It was 36 years to the day since the first SPAC Grateful Dead concert on June 18, 1983. The anniversary seems to have gone mostly unnoticed by most attendees at the June 18, 2019, SPAC Dead & Company concert. The tour faithful seem to have the philosophy of living in the moment. Those of us that attended the 1983 show will talk about it reverently. We live in the past and the present.

Rolling into Chicago on a Saturday night, there was a hazy fog blanketing the city. Lake Michigan was rolling side by tide towards the shore and people were still out on the lakefront despite the weather donning ponchos or umbrellas. Seemed like 20-minute intervals when the fog would get too heavy with precipitation and turn into a downpour.  The friendly confines turned into the people’s ivy-covered park on the day Dead & Company came to town. There was no opposing team, just a real good time waiting inside.

I made a wish on the Zoltar fortune Telling machine. I wished I could unwind and rewind back to the glory days. I wished my youth wasn’t wasted when I was young. I wished to be me, free of worry, like the days of childhood Summer Camp, adventurous and curious, exploring the wonders of nature.

A massive crowd of the Grateful Dead faithful, with and without tickets, descended on the Hollywood Bowl for the first of two sold-out shows on Monday, June 3rd. Those lucky enough to get in were not disappointed. Seventeen thousand ecstatic music fans were treated to two sets of music from the Grateful Dead catalog and more.

Three-and-one-half years into its tenure, Dead & Company launched its summer 2019 tour on May 31 in the spacious Shoreline Amphitheatre, in the South San Francisco Bay region where The Grateful Dead legacy began more than 50 years ago.

Since 2015, Dead & Co Participation Row guitar and poster auctions have generated over $875,000 for various charities, with proceeds split between HeadCount, REVERB and a dozen "Dead Family" non-profit organizations. When including recent online raffles, the total is more than $1 million. Here are the new guitars D'Angelico designed for 2019. 

So, I’m breaking out my camping gear - cleaning out the tent, waterproofing it, freshening up the sleeping bag.  It’s the weekend before Summer Camp Music Festival! Recently, I caught Pigeons Playing Ping Pong and Twiddle on the Road to Red Rocks, and they were on fire! Twiddle is new to me. I really enjoyed the vibe going on between these two east coast bands.  They both are playing Summer Camp festival on a seemingly relentless touring schedule.

The music began early on the final day of the Skull and Roses Festival in Ventura. A hot offshore wind heated up the day by the time the drum circle started at 10 am. Overhead waves from a late spring storm exploded across Ventura point buffeted by the strong sideshow winds sending long plumes of salt spray high int the air. The strong winds stirred up a cloud of dust that helped turn the sunny day into an eerie orange haze.