Having previously announced their intention to play three 50th anniversary, farewell concerts at Chicago’s Soldier Field over Fourth of July weekend, the Grateful Dead have announced two other hometown shows set for the preceding weekend in order to say goodbye to the Bay Area. Like the Soldier Field shows, the band will play in an NFL stadium—in this case, Santa Clara’s Levi’s Stadium, home of the 49ers—and be joined by Phish guitarist Trey Anastasio, RatDog and Furthur keyboardist Jeff Chimenti and multi-instrumentalist Bruce Horsnby.
Announcing the concerts in an open letter to their fans from the four surviving, longtime band members—Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann—the Grateful Dead explained that, in order “to say our final goodbye, it has become clear to us that we first need to return to our beginnings, where we first said hello — to each other and to all of you.” Indeed, the Santa Clara location of the concerts is appropriate as the Grateful Dead, long associated with San Francisco, actually originally formed in the Palo Alto, about a dozen miles from Levi’s Stadium in the South Bay.
The band also announced their intention to sell tickets for the Santa Clara shows directly from their website in order to limit the actions of scalpers—a serious problem for the Chicago shows. Accordingly, further information about the concerts can be found at the band’s website.
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