Santa Clara Grateful Dead 50 Performances Confirmed

On June 27 and 28, Grateful Dead members Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart and Bob Weir will be joined by Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, RatDog keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and one-time GD member Bruce Hornsby for a pair of additional Fare Thee Well -Celebrating 50 Years of Grateful Dead performances at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. The shows come one weekend before the Grateful Dead’s “core four” play their final shows together (along with Trey, Jeff and Bruce) at Soldier Field in Chicago July 3 -5.

The long-rumored shows are now official with the group sharing this statement:

Dear Heads,

Although none of us knew it when we walked off the stage at Soldier Field on July 9, 1995, the Grateful Dead’s long strange trip ended in Chicago that night. As you are aware, twenty years later, we’re returning to Chicago to properly say Fare Thee Well.

But every good ending must start with a beginning. For us, it all began fifty years ago when we grabbed a bunch of instruments off the walls of a music store in Palo Alto California and began banging away on them in the back room, at night after the store had closed for the day.

Since we made the decision to go back to Chicago to say our final goodbye, it has become clear to us that we first need to return to our beginnings, where we first said hello — to each other and to all of you.

And so it is that we have decided to plug in for two additional shows on June 27 and 28 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California — just a dozen miles south of where Dana Morgan’s Music Store once stood. At Levi’s — as at Soldier Field — we will have the pleasure of being joined by Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti.

Ours wasn’t just a long, strange trip — it was a VERY long, VERY strange trip. We weren’t sure what it was going to be like to put a punctuation mark on the end of it. None of us anticipated the overwhelming outpouring of love and interest following our initial announcement of the shows at Soldier Field, and we were blown away by the response.

We have tried to do the right thing wherever we could for the Chicago shows by honoring the roots of where we came from, while dealing with the realities of the current times. But that’s hardly comforting when you’re shut out of tickets and your only option is inflated prices on secondary ticketing websites. That would piss us off too.

From the moment these shows were first talked about, we have been thinking about what we could do to honor the roots of our Deadhead experience, even in the face of changing technologies. (Remember: Ticketmaster didn’t even go online until we got out of the game.) These shows were always intended as an expression of our gratitude, to both the music and the fans, so it’s important that we get things as right as we can.

We have always been proud of our in-house mail order ticketing process, and the phenomenal way our fans have built a tradition out of turning a standard envelope into a frame-worthy piece of art. Some 60,000 mail order tickets were issued for the Soldier Field shows by the good folks at Grateful Dead Ticket Sales — yet we were still crushed to see how many of your beautifully designed envelopes did not get tickets.

For shows of this magnitude, it’s impossible to eliminate every scalper. However, we offer you this: Working with our partners, we are using an online ticketing platform for the Levi’s shows that will help ensure that the tickets for these shows will get into the right hands, the hands of our true fans. We believe that this process is the best way to give each of you an equal opportunity to obtain tickets at the most affordable possible prices. We are are proud to announce that 65,000 tickets per night will be available via the “online mail order” for the Levi’s shows. For the nuts and bolts, go to Dead50.net.

We will not be adding any more Fare Thee Well shows. The three Chicago shows will still be our final stand. We decided to add these two Santa Clara shows to enable more of our fans to celebrate with us one more time. But this is it.

We love you guys more than words can tell, and hope to see you in the Bay Area or Chicago. If you can’t make it to the shows, we are working on ways for you to still experience our Fare Thee Well, from wherever you might be. Stay tuned for those details.

Gratefully yours,
Billy, Bobby, Mickey & Phil

When the Chicago shows were announced they were billed as “the original members’ last-ever performance together” which still remains true with the additional performances set to take place the weekend before the Windy City shows. A portion of the FAQ on Dead50.com mentioning “Are these really the final concerts this band will ever perform together?” with the response “Yes” also continues to be true.

However on March 3 shortly after the Chicago shows sold-out with record demand, Fare Thee Well co-organizer Peter Shapiro denied to Greg Kot of The Chicago Tribune more shows were in the works. When Kot asked about additional shows, Shapiro responded “I’m not going to go there. There’s no extra dates planned. For Chicago or anywhere else.” While at that time no shows were in the works, the unprecedented demand for the Chicago shows appears to have spurred the additional shows. Just ten days later on March 13 rumors of the Santa Clara gigs started to circulate and on March 23 well-known Deadhead Bill Walton shared a since deleted tweet regarding the at the time pending California dates. Walton may have been commenting on a Sports Business Daily article published March 23 that seemingly confirmed the additional shows. Yesterday, word started to surface that Bruce Hornsby had cancelled his June performances ahead of these concerts.

Levi’s Stadium is the home of NFL team the San Francisco 49ers. The stadium opened on July 17, 2014 and hosted its first full season of games shortly thereafter. Levi’s Stadium recently hosted 76,976 for Wrestlemania 31 marking the biggest crowd at the venue since it was opened. One Direction, Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney and Luke Bryan are among the artists set to bring their tours to Levi’s Stadium this summer. The Santa Clara venue is located approximately 40 miles from San Francisco, the city that birthed the Grateful Dead.

A ticket lottery has started now and entries will be accepted through April 14 at 11:59 p.m. ET. VIP travel and ticketing packages will be sold via CID Entertainment.

UPDATE: Peter Shapiro confirmed longtime Grateful Dead LD Candice Brightman will handle lighting for the Fare Thee Well shows during an appearance on SiriusXM’s Tales From The Golden Road.