Taking a break from the news last night, I attended the 11th annual Grateful Dead Meet-Up At the Movies at the AMC multiplex in Edina, Minnesota. It featured the Dead’s first appearance at Chicago’s Soldier Field (June 22, 1991). The band played to a packed stadium on what must have been a somewhat cool evening. Most of the band were wearing sweatshirts and looked, almost unbelievably, well-groomed. With a running time of three hours or so, the film pairs the original six-camera stadium video feed with pristine soundboard audio. The theater’s Dolby speakers conveyed the sound with immaculate precision. It sounded like they were right there in front of us.
As fate would have it, the Dead played their last two shows in July 1995 at Soldier Field as well. Band leader Jerry Garcia died the following month in rehab at the age of 53. Rereading Blair Jackson’s account of the Dead’s final show and Garcia’s final month in Garcia: An American Life before the Meet-Up last night, I found that it was infused with the anger I have felt over the waste.
Keyboard virtuoso Brent Mydland had joined the band in 1979. His playing and singing made for a great addition. He died of a drug overdose in 1990 at the age of 37. It seemed to me that Mydland had filled the hole left by the death of Ron “Pigpen” McKernan’s at age 27 in 1973. Pigpen’s death was secondary to the effects of alcoholism.
Vince Welnick took Mydland’s place on keyboards and was in the band’s 1991 lineup on display in the Soldier Field show. Having struggled with depression over a period of several years, Welnick committed suicide in 2006 at the age of 55.
In 1991 Bruce Hornsby was still lending the Dead a hand as a second on keyboards and accordion while Welnick got his bearings with the band. Hornsby’s playing in the 1991 Soldier Field concert is notably fantastic.
The quality of the film is outstanding. It puts us onstage with the Dead and up close to their instruments. It gives us frequent close-ups of Phil Lesh’s incredibly active work on his six-string bass and Garcia’s on lead guitar. Bob Weir looked and sounded great. The band opened with “Hell In a Bucket” (by Weir, Barlow, and Mydland).
While Garcia’s singing in the first set seemed tired to me, I found his performance of “Black Peter” in the second set to be devastating. Having just reread Jackson’s account of Garcia’s final days, I thought it sounded like a portent.
The two sets were full of highlights. Only the Drums/Space interlude in the second set dragged, but it gave me a chance to duck out to the men’s room.
Although the credits run after “One More Saturday Night,” don’t leave yet! The band’s encore — The Band’s “The Weight” — follows the credits and ends the film on a moving note. (The complete setlist is posted here.)
The playing was hot throughout the band’s two sets — intense, inventive, locked-in, tight. If you like the Dead, I thought over and over, this is what you came for.
It was certainly what last night’s crowd in Edina came for. As I was leaving, I passed two ladies who were simply smiling and a gentleman who emphatically pronounced judgment: “That was better than therapy.” Then he corrected himself: “That was therapy.” I agreed with both pronouncements.
I left feeling ecstatic. The judgment I would pronounce on the film is: The Dead live.
Wherever it is showing the film plays again tomorrow night. The annual Meet-Up At the Movies has become an international event. You can catch the film at venues in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom in addition to the United States. It is playing at nine theaters in the Twin Cities metropolitan area alone.
The Edina theater was over half full for the Dead film. I wondered how attendance stacked up against the other films showing in the multiplex. I met with the theater’s manager before I left. He pulled up the numbers for Spider-Man – Across the Spider-Verse and The Little Mermaid for me. The Grateful Dead film had done best. Taking a look at sales for the Dead film’s Saturday night showing, however, I found the theater had almost all seats available. If you have any interest, I hope you will check it out.