With the Furthur Festival in flux this summer, jam band minions will need another resource to feed their brains this summer.| And right now the only prescription -- because what tie-dyed college student has enough Benjamins to spend on a CSN&Y ticket -- will be the Summer Sessions package tour featuring Moe, Gov't Mule, String Cheese Incident and Galactic.

Set to roll out some time in July (possibly July 22 in Cincinnati), the festival will hit between twenty and twenty-five cities over a month-long span in three- to five-thousand seat venues. "Last summer, the six shows we did were a lot of fun and we were definitely bummed that it was reduced to that," says Moe guitarist/vocalist Chuck Garvey, referring to last summer's truncated version of the same event, which featured Moe, String Cheese Incident and Strangefolk. "We've been itching to go out and do it this year."

The tour will feature one strange twist: Rotating headliners. Garvey half-jokingly refers to move as an "ego thing," before calling it a "mutually beneficial way to put the tour together." The pretense is that patrons won't have a clue which act will open or close the show making it in their best interest to arrive in time for the first set. Garvey says one band may drop off and be replaced by a yet-unknown group before it's all said and done. One source close to the tour has Phil & Friends (the Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh and assorted musicians), joining the festival for a handful of dates.

Each show will also include "end of the night bands," with various members of the four bands performing jam sessions to conclude each gig. Garvey is hoping to make this year's festival a prototype for an annual event. The singer-guitarist also says shows from the tour will be recorded. "Then it'll be something that we have down the line somewhere to do something with," he says.

BLAIR R. FISCHER(May 11, 1999)