Farewell tours rarely bid a final adieu for musicians, especially acts like the Rolling Stones, the Who and Mötley Crüe. Over the Fourth of July weekend, the Grateful Dead played a three-night Fare Thee Well set at Chicago's Soldier Field, coinciding in time with Jerry Garcia's last show on July 9, 1995 with the American folk rockers. Since performing their final show on July 5, drummer Bill Kreutzmann already misses the action and high emotions of entertaining on stage and if he called the shots, the Dead would play many more shows to come.
Instead, he'll settle for some solo work.
Talking to PBS' News Hour, Kreutzmann explained, "I would like to do it more. Between you and me and all your lovely fans, I would like to have a couple more shows on the East Coast. I want to do it for the fans again because we had such, such amazing support in the East Coast from the Deadheads, the whole thing called the 'Grateful Dead Belt' between Boston and Washington. They deserve concerts like everybody does. I wish we had done two there too."
The 69-year-old drummer admitted that he was speaking on his own behalf and not Mickey Hart, Bob Weir and Phil Lesh of the "core four." In the initial stages of the interview, he clarified that this was "the latest invention of the Grateful Dead," and that "it might be 'Fare Thee Well' for this particular group of fellows. But I know I'm gonna be playing a lot more. I'm sure Bobby [Weir] has intentions to play more."
Since ticket demand was at an all time high for the band's closing gigs at Soldier Field, they were forced to add two preceding shows at Levi's Stadium in California. The core four even broke Soldier Field's attendance record, which was previously held by U2.
According to Rolling Stone, the final, sold-out Fare The Well shows are now available for streaming on New Hampshire's WMWV radio station. The gigs will also be collected and distributed on CD, DVD and Blu-ray box sets titled Fare Thee Well: Celebrating 50 Years of the Grateful Dead on Nov. 20.
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