The Dead 2009 Tour Ticket Prices Top $100

The Dead 2009 Tour Tickets for Spring Tour Presale Starts Today

Presale tickets to the 2009 concert tour by the surviving members of The Grateful Dead went on sale Tuesday with prices topping $100 for the best reserved seats. The Dead ticket presales end at 12:00 noon EST on January 23.

The Dead - Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann - will be joined by guitar legend Warren Haynes and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti of RatDog for 19 concerts beginning April 12 and ending on May 10.

The members of The Dead ask fans on their website to "...gas up the Tourmobile, get out that really wild tie-dye...and start getting into Show Shape!" Is this really being done in the spirit of Jerry Garcia?

For the final show at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA, The Dead has tacked a 50 cent charge onto each ticket as proceeds to the BGF charity. This is the only mention on the website, with none in the press release, as to charitable giving from this concert tour. The Rex Foundation, established by members of The Grateful Dead in 1983 in memoriam to the band's roadie-turned-road manager Rex Jackson, is glaringly absent of mention.

For the 2009 tour, The Dead will perform in indoor venues with the exception of the final show. The atmosphere of the old festival days will be difficult to recreate inside. This tour by The Dead seems to be just like every other tour by a pseudo-retired rock band from the sixties and seventies - "Let's see if they still like us and will shell out the big bucks".

The jam-style concert tours of The Grateful Dead - led by Jerry Garcia - have left a legacy that, while often imitated, can never be duplicated. The Grateful Dead was unique in encouraging their fans to trade "bootlegs", creating the word-of-mouth fan base that led to many people giving up the "straight" life to follow the Dead in psychedelic-painted micro-buses.