Grateful Dead

I’ve said this before, but it’s worth repeating: I believe The Grateful Dead Movie is the single greatest document of the Dead experience ever released.

Catch the 7 Walkers in the Mid-West:

Thursday, March 24
The Ennglert Theatre
Iowa City, IA

Friday, March 25
Majestic Live
Madison, WI

Saturday, March 26
Double Door
Chicago, IL

Sunday, March 27
Hoyt Sherman Theatre

Catch the Donna Jean Godchaux Band on tour this March:

Thursday, March 17
River Street Jazz Cafe
667 N. River St.
Plains, PA

Friday, March 18
Bearsville Theater
291 Tinker St.
Woodstock, NY

Saturday, March 19
Mexicali Live
1409 Queen Anne Rd.
Teaneck, NJ

Friday, March 25

Famed drummer and Grateful Dead co-founder Bill Kreutzmann, guitar master Papa Mali, legendary New Orleans bass man George Porter Jr.

I showed up at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco on April 9 to see Bill Kreutzmann’s new band—7 Walkers—with limited expectations. I had heard a snippet of one song on David Gans’ radio show, I believe, but somehow singer/guitarist Papa Mali (real name: Malcolm Welbourne) had eluded me though the years, and I didn’t really know much about him other than that he was from Louisiana originally. Photos depicted a large white guy with long dreadlocks and big sunglasses; sort of a cross between George Clinton and Dr. John! Throw in George Porter Jr.

If you’re kicking yourself because you didn’t get to see The Dead on their red-hot spring tour, you have one last chance to see them—at the Rothbury Festival in beautiful rural Michigan, on July 4. After that, it’s highly unlikely the group will perform together again in 2009, though most of the band members will all be criss-crossing America in different groups this summer.

SIRIUS XM’s Grateful Dead Channel will broadcast The Dead’s last show from their spring tour at The Gorge in George, Washington live on Saturday, May 16 at 10:30 pm ET. Exclusively on the Grateful Dead Channel, SIRIUS channel 32 and XM channel 57.

Amongst the jillion-and-one elements supporting The Dead’s Spring 2009 Tour is the artwork -- from the interactive spiral galaxy logo on the Tour’s home page, to the nifty musical minuteman dude on the Tour’s laminated working passes, to the designs on the Tour T-shirts sold at the merch stands in the lobby.  And if you’ve been to a gig lately, you’ve likely noticed a particularly fine new T-shirt, quite unlike any we’ve seen before...