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Fare Thee Well
In the attics of my life
Full of cloudy dreams; unreal
Full of tastes no tongue can know
And lights no eye can see
On July 5th, 2015 I was in Chicago. I had spent the late morning and early afternoon in the grandly ornate ballroom of the downtown Hilton enjoying brunch and a set of music played by David Grisman and his fantastic bluegrass band along with 1,500 like-minded souls. M’lady and I and our friend Kyla were in town for Fare Thee Well, a three-night Celebration of the Grateful Dead at Soldier Field. We had two fantastic nights under our belts at this point and were thrilled to be anticipating a third consecutive night of astoundingly great music at the hands of Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti.
When there was no ear to hear
You sang to me
Soldier Field was the venue where the Grateful Dead played their final concert, back in 1995. That proved to be Jerry Garcia’s last show. Sigh. I saw them there two years before that; it had been my third Dead show (of just six). It’s a massive stadium, and on this final night as we stood on the floor saying goodbye to one of the most important musical entities in modern history – a band that had gone a long way towards shaping all of our lives – we were surrounded by more than 70,000 fellow celebrants, all of our journeys, all of our dreams and histories once again coming together under the magical umbrella of beautiful music.
I have spent my life
Seeking all that's still unsung
Bent my ear to hear the tune
And closed my eyes to see
When there were no strings to play
You played to me
The first set opened with China Cat Sunflower into an I Know You Rider that seemed to purge our collective soul. 70,000 hearts opened wide, singing “…Gonna miss me when I’m gone…” in ecstatic celebration. Glorious. And that was only two songs in. Then came Estimated Prophet, Built to Last, and Bobby singing a killer Samson and Delilah before they slowed us all down with the poignant ballad Mountains of the Moon. The set ended with what I used to call my favourite Grateful Dead song: Throwing Stones, a Bobby-led straight-up rocker that ushered in an upbeat setbreak full of melancholic smiles and heartfelt hippie handshakes.
After opening with a surprising cascade of eye-popping fireworks the second set kept the rock rolling with Truckin’ , one of only two songs the band repeated over their two-city six-night run. They had opened with it on night one back in Santa Clara but of course they had to play it again here on the final night. For now that we were in the final set of what the remaining members claimed would be their last time playing together we could now all exclaim with rapturous accuracy: “What a long strange trip it’s BEEN…” Past tense. Oh, the feels.
After a brilliant Cassidy and Trey singing Althea we were treated to the Dead’s epic meandering mini-opera Terrapin Station.
“…Counting stars by candlelight all are dim but one is bright
The spiral light of Venus rising first and shining best
On, from the northwest corner of a brand new crescent moon
While crickets and cicadas sing a rare and different tune…”
Man, those guys (and Robert Hunter) could sure write a tune. Inspiration, indeed.
After Drums>Space (which I always really, really dig) came Unbroken Chain and a Days Between that went into a mass singalong set-closing Not Fade Away that brought all of us together once more, a huge singing collection of love, a multi-legged amoeba of patchouli and tie-dyes that refuses to fade away as long as there is a song to sing, a place to dance, and a capacity to cherish this precious life that we share. If there is a God overseeing the world then they have surely blessed the Grateful Dead and all who follow them.
When the band left the stage 140,000 hands kept clapping the Bo Diddley beat, creating a sound that must have travelled for miles. It was a wonderful thing to be a part of. And so was the encore, which was nothing short of perfect.
Personally, Touch of Grey was the first Grateful Dead song I’d ever heard, back when it was a staple on MTV. I remember watching it and thinking “this is the Grateful Dead?!?” The whisper of mythos I had heard about them combined with their ominous-sounding name had led me to believe their music would’ve landed somewhere between Black Sabbath and odd atonal druggie music. But there they were standing on stage in street clothes playing a synth-heavy radio-friendly pop song about growing old.
And now here I was at the end of my road with the Grateful Dead – twenty-eight years of mind-expanding life, love, and travel later – and the band was bringing me right back to the Junction Club, where I was taking a surreptitious break from my dishwashing job and sticking my head out of the kitchen to watch Touch of Grey on the TV screen in the nightclub’s empty dining lounge. After nearly three decades “I will get by, I will survive” meant something different. I’m sure many of the people around me felt similar.
In the book of love's own dreams
Where all the print is blood
Where all the pages are my days
And all my lights grow old
But of course the band couldn’t close there. No, they needed to end with a hymn, and they did. Attics of My Life, an angelic canticle somehow written by the earthbound Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. We were all one.
When I had no wings to fly
You flew to me
You flew to me
In the secret space of dreams
Where I dreaming lay amazed
When the secrets all are told
And the petals all unfold
When there was no dream of mine
You dreamed of me
Fare thee well.
Todd Man Out 