New-found Commercial Success Plagues the Grateful Dead, Longtime Followers

There’s an adage, espoused on refrigerator doors across America, that states: “You can never be too rich or too thin.” But is it possible to become too successful?

Yes. Probably not if you happen to be the owner of the Oakland-Los Angeles-Oakland Raiders. But for rock musicians, especially, sometimes a good thing can become too much.

Look at the poor old Grateful Dead, who after 25 years just keep on truckin’ . The group has suddenly found itself performer-non-grata at Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre, where it had played annually since 1983, because of problems caused at least partially by a huge turnout for the Dead concerts last year. This year, the group will move its annual spring Southland shows to a soccer field at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson.

What happened?

In the short view, the Dead can be seen as the victims of bad publicity, held responsible for the actions of people over whom they had no control, nor rightly could be expected to. For one thing, the band took the heat from locals and city officials about overflowing streets and freeways, complaints that should have been shared at least equally by the nearby El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, which brought thousands of onlookers into the area with an air show that same weekend.

But beyond the specifics of the Irvine Meadows incident, the Dead are feeling the symptoms of a condition that few people ever expected this oddball group to contract: an overdose of commercial success.

The band, which has long epitomized the if-it-feels-good-do-it ‘60s hippie ethic, ambled along for years, a sizable but manageable pack of loyal Deadheads in tow for every show. The group would play its marathon four-hour-plus concerts, which were less musical events than tie-dyed carnivals with a rock soundtrack. At multiple-day engagements, fans would set up camp in parking lots, living in tents, vans and motor homes, while all manner of free-enterprise advocates would sell all manner of merchandise out of backpacks, suitcases and station wagons.

Dead shows, while always full of eccentric characters--many of whom probably could have sat through gallbladder surgery with a smile--were comparatively peaceful events. This was especially true as the group trundled into the 1980s, when the all-stops-out extremism of punk rock made for particularly drastic contrast.

There was an advantage in traveling the frontage road of the rock freeway: The Dead could sell a couple hundred thousand copies of each album and fill up concert halls without having to worry about dodging celebrity-hungry photographers from People or the National Enquirer. But then, in 1987, the Dead did something no one expected. They turned out a hit single.

Suddenly, the Dead became the focal point for a whole new audience that knew little about the sense of brotherhood and camaraderie that typified Grateful Dead gatherings. These people looked at the Dead and saw only the quintessential rock party band, an entity whose followers seemed to emerge from suspended animation long enough to shout, “Can you dig it?” “groovy” and “ohhhhhh, mannnnnnn!” for a few hours at a concert before stepping back into mothballs--headbands, cotton drawstring trousers and all.

Dead shows soon began to draw more and more fans interested in nothing more than partying their brains out, oxymoronic as that may be. That contingent isn’t by any means new to the group’s following, but the dimension to which it has grown is.

“I have friends who were complaining about the ‘new’ Deadheads in 1972--really,” said the group’s longtime publicist, Dennis McNally. “But without being invidious to any one group of people, in general (problems have resulted from) sheer numbers. You put lots of people in a small space, and some people start stepping on some people’s toes. . . . We’ve had to put an end to the camping and vending to calm down what goes on outside our show.

“It’s kinda sad,” McNally said, “and it’s massively challenging. Most of what we have to deal with these days is the fallout of getting bigger. The story every year is that it all gets a little bigger, a little more complicated.”

As usual, the people who lose the most are the longtime fans. And the loss is that much greater with acts like the Dead, who have fostered an intensely loyal following that treats the group members not as gods to be worshipped but as friends to be cherished.

Bruce Springsteen and Peter Gabriel are other examples of artists forced to change the very essence of their acts as they’ve captured more of the pop mainstream with their music. Springsteen had to abandon his penchant for jumping into the crowd; his audience became filled with people who’d rather take home a piece of his blue jeans than shake his hand.

Gabriel, too, has favored human contact with his audience: At the end of his shows, he used to stand at the edge of the stage, back to the audience, and fall backward into the arms of his fans. They would pass him, hand over hand, to the back of the hall, at which point he would jump down and run back to the stage.

This intensely emotional, almost spiritual ritual was enacted countless times before his 1983 Top 30 hit “Shock the Monkey” and continued even after he racked up a No. 1 single in 1986 with “Sledgehammer.” But the last time I saw Gabriel attempt this, the change was sobering. What once had been an exercise in trust had been reduced to a mad grab for a piece of a star, as fans literally tore the shirt from his back and stripped the shoes and socks from his feet.

The Grateful Dead, Springsteen and Gabriel probably won’t let these changes stop them from touring. But as McNally said, “It’s kinda sad.”

Perhaps the secret for rock stars who want to prevent their followings from getting out of hand can be found in the words of Neil Young, who has found his share of mainstream success but has changed directions too quickly to have a serious head-on collision with fame.

After his 1972 No. 1 hit, “Heart of Gold,” gave him a taste of life in the big time, he commented: “This song put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch. A rougher ride but I saw more interesting people there.”