Still Truckin': The Dead Reunite in Pennsylvania

The first call came into Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center in mid- summer: A concert promoter asked venue officials to hold some dates at the school's indoor arena in the fall. The promoter wouldn't identify the band — and didn't until he called back to ask if October 13th would be available for a Barack Obama benefit with Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann. "We went, 'Wow,' " says Bernie Punt, director of sales at the venue. "We knew right then this was going to be unique."

Within minutes of the announcement, Deadheads had snapped up all 15,000 tickets for the first show in four years by the surviving members of the Grateful Dead. On the night of the October 13th concert, which also included the Allman Brothers Band, fans from as far away as Stockholm whooped it up as the Dead launched into the trademark shuffle of "Truckin'." Joined by Allmans and Gov't Mule guitarist Warren Haynes and keyboardist Jeff Chimenti from Weir's band Ratdog, the reunited Dead resurrected standards like "Touch of Grey" and "U.S. Blues," as well as spaced-out jam classics "Dark Star" and "St. Stephen." "It was great fun," Weir says. "We speak a language no one else speaks, and we have intuitions about each other's approaches that no one else can have. It's there — it doesn't go away."

Yet the fact that so much time had passed between Dead shows is an indication of the rupture the band suffered with the death of Jerry Garcia in 1995. Weir, Hart, Lesh and Kreutzmann eventually reunited — first as the Other Ones and, in 2003 and 2004, for tours billed as the Dead. But despite pulling in almost $18 million, the 2004 Wave That Flag Tour was strained onstage and off, as the bandmates attempted to work out their post-Garcia roles.

"It spawned all kinds of petty disagreements," says Hart. "There was a lot of intertribal weirdness." Adds Kreutzmann, "When people are having a hard time with their personalities, it goes without saying that the music's gonna suffer also."

Tensions within the band only deepened the following year, when infighting broke out over concert bootlegs posted by fans on the archives.org Website. "They take advantage of you," says Kreutzmann. "They give your music away for free, and then they sell advertising." The band insisted the recordings be pulled, but Lesh disagreed and went public with his thoughts. The site was eventually allowed to stream free soundboard recordings, but by then the four men were barely on speaking terms.