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"We can share what we've got of yours" UPDATE: Beers @ Dead "Fare The Well" shows $11.75 each
Grateful Dead's Goodbye, Night Two: Chemistry Lost, Cash-Grabs Abound
For the second of three Fare Thee Well shows, the band goes into latter year doldrums
By Will Hermes July 5, 2015
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/live-reviews/grateful-deads-goodbye-night-two-chemistry-lost-cash-grabs-abound-20150705
As happens during dull stretches, attention wandered. One might have thought about shows past. About what a shame it is to have to sit through songs as boring as "Liberty" "Lost Sailor" and "Saint of Circumstance" — even when lit up with nice spots of improvisation — during such a special night, or another pro-forma bar-band run-thru of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster." Looking up to the sky above Soldier Field, one might have pondered the Direct TV blimp with the flashing side panel, which alternated quotes from Grateful Dead songs and animated dancing bears with ad pitches ("HIGHER SATISFACTION THAN CABLE" "THE MOST PGA COVERAGE" "STREAM ON ANY DEVICE"
. And it might have driven one back to the concession stands for another $11.75 beer.
Indeed, Fare Thee Well and the surrounding 50th anniversary hullaballoo has been a rock & roll cash grab to rival any that have come before, on every level. Scalpers, corporate and indie, went to town. Chicago hotels price-gouged mercilessly. There have been branded pay-per-view video streams and satellite radio simulcasts, and an 80-CD anniversary box set. Meanwhile, the haters have had their knives out. The Wall Street Journal followed the ticket market like an IPO while letting the editorial dogs bark ("They sounded like stoners," observed one critical sage of a golden-era Dead show that apparently left him with his dick in his hand). The clickbait has been ladled out like chum. And the faithful had every right to grouse.
For a fan on the ground in Chicago, the cash-grab vibe has felt sketchy at best, and the scale of the shows dispiriting. After all, the supersizing of the Dead experience was the beginning of the band's end. The residency shows Phil Lesh has been convening, with rotating casts, over the past couple of years at the small and beautiful Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York — a favorite venue of the band in the early days — have been truer to the Platonic ideal of the Dead than any cattle call could ever be. (They will resume in October for a five weekend run.)
But the Dead have always been big on ritual events: New Years Eve shows, the closing of Winterland, the concerts at the Great Pyramid in Giza. And even with cable-pimping blimps and pricey swag, the vibe in Soldier Field has been magnificent to behold, conceptually magnified by fan-gatherings around the world, in theaters and bars and living rooms.
For the second of three Fare Thee Well shows, the band goes into latter year doldrums
By Will Hermes July 5, 2015
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/live-reviews/grateful-deads-goodbye-night-two-chemistry-lost-cash-grabs-abound-20150705
As happens during dull stretches, attention wandered. One might have thought about shows past. About what a shame it is to have to sit through songs as boring as "Liberty" "Lost Sailor" and "Saint of Circumstance" — even when lit up with nice spots of improvisation — during such a special night, or another pro-forma bar-band run-thru of Willie Dixon's "Little Red Rooster." Looking up to the sky above Soldier Field, one might have pondered the Direct TV blimp with the flashing side panel, which alternated quotes from Grateful Dead songs and animated dancing bears with ad pitches ("HIGHER SATISFACTION THAN CABLE" "THE MOST PGA COVERAGE" "STREAM ON ANY DEVICE"
. And it might have driven one back to the concession stands for another $11.75 beer.
Indeed, Fare Thee Well and the surrounding 50th anniversary hullaballoo has been a rock & roll cash grab to rival any that have come before, on every level. Scalpers, corporate and indie, went to town. Chicago hotels price-gouged mercilessly. There have been branded pay-per-view video streams and satellite radio simulcasts, and an 80-CD anniversary box set. Meanwhile, the haters have had their knives out. The Wall Street Journal followed the ticket market like an IPO while letting the editorial dogs bark ("They sounded like stoners," observed one critical sage of a golden-era Dead show that apparently left him with his dick in his hand). The clickbait has been ladled out like chum. And the faithful had every right to grouse.
For a fan on the ground in Chicago, the cash-grab vibe has felt sketchy at best, and the scale of the shows dispiriting. After all, the supersizing of the Dead experience was the beginning of the band's end. The residency shows Phil Lesh has been convening, with rotating casts, over the past couple of years at the small and beautiful Capitol Theater in Port Chester, New York — a favorite venue of the band in the early days — have been truer to the Platonic ideal of the Dead than any cattle call could ever be. (They will resume in October for a five weekend run.)
But the Dead have always been big on ritual events: New Years Eve shows, the closing of Winterland, the concerts at the Great Pyramid in Giza. And even with cable-pimping blimps and pricey swag, the vibe in Soldier Field has been magnificent to behold, conceptually magnified by fan-gatherings around the world, in theaters and bars and living rooms.
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
That adds nearly $120 to the ticket price by the end of the concert!!! 
