Things, etc.

In the 1970s, people flocked to concert venues to see and hear the Grateful Dead play. Many of them were dedicated enough to follow the band across the United States, attending show after show for months and years at a time. A community formed among these regulars, and in 1971[1], it's members were given a name: Deadheads. Today, these people are stereotypically known as wandering hippies, notorious for recreational use of marijuana and psychadelics, most commonly found at jam-band shows or on their way to the next one. Because Deadheads are typically drifters, the culture has been distributed throughout the country. For the sake of locality, however, my ethnography project will focus on St. Louis-area Deadheads.

Personal experience with locals tells me that the average Deadhead is a white, middle-class young-adult -- but this information is coming out of Red Bud, a city with very limited demographics. To compare myself to a typical Deadhead, even by broad social aspects such as class/race/gender/age/etc., is difficult without further observation of the group.

It's hard to grasp exactly what would make somebody so dedicated and passionate about a band and it's music that they would leave their normal lives and try to make it on the road.  Old Deadheads completely uprooted to follow the Dead, left families and jobs, to sell tye-dye for gas money, just to be apart of the roaming community of which they felt they belong.  There are even modern Deadheads who attend concerts of Grateful Dead cover-bands, or travel hundreds of miles to be at Dead-themed music festivals (such as Schwagstock in Missouri).  People still trade legally-bootlegged cassette tapes of the band's live performances.  I've seen countless Dead tattoos, bumper stickers, and home decorations.  I assume that these superfans must feel a strong connection to the band and one another to keep this culture and it's ideology strong for over forty years.

While conducting my research into this community, I hope to catch a glimpse at some of this devotion first-hand.  I want to feel the sensation of "one-ness" that this collection of people feel when they are together, listening to the music that they love.  I've been told it's undescribable.  If I can manage to wrap my mind around it, I think I might learn what it means to be a Deadhead.

"You need music, I dont know why.It's probably one of those Joseph Campbell questions, why we need ritual. We need magic and bliss, and power and myth, and celebration and religion in our lives and music is a good way to encapsulate a lot of it."

- Jerry Garcia

Robert Hunter's Journal