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July 9, 1995: Jerry Garcia's last show
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Photo: Starpulse.com
Fourteen years ago, the Grateful Dead performed their last concert with Jerry Garcia at Soldier Field in Chicago. It was the last show of the Dead’s summer tour, and at the time, not a particularly remarkable show. A month later, when Garcia passed away, that last show suddenly gained a lot of interest.
The 2 1/2-hour set started with "Touch of Grey" and ended with "Box of Rain," with fireworks a-blazing. The Band (what was left of them) opened. Garcia’s last vocal was on the second to the last song — ''Black Muddy River.'' It’s clear that he wasn’t in the best shape, having succumbed to his old habits and addictions. At 53, Garcia, in a valiant effort to overcome his demons, died of a heart attack at a Bay Area drug rehab clinic on August 9, effectively ending the Grateful Dead's 30-year run.
''It was just another show at the end of a typical stadium tour,'' Dead drummer Mickey Hart has said. ''We had a party afterwards to celebrate the tour, and then Jerry and I took a flight home together...That's about all I remember.''
Surviving members have kept the light shining, as solo performers and in occasional collaboration. Live Grateful Dead recordings seem to be dropping out of the sky every couple of months, books are written every year, movies are in the works, the merchandise gets weirder, and general interest increases among the young and uninitiated. The Dead may no longer be grateful without Garcia in their midst, and somehow, a show isn’t quite the same without the big and gregarious man at stage left. But the memory and the music of Jerry Garcia will live forever.
Grateful Dead
July 9, 1995
Soldier’s Field – Chicago, IL
Set List:
Set 1:
Touch of Grey
Little Red Rooster
Lazy River Road
When I Paint My Masterpiece*
Childhood's End
Cumberland Blues
Promised Land
Set 2:
Little Red Rooster
Lazy River Road
When I Paint My Masterpiece*
Childhood's End
Cumberland Blues
Promised Land
Set 2:
Shakedown Street
Samson & Delilah
So Many Roads
Samba In The Rain
Corrina >
Samson & Delilah
So Many Roads
Samba In The Rain
Corrina >
Drums >
Space >
Unbroken Chain
Sugar Magnolia
Encore:
Sugar Magnolia
Encore:
Black Muddy River
Box Of Rain
Box Of Rain
Click to listen to the last Grateful Dead show
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