People: It’ll be Soldier Field for Dead milestones show
Phish’s Trey Anastasio will join the remaining members of the Grateful Dead to celebrate the band’s 50th anniversary and pay final tribute to the band’s lead guitarist, Jerry Garcia, July 3-5 at Chicago’s Soldier Field.
The announcement Friday in Billboard magazine didn’t come as a total surprise. It was perhaps inevitable that the Dead’s Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann would do something to memorialize the 20th anniversary of the band’s final performances with Garcia. The only real questions were when, where and, more importantly, how.
“These will be the last shows with the four of us together,” Weir told Billboard. Lesh invited Anastasio to join. “I got a really heartwarming letter from Phil saying that he and the other three guys had talked about it and hoped I would do it,” Anastasio told Billboard. “I didn’t hesitate for a second to say yes.”
Keyboardists Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti also will join the group.
Tickets will be available to fan club members Feb. 9-11, Billboard said. Pre-sales will be held Feb. 12-13 and Feb. 14. For more information, visit Dead50.net.
Though the band was founded in 1965 in San Francisco and its headquarters remained in Northern California, Chicago was always a favorite stop. Soldier Field was the site of its final two concerts in July 1995. The Grateful Dead formally disbanded after Garcia died on Aug. 9, 1995, but over the years there have been various reunions of the surviving members billed as the Other Ones and the Dead.
“We had to sort through a number of options,” Weir told Billboard. “Were we going to do a festival-style event or go back to our classic mode of an evening with the band? We narrowed it down to: Let’s just do it simple and clean.”
Cosby attorney disputes abuse claim
Bill Cosby’s attorney said Friday that the comedian was not at the Playboy Mansion on the night a model accuses him of drugging and sexually abusing her.
Cosby was in New York on the night that model Chloe Goins claims the comedian drugged and accosted her in a bedroom of the mansion, attorney Martin D. Singer wrote in a statement.
Singer said he would present evidence to authorities detailing Cosby’s whereabouts before, during and after the Playboy Mansion event.
Goins met with Los Angeles police detectives on Wednesday and her attorney said the incident took place during an event in August 2008. While many of the abuse claims leveled against Cosby fall outside civil and criminal statutes of limitations, Goins’ allegations may fall within the time period that Cosby could be charged.
The birthday bunch
Actress Betty White is 93. Actor James Earl Jones is 84. Muhammad Ali is 73. Rhythm-and-blues singer William Hart (The Delfonics) is 70. Rock musician Mick Taylor is 67. Singer Steve Earle is 60. Actor-comedian Steve Harvey is 58. Singer Susanna Hoffs (The Bangles) is 56. Actor-comedian Jim Carrey is 53. First lady Michelle Obama is 51. Singer Kid Rock is 44. Actress-singer Zooey Deschanel is 35. Folk-rock musician Jeremiah Fraites is 29.