibilities that come along with it. The adventure of going to a Dead show made me feel like I was a traveler on the open road playing by my own rules, whimsically up for anything. For me, the adventure only lasted a few years, but the corpus of songs for which the Grateful Dead are responsible, and the philosophy and inspiration that is contained within them, remain just as meaningful to me today as they did 25 (or more) years ago.
Joe and I stood on the floor of Soldier Field with our friends who had been seeing the Dead since the late-1970s. They brought their daughter, who is in her 20s, and were also with friends whom they had been attending shows with for 40 years. Throughout the night, I met people who were also with college or high school friends of theirs. Those kinds of connections, observable throughout the gathering of more than 70,000 people, made you feel like you were part of a community. The energy of that community was so powerful on Sunday night -everyone was singing and dancing all night long. The band was on fire from the start and maintained their zeal throughout. By the third song, “Estimated Prophet,” it was indisputable that these guys were not going to go out limping across the proverbial finish line. Much akin to The Rolling Stones, this band has vigor and moxie and could, if they chose, continue on for years to come.
https://twitter.com/BobCrawfordBass/status/617854498288062464Joy seemed to pour forth from everyone on stage. Phil Lesh was smiling and in constant motion, swaying as he played. Mickey, ever the peaceful warrior, was grinning from ear to ear all night, and Bill Kreutzmann, always dependable and solid was irreverently sporting an “Uncle Sam, I Want You To Grow Hemp” shirt and appeared focused at every moment. Bob Weir was absolutely ebullient throughout the show. During “Estimates Prophet,” I thought he was going to literally call down fire and speak the same. Equal force was evident on “Throwing Stones.” While decrying the sorry state of the political system, Bob was part singing, part preaching, but consistently performing at the highest level.
As usual, Trey Anastasio’s performance appeared effortless. I can only imagine how many hours he must have invested while learning 82 different songs (there were only two songs repeated in five shows, “Cumberland Blues” and “Truckin'”). Speaking of “Truckin'” (first song, second set), that’s when Joe turned to me and said, “I know this song!” Trey’s hard work and study allowed him to take on Jerry’s role -respectfully honoring the essence of Jerry’s distinct style, while also allowing his own heart and soul to shine through the music. Trey’s band, Phish, is the progeny of the Grateful Dead. While Phish had additional influences, the Dead created the template in which Phish’s next generation jam music flourished -a scene for which fluctuating set lists, and the lure of an adventurous open road, tempted thousands to leave their homes, schools and jobs to join the caravan.
Just as Trey was able to represent the distinct character of Jerry Garcia, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti on piano and organ respectively, personified the elegance of Keith Godchaux and the soulful grit of Brent Mydland.
So there I was, veteran Deadheads reuniting for one final show on my left, and Joe Kwon taking in his first to my right. Halfway through the first set, Joe turned to me and said, “I’m smiling so hard that my cheeks hurt!” And there I was, arms stretched out to the sky, joyfully singing along with everyone else.
So fare thee well Grateful Dead, for now. Though this incarnation of the band may be coming off the road, I am confident that these musicians and their songs will continue on and on.
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