Well… That escalated quickly… We’ve had an awful lot of exciting weeks since the official announcement but for me, this has been the most wild one of them all! My 15 minutes of fame got put on life support and lasted a day or two. I’m just glad we don’t have to hear about the Mercury retrograde any longer… If this is the kind of stuff that happens during the retrogrades then I LOVE RETROGRADES!!! I was afraid to leave the house for fear of the throngs of admirers seeking my attention. I went to the grocery store, autographs! Went to the mall, autographs. I went to the restaurant, once again autographs! What a week! I probably shouldn’t have done all that signing based on the planetary movements… Of course, I paid for all my shit with my credit card so I had to sign but I pretended everybody that handed me a piece of paper wanted my signature because they recognized me from this week’s events in the Land of The Grateful Dead. One thing I can assure you, I will NEVER sell out for anybody or anything!!!
*This Week in Review is brought to you by Meyer Sound, The Official Sound Company of The Fare Thee Well Shows!!!
The community scored a victory this week by taking the Spirit that has been infused in us throughout the years by the music and exercising it into our physical reality. While everyone wasn’t equally as pleased, the end result was a victory none the less. A lesson that goes to show, ya don’t ever know… We should spend most of our time laughing yet know how to become a Motherload in Mission Mode when the situation calls for it. I’ve met some great new folks and I can’t wait to boogie down with y’all in the Windy City!
How about that Santa Clara ticket release. TicketMaster turned from a Satanic Scrooge into Old School Oprah at Christmas. 3 days later, 100 level and GA Floor seats are still available and just sitting there for the taking. If there’s that many tickets left, I’m not quite sure why fans got denied on the initial Internet Mail Order, pre sale thing. If all those good seats are still available, why did so many folks that requested the highest level seats available get either denied or 400 Level? I’m not the kind of guy that says “I told ya so”(That might be a lie) so I’m just gonna say, much like me, Santa Clara is NEVER gonna sell out!!!
*Visa! It’s everywhere you wanna be!!!
John Mayer joined Phil and the guys at Terrapin and had his ass kissed by all the same people in the crowd that have been making awful comments about him on message boards for months(Theme of The Week). If you got a chance to watch and/or listen, you now realize that John Mayer is absolutely outstanding!!! The solo at the end of The Dew clearly displayed that not only can he slay any dragon that’s before him but, he was as connected to the moment as the rest of us. He went from an outsider to an insider quickly and is a guitar player that will be admired and respected by the entire community in an extremely short period of time. He obviously wasn’t intimidated by the moment at all. That brother was as comfortable as Ron Jeremy at a Porn Convention! It’s never easy being the least ugly guy in Grateful Dead related projects but with Weir as his mentor, he’ll soon be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Although much of the community previously were turned off by the band members associating with a mainstream artist, John is a great choice for future projects and much like the Grateful Dead and myself, we are definitely NOT sell outs!!!
*Grateful Dead 50th Anniversary Crocs and other footwear are now available at a store near you!!!
The shows are right on the horizon and one thing I’ve been clued in on is the magnitude of this production. This will be a feast for the senses like never before. No expense has been spared on The staging, lighting and multimedia experience we’re all preparing to be treated to. I think the entire community is thrilled that Candace Brightman is in charge of the visual experience. She has always been an innovator and an absolute master of illuminating our experiences. I’ve been informed that the plan she has put together for these events are second to none. It will be the largest scale visual experience the Grateful Dead Community has ever witnessed.
Sources on the inside have informed me that Derek Featherstone has the task of designing and running sound for the The Fare Thee Well Shows and is working directly with John and Helen Meyer(not to be confused with Mayer) to produce the biggest and best sounding experience we’ve ever heard. The Grateful Dead along with Meyer Sound have been innovators in the way concerts have been heard since the beginning and these shows will be no exception. A gazillion megawatts of sound will be pumped into every corner of the stadiums with the kind of power and clarity that our favorite band has always been known for. According to the TicketMaster website, the Chicago Shows are Sold Out. Much like me, I don’t think they’ve officially sold out yet!
*Meyer X 10 Speakers: If you’ve tried to reproduce the magnitude of the sound produced at a Grateful Dead show in your home with little success, The Quest is over…. Meyer X 10 High Resolution Linear Control Room Monitors: When only the very best will do!!!
I really have to thank all of my tribes out there for all the kindness and support this week. 80s & 90s Tour Vets, JRH, the folks at The Official Home of Unofficial GD Music and News, My Clam Pham, the Inhabitants of Limbo Land, Weir Here, Ripple Dead 50 Friends, FOJC, The Troll Society of America, Backstagers, Phish friends, basically all of you!!!
You know it’s gonna get Stranger!!! Let’s get on with the show!!! Let’s Go!!!
“We’ve been trying to sell out for a long time.”
– Jerry Garcia
Dead To The Core,
Dean Sottile (pronounced So Tilly)
Link for the crocs please . I got my Santa Clara tix and they spelled lottery…”lotery” . I think that means something other than what we all thought in the first place. Webster has lottery as : (n)crappy seats that suckers buy……
Spellcheck ruined a genuinely crappy joke
Google crocs for grateful dead. That was enough, but they’re sold out. Lots of dibbits for crocs, though, gd related
I have a request. My son is working in the theater tec field. I’m trying to get him involved in music as a tec. Sound board and lights are his background. Any way a preshow or stage setup tour available? He is 22 and has friends in a lighting company west of Chicago that talk about traveling the concert ccircuit
I don’t have tickets but will be outside in Chicago photographing Deadheads. He has no interest in the band but is interested in concert setup.
Hopefully it will be possible for this but will not be upset if it doesn’t. If your outside in Chicago and someone says smile, just put out your hand and shake a strangers…
Steve Jindra.
Thumbs up!
PS – Is it July 3 yet?
When are the SC online tickets being sent out, is there a no go list?
Is Ticket bastard taking over for ticketstoday?
10
Bill friend are counting on me getting these tickets in time .
When are the SC online tickets being sent out, is there a no go list?
Is Ticket bastard taking over for ticketstoday?
10 friend are counting on me getting these tickets in time .
Bill
A lot of folks already got them, you should have yours any day now.
Bil
Yes, let’s see those crocs, plz
I watched the Phil & Friends shows over the weekend, and I gotta say… John Mayer was out-of-this-world! Never thought I’d say it after he played with Bobby on that late night show on Truckin & Althea. That night he just felt like a sit-in. He has clearly done his homework, and that seems to be what he was doing on Friday & Saturday with Phil & the boys (while he wasn’t laying down some amazingly inspired solos). It looked like he was really trying to take in the “Jerry riffs”, you know… not just the solos, but the subtle hooks and riffs that give that “flavor” we all know. Whenever it was someone els’s turn, he was watching closely. The standout, for me, was his solo on Friday night on They Love Each Other. He didn’t come across as showboating, but man was he feelin it! That dude was ready to burst at the seams, and he proceeded to let that energy flow out through his guitar. I gotta say, I was surprised. I expected Mayer to play some hefty riffs, and really put it out there. What I didn’t expect was the humility and soul that he brought to the stage. Looking forward to see where Mayer fits in during the upcoming months.
Now a question for Dean: Any chance TM is gonna dump thousands of tickets onto the market for the Chicago shows?
( If they were to follow the Santa Clara model, it should happen this Friday. Interestingly, TM’s website no longer says the shows are “Sold Out”. It just says: “No tickets right now”.) Could it be?
I’d keep an eye on that site…
They almost have to. Take a look at Stub Hub. Approximately 2750 tickets for sale for each night in Chicago. Now look closer at Friday. About 25 sections show no tickets for sale. Possible, I guess, through random chance. Now look closer at Saturday. Again, 25 sections with no tickets for sale. AND THEY ARE THE SAME SECTIONS. Now look at Sunday. Again, THE SAME SECTIONS.
There is no way all tickets were released and that kind of coincidence is occurring. The odds of the same sections not being represented on the biggest ticket resale site for all 3 days are astronomical. Just as Dean has said all along, we bought all the sh*t tickets at the beginning but there are clearly tickets out there to be released;
Things are happening on TM site. Status of tix for Chicago just went from “No tickets” to “Not many left”, to “No tickets” again. Something’s happening…maybe they just released a handful and I missed it.
I scored a GA-Field ticket for July 3rd via the Ticketmaster app on June 16th at roughly 1:00pm.
MAIL FRAUD
I’ve been following this ticket thing long before the post, trying to figure what was going on with Mail Order seats as a lot of things weren’t making sense, i.e. changing seating charts, comments from GDTSTOO about the tickets they were given and so on. I’ve been vocal on Dean’s posts and commented on the Washington Post’s articles.
I will be at the show’s although I still don’t know where I will be sitting and what I paid. I said earlier, “IN is IN”, and it is, but that doesn’t constitute thousands of kind hearted loving fans of the Best Band on the Planet to taken advantage of by a swindling poser of a promoter.
Previous discussions of a class action suit came and went with some shrugs of attorney fees and drawn out litigation, and I agree, what a pain in the ass. But there exists in the US legal system, a far better way to kick Mr. Shapiro and Ticket Master in the balls. (Just like they kicked you!)
MAIL FRAUD
(Defined)
Mail fraud must be committed intentionally, (which means that using the mail to accidentally or unintentionally cause someone else to lose money or property is not mail fraud). Federal law requires that a person engage in some kind of scheme or plan to defraud someone else of something valuable, and must have an intent to defraud. However, prosecutors do no have to actually show the state of mind of a person in order to prove mail fraud. Intent is almost always shown by the circumstances surrounding the case.
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I appreciate Dean’s blog and how it has given us a voice, and we were obviously heard.
I don’t think Shapiro went far enough with his token gestures of full or partial refunds. We should not have to fill out another envelope and send it in, there data bases know who got screwed or actually DEFRAUDED.
Pete, it’s time for action, no more token gestures. Make things right for those who you and ticket master over charged.
My next post will be the contact info of an interested Federal Prosecutor.