Tag Archives: Soldier Field

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Intermission has been awesome!!! I don’t know if it’s all the chemicals but I never saw so many beautiful people in my life… It’s like a damn Hippie Beauty Pageant in this place tonight… Everywhere I went I saw exactly who I was hoping to see moments before I ever saw them… I’m gonna have to find myself a kind woman in here tonight on the same high I’m on… The mood in this place is so electric…. No drama… Nobody freaking out… Everybody in this place seems just right… I’m not sure my chemistry has ever been so ideal in all of my life… I feel like an absolute Ray of Light… I’ve helped 3 people get out of the problems in their own head just by smiling at them… There’s some Magic all over this place… I missed the guys climbing up the ladders… I hate when that happens… There’s a patchwork of smiles… Beachballs bouncing around leaving crazy trails… I don’t know who that dude we’ve been selling Buds to is but he’s definitely well connected… We haven’t been further back than 10th row the whole tour… The Anticipation in this building could be weighed with a scale… Air has a very definite heaviness in this place right now… Your mind screams, “TURN THE LIGHTS OUT!!!!” It’s as if Candace hears you scream in your mind… Lights Go out as The Instant Roar of the crowd is immediately followed by the sight of Flashlights leading The Band to the stage… They emerge from behind their stacks of Sound equipment laughing as if there’s a joke between them… The energy shared in this place is all over them as well… It’s clearly not just me…. When the noodling and tuning starts it becomes immediately clear… It’s gonna be Scarlet->Fire!!!! This takes the intensity to an entirely different level of high!!! Every member smiling… Bill and Mickey warming their chops on the hi-hats… When the affirmative notes of Scarlet Begonias are struck by Garcia… He smiles down the line of people in the front row causing every person within his vision and even those beyond it to believe they just had an intimate Soul Experience with him… As the riffs roll out and the rest of the band gets behind the movement, Garcia seems to be caught up in the vibe and seems a little slow getting to the mic… I think to myself “He’s definitely missing the cue”… Some how… In perfect Garcia time… He gets there some way and the Raging Party officially takes flight as Jerry’s eyebrows, slightly elevated, rejoices with his voice through half of a smile, “As I was walkin’ ’round Grosvenor Square!!!” Holy Shit this is tight!!!!!! The band sounds like a well oiled machine as every component falls into it’s perfect and proper place… The notes that come off of Garcia and Weir’s guitars spin my my mind… Any wayward thoughts fly away… All negativity is sent packing… I found such a funky dancing groove in the pocket that I feel like the 7th member of the band… I’m like a human metronome and I swear the band is actually using ME to keep time… I couldn’t stop smiling if I tried… There’s something so cyclical about Scarlet…. I feel like we’re all on this Psychedelic Merry Go Round… It’s Impossible for anybody to sit still at this point… Every verse speaks deeply into the experience… The Band hits their marks in perfect unison… They absolutely drive the whirling dervish of tie dyed sweat that most of us are quickly turning into… My body is seemingly taken over by the absolute clarity and volume of the massive trampoline of sound that’s springing all of us higher and higher… I catch the eyes of everyone around me… We’re all being blown away by what’s taking place… As the Merry Go Round Spins, Garcia fires off notes that feel like ornate sparks being thrown from his strings to elaborately decorate and detail this creation… As we approach the final verse Bill and Phil hold down the foundation of the groove while Mickey climbs the percussive Ladder of Life running his sticks up every tom tom he’s got… You know that sound!!!! Garcia’s licks seems to intentionally linger behind just enough for him to accelerate as quickly as possible as he begins to make his final move…. It’s as though he’s gotta catch up to the proceedings at hand without leaving any note out from the run as he makes the musical sprint to the finish line… Scales being peeled off rapidly, his face assumes the determined and intense look illustrating the effort that goes into this stretch to the finish line crossing it with the rest of the band, as well as all of us, as we collectively declare, “THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS PLAYING “TEA FOR TWO”!!!!!!!!!!! THE SKY WAS YELLOW AND THE SUN WAS BLUE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Every cell in my body climaxes with the moment as I’m fully awakened to the realization that EVERYBODY truly and completely is Playin in the Heart Of Gold Band… It’s all of us… Everybody…. Like ’em or not… Everyone one of us is a necessary and required ingredient to all of this wild shit that’s happening… In my current state of mind I think I’ve discovered something that’s just as new as when I discovered it during this same tune just last week… The jam heads for exploratory ground… Noises from instruments that aren’t even present can be heard in the thick layers of sound that are coming at us from the Band like Lava flows from a volcano… It’s no coincidence that particular vision emerges in my thoughts and overtakes my senses… Just as Lava flows from it’s Source, Surely there’s some Fire coming our way!!!!

Preparation for The Dead’s Fare Thee Well shows has begun!!!check it out here.

Gratefully Deadicated,
Dean Sottile (pronounced SoTilly)

www.gratefuldean.com
Dean SoTilly on Facebook

#GD50
#GratefulDead
#FareTheeWell
#Dead50
#BobWeir

MeandGarcia

Once again, in Offically Unofficial News, the foundations of the world have shaken as the Dead’s brilliant marketing arm leaked just enough information to stay on top of Internet algorithms like drunk sailors on Japanese hookers. The news came as a festival promoter nobody ever heard of before disguised themselves as Scott Allen and received more attention than a woman at a Rush concert. The hints lead to Santa Clara, California, a location we all have tons of recordings from. When news hit the home office in Stinson Beach, 5 employees moved to Mexico immediately. “Fuck that shit!” they said as they sped towards the border. When asked about the demand for The Dead, Mickey said, “This shit is outta control like Bill’s eyebrows!” When Bill was asked aout this response he said, “That Cro-Magnon Vulcan would have a single eybrow across his head that looked like the scouring side of a sponge if he didn’t get that shit landscaped by Mexicans in his neighborhood every week!” It seems like everybody is getting along just fine… One thing is absolutely certain, it’s either happening or it isn’t!

Dead Fans from the left coast, specializing in passive aggression, stopped complaining for the first time since January 16th. Apparently monthly shows by Phil and his friends right in their back yard aren’t enough as the group of people still pissed off about missing Hampton in ’89 have been crying since day 1. They’ve taken solace in Death Don’t Have No Mercy being busted out at Shoreline for 26 years now. People with names like Jeff and Sam moved West many years ago to continue life with names like Huggie Bear and Tranquil Stream have quickly moved from waiting on long lines for Apple Product Releases to crying about the absence of Bay area shows and getting screwed by ticket releases. They moved out west decades ago to buy a wig and get the crabs and sleep on Owsley’s floor. Those guys have been releasing the pent up and still ingrained east coast aggression they’ve been trying to deny having since 1977. Internet records displaying their inherent hostility have been spewing out since January. They will now begin acting like they were kind all along. As long as they get tickets… At a price close to what they cost 35 years ago…

Somehow, those that thought 3 shows were a cash grab feel better that they’ll be more. Unbridled joy at the developing story was spreading just as fast as the negativity will once details and ticket sales are announced. Some fans are wondering if their money orders will be returned in time to send them back again. Plans are being put into place to keep tickets out of the hands of scalpers which is difficult since many of the scalpers are actually guys like Huggie Bear and Tranquil Stream hiding behind ebay and StubHub profiles, selling their tickets and hoping they won’t be revealed as the fake ass bitches they really are. You can find them outside of their peaceful status diatribes and picture albums filled with photos of Buddha statues, arguing on the Grateful Dead Tour Vets pages.

While people think this will have a dramatic effect on decreasing the cost of Chicago tickets, some scalpers have commissioned professional artists in anticipation of the upcoming mail order. Peter Shapiro is proving once again he’s smarter than you are because he already sold all of the bad seats to Chicago the first day on TicketMaster. He is still holding back on the good seats that people will gladly purchase, even if they already have purchased bad seats, as upgrades a month or two from now. There’s tens of thousands of tickets that haven’t been released yet. When it all it goes down, you’ll remember you heard it from The Official Home Of Unofficial Grateful Dead News!

Paul Abdell and his editor Michelle Cohn will be gathering up volunteers as fast as GDTS TOO as their group, Social Tactics Operating Properly Against Nemesis, Anti Scalping Society (“STOP AN ASS” for short) has made a huge impact on the ability of scalpers to reach their prospective victims utilizing free media sites like Craigslist. Their work has had a tremendous impact on the ability of scalpers to sell their tix. Good work y’all!!!

Michelle and her sister Robbi need tickets for Chicago. If you have extras, please find them on Facebook. Anybody thats been a fan for any length of time has seen countless photos taken by Robbi. They are obviously some ladies who undoubtedly deserve tickets to the event.

Another show honoring the man with the sound we’d all be willing to act kind again in order to hear, sold out faster than Doug Irwin once he got a couple of guitars back. The Dear Jerry Show however sold out in 4 seconds. For one of those seconds I was prepared to write at length how wonderful it was to use ticketfly. Instead, I feel like I was screwed by a neutered animal this time. I got all the fuckin with none of the balls. At least Ticketmaster humored me by spinning the balls around giving me the impression there was some mystical entity that was trying to work on my behalf. With Ticketfly there was no waiting, no line, no balls. There was however a nice little man on a treadmill when I tried to get through on the pre sale. It was nice to feel like I was exercising while spending my second month in a row on the computer pounding some kind of ticket selling website which seems to be as useless as Charles Manson’s parole hearings and yielding the same results… Nothing.

“The last thought… The final thought… the hard thought… The Warrior thought is that We ain’t many!!! In any given situation there’s always gonna be more dumb people than smart people, We ain’t many!”
-Kesey 10/31/91

You know what Jerry would say, he’d say, “STOP FUCKING ASSUMING YOU KNOW WHAT I’D SAY! YOU DON’T KNOW SHIT!”

More will be revealed in the weeks that follow… New York Got the ways and means…

Ladies looking for some gorgeous Guatemalan Hippie Gucci can find some beautiful stuff from my friend Sugar Mags right here.

Preparation for The Dead’s Fare Thee Well shows has begun!!!check it out here.

Gratefully Deadicated,
Dean Sottile (pronounced SoTilly)

www.gratefuldean.com
Dean SoTilly on Facebook

#GD50
#GratefulDead
#FareTheeWell
#Dead50
#BobWeir