LIVING DEAD: Deadheads are heartened by the...

LIVING DEAD: Deadheads are heartened by the news that Jerry Garcia has rebounded from his recent bout with exhaustion and is performing again. He was scheduled to front his own Jerry Garcia Band for a Halloween show on Saturday, and the Grateful Dead has Western U.S. dates planned for December, including Dec. 8, 9 and 10 shows at the Los Angeles Sports Arena. Garcia is said to have lost a lot of weight (he had a lot to lose) and has taken on a new health-conscious diet--though he hasn’t quit smoking.

But for the first time since 1976, the band will not be doing a New Year’s Eve concert in the Bay Area. Word around the Dead camp is that the band felt that last year’s Oakland concert was “just not the same” without longtime promoter and adviser Bill Graham, who died in a helicopter crash in October, 1991. Graham had traditionally opened the New Year’s performances by appearing as Father Time--one year riding in on a giant marijuana cigarette.