Grateful Dead to Fans: Cool It

Is the Grateful Dead about to stop truckin’?

It’s not that the venerable San Francisco-based band is tiring of the road after nearly 25 years of concerts. The band’s concern is that it may someday run out of places to play.

Clashes between ticketless fans and police, as well as what band spokesmen describe as the “trashing” of communities hosting concerts, have put the Dead’s future in doubt.

“We’re not particularly welcome in a number of places,” said Dead guitarist Bob Weir. “The attitude within the band is that it’s pretty much up to our audience to make it possible for us to play for them.”

Said drummer Mickey Hart: “If things don’t progress, it does jeopardize the future of the Grateful Dead. We’re in the hands of the Deadheads at this point.”

The group--which grossed roughly $30 million in 75 concerts last year--feels so strongly about the situation that it is taking its case straight to its large corps of colorful and loyal fans, dubbed Deadheads.

The band has published pleas in the Dead fanzines Relics and the Golden Road, and aired them on radio and on the popular Grateful Dead telephone hot line. The message: “Act like guests, because that’s what we are,” as Weir said. Deadheads without tickets are also encouraged to steer clear of sold-out shows. Efforts are also under way to limit, if not flat-out prohibit overnight camping and vending on grounds near concert sites. The latter activities have caused community concern at some at Dead shows.

To lessen the crush at shows, there may be more pay-per-view cable broadcasts, like the recent “Solstice” concert in Palo Alto. In addition, the band plans to tour Europe next spring, and possibly Asia this winter--”to take some of the heat off (in the United States),” as Hart said.

Weir has gone a step further.

“There’s an element in the people who follow us around that sells drugs,” he said. “God knows we wish they wouldn’t do that, but a small percentage of the crowd will buy, and that’s all it takes to keep them going. . . . It occurs to me that the kids could get down on the drug dealers. . . . Don’t patronize them! Just tell them to do something else for a . . . living.”

After the release of the band’s hit 1986 album, “In the Dark,” the Grateful Dead roughly doubled its legion of Deadheads. At an April concert in Pittsburgh, about 35,000 ticketless people showed up outside the show, prompting clashes with police.

Said Weir: “At any time, it could turn really pretty bad. It hasn’t yet. But we can’t conscionably be causing those kinds of situations to occur.”

A combination of drug arrests, fans breaking fences to get in and sit-ins during the Dead’s May appearances at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in Laguna Hills have left future appearances at the facility in doubt, according to Irvine Meadows officials and Bill Graham Productions, which books the Dead tours.

Asked if the Dead will be back, Matt Curto, general manager of Irvine Meadows, said, “Honestly, I can’t answer that question. I don’t know.”

Claire L. Rothman, general manager of the Forum, said there was no trouble at the Dead shows in February. In fact, she said, the group is scheduled to perform again in December. “The performers themselves and the organization are not only cooperative with what we want, but they make helpful suggestions.”

But some regular Grateful Dead tour stops are in doubt, Graham concert manger Bob Barsotti said, including Ventura, Long Beach and Palo Alto, as well as Pittsburgh, Saratoga, N.Y., Cincinnati, Kansas City, Hartford, Conn., and Worcester, Mass. Even the Dead’s favorite hometown venues--the Greek Theatre in Berkeley and the Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium in Oakland--are, Grateful Dead officials say, “on thin ice” due to community objections.

The crisis comes, ironically, at the group’s commercial peak. “In the Dark” reached No. 6 on the Billboard album chart, propelling the Grateful Dead to a popularity that surprised the band members and the public--and at the same time created the current problems.

“All of a sudden, after ‘In the Dark’--boom--there they were, and they were all 19 1/2, and they all liked to drink beer,” said Calico, a member of the Hog Farm commune who has supervised Dead concert campsites since the early ‘80s. “They’re rock ‘n’ rollers. They’re not really Deadheads,” he said.

With the approach of the October release of the new Dead album, “Built to Last,” Deadheads fear that another hit might spawn a new crop of novice fans.

Said Weir: “If it is a hit, and it escalates the situation any further, that’s gonna be that for arena shows. We’ll have to play stadiums, and a number of those aren’t up to having us either. And it shouldn’t be that we have to play . . . stadiums.”

What do the Deadheads say about all this?

“There has always been a party wing of the Deadheads,” said Blair Jackson, publisher and editor of the Grateful Dead fanzine the Golden Road. “I remember 1970, after ‘Workingman’s Dead,’ being disgusted by all the people yelling ‘Casey Jones!’ falling over drunk. It’s always been there. It’s just the scale has changed.”

LIVE ACTION: Tickets go on sale Sunday for Don Henley’s Sept. 26, 27 and 29 concerts at the Universal Amphitheatre, and for Stevie Nicks’ shows at the Pacific Amphitheatre (Oct. 14) and the Greek Theatre (Oct. 23-24). . . . Fine Young Cannibals will be at Irvine Meadows on Oct. 6. Tickets go on sale Sunday. . . . Tickets will be available Monday for the Doobie Brothers’ Sept. 30 date at the Hollywood Bowl, for R.E.M.’s Oct. 18 Pacific Amphitheatre show, and for the MTV Awards on Sept. 6 at the Universal Amphitheatre. . . . An oldies show featuring the Four Preps and others will be at the Greek Theatre on Oct. 6.