Dylan May Revisit Grateful Dead Days With Tour

Bob Dylan's representatives are in discussions with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh about touring with Phil Lesh and Friends during the band's swing through college campuses this fall.

"All I can say is there has been some contact, some talks, a meeting of the minds, but nothing is confirmed," Lesh spokesman Tom Kirshner told Rolling Stone.

It's no secret that Dylan is a Dead fan. He toured with them in 1986, using Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers as his back-up band. In 1987, he was back for more, this time using Jerry and the guys as his band once they had completed two sets of their own material. Those performances were captured on the 1989 album, Dylan and the Dead. Since then, Dylan has periodically crossed paths with the Dead, performing with them at Inglewood, Calif.'s Forum in 1989, and then joining them for a half dozen dates in June of 1995, only two months prior to Jerry Garcia's death from a heart attack on August 9 of that year.

In recent years, Dylan has included Grateful Dead songs in his set including "Friend of the Devil" and the upbeat "Alabama Get Away." Lesh repaid the compliment in his first come-back shows after his liver transplant, performing "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" at San Francisco's Warfield Theatre last April. Just last week Lesh did renditions of Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and "All Along the Watch Tower during his show at Berkeley's Greek Theatre.

Although October and November dates for a Dylan/Lesh joint tour have been posted at Bobdylan.com, Dylan's unofficial Web site, none of the dates have been confirmed by either artist's management.

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Song Stories

“Youth Knows No Pain”

Lykke Li | 2011

“Like on 'Youth Knows No Pain' — we are the ones that should demonstrate, because we can take it,” Likke Li said. “We can pierce ourselves, take Ecstasy, dance all night and still go to work at our McDonald's jobs.” Despite the hedonistic sentiment in the song, the Swedish singer also admitted in hindsight her youth had repercussions. “I remember when I was 18-19 and feeling that I know it all,” Li said. “I always feel that I know it all. But that song is about realizing you don’t, and reflecting, ‘Boy, if I only knew what would follow.’”

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