It’s Smooth Trucking for Other Ones

EAST TROY, Wis. —  It’s been seven years since Jerry Garcia’s guitar fell silent, but the kaleidoscope of wriggling humanity he kept on the road for more than 30 years is very much alive.

The reanimated Grateful Dead, who have taken to calling themselves the Other Ones, stuttered to a start Saturday.

Apparent equipment problems waylaid the opening notes--a spacey flourish that would have sparkled were it not for the speakers clipping out at least a dozen times.

The sounds righted, the Other Ones lugged out the heavy thunk of “He’s Gone,” but before the apropos was fully realized or a note was sung, slipped into “The Other Ones,” as if to stamp their own identity into the present.

The crowd was ready and, with the band fully in a groove, the giant green bowl of Alpine Valley Music Theatre was flush with flailing limbs and thousand-watt smiles.

After weeks of tense negotiations between Grateful Dead Productions, Clear Channel Entertainment and local authorities over concerns the concert would be overrun by people who didn’t have tickets, 35,000 Deadheads steadily descended into East Troy with little problem.

Before the show, drummer and original member Mickey Hart was relaxed and predicting big things based on weeks of rehearsals.

“Only a few people have heard it, and from what they’ve told us, it’s back,” Hart said. “The creature lives. If we play that way tonight, you’ll hear the Grateful Dead. We won’t call it the Grateful Dead, but it will be better than where we left off, I’ll tell you that.”

Standing in for Garcia on guitar was Jimmy Herring, a veteran of tours with the Allman Brothers and Dead-related side projects.

“He’s great,” Hart said. “He’s a sweetheart. He doesn’t play anything like Jerry, and best of all, I don’t think he’s even a Deadhead.”

A similar incarnation of the Dead’s remnants has played since Garcia died in August 1995, but never with this much anticipation. Hart and Herring joined original members Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh and Bob Weir for the show.

Sheriff David Graves called it a “very successful concert event,” noting only 11 arrests and 60 citations, mainly for drugs. Extra deputies were assigned to work, but Graves said some were sent home early.

The band sold out all 35,000 seats for the shows Saturday and today at about $60 a ticket.