Taking the Deadhead Fervor Too Furthur

When Jerry Garcia sang the phrase “I will survive” a decade ago in the Grateful Dead’s lone Top 10 hit, “Touch of Grey,” it was the capper of a triumphant anthem. The song came after Garcia had pulled through a near-fatal bout with drugs-exacerbated diabetes.

But when Garcia’s former bandmate Bob Weir sang it with his new band Ratdog during the Dead-derived Furthur Festival’s final summer stop at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre on Sunday, it was hard not to wonder if Weir is surviving by surrendering to an inescapable past.

On the inaugural Furthur trek last year, Weir attempted to move on, skipping Dead songs as part of a plan to focus on his new band’s music. It wasn’t a success--the blues-lite format of Ratdog and the absence of strong new songs left even the staunchest Deadheads unsatisfied.

So this year, with the band he co-fronts with bassist Rob Wasserman in the middle of a bill topped by rockers the Black Crowes, Weir constructed a set entirely of Dead-related material, including such sure-fire crowd-pleasers as “Sugar Magnolia.”

It certainly got the desired result. Deadheads danced and sang along with a kind of gusto that had been absent last year. But it also left a key question: Can Furthur actually move the culture and music further, or is this bus destined to drive in reverse?

Don’t get the wrong idea--there were fine moments in the 7 1/2-hour event that also featured former Dead drummer Mickey Hart’s Planet Drum, adjunct Dead pianist Bruce Hornsby, ex-Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna guitarist Jorma Kaukonen, a “surprise” set by Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, among others.

But even at its most engaging, the day--just six days shy of the second anniversary of Garcia’s death--seemed too often an exercise in wheel-spinning.

No act received less than an enthusiastic welcome, and each returned the spirit in kind, buoyed perhaps by the sight of a nearly full house of more than 13,000 on a tour that has been plagued by poor attendance figures in some cities.

Not all of that consisted of hard-core Deadheads, for better or worse. Many seemed primarily drawn by the Black Crowes, whose Faces-meet-Skynyrd retro-rock is really only connected to Dead-dom via singer Chris Robinson’s ardent Deadheadedness.

Hornsby, on the other hand, has evolved into a quintessential example of the Dead spirit, bringing the anything-can-happen quality into his music and taking it far beyond anything those only familiar with his late-’80s pop hits could imagine.

And there were two glimpses of the future, with opener Moe and second act Sherri Jackson. The former, an upstate New York quartet, is the new favorite of East Coast Deadheads and is emerging nationally--Furthur organizers have predicted that the band will be big enough to headline the tour next summer. The band clearly has all the tools, though like Phish--which also rose on the strength of young Deadhead support--it seems more about cleverness than musical or lyrical epiphany, which ultimately can leave things a bit clinical.

Jackson, who plays a mean fiddle, also displayed a big, soulful voice and a very winning presence. The key for her, then, is merely a matter of evolving strong material.

The key for Furthur, though, is more problematic. If the tour goes for a third year, its organizers and participants need to find a way to make it more about what it is than what it isn’t. No matter how many of the band’s songs are played, it can’t be the Grateful Dead.